6 ms·

Has YC ever considered having a control group by randomly pre-accepting certain applicants into the program automatically? I'd be curious to see the stats on ho

by krstck 11y ago

Has YC ever considered having a control group by randomly pre-accepting certain applicants into the program automatically? I'd be curious to see the stats on how successful that group would be versus the group that's actually picked by the committee.

sama 11y ago
We do talk about that every once in awhile, but the average company that applies to YC is not very good and thus the experiment would hurt the network (and be painful for us to work with). What we've more seriously considered is randomly funding some companies just below the threshold. Also, we do look at our ranking to see how companies at the top vs companies near the cutoff do. It's rare (but not unheard of) for a company very near the cutoff to be one of our most successful companies.
- w1ntermute 11y ago
  Were the companies rejected by YC that have gone on to be the most successful often just below the cutoff?
  - tim333 11y ago
    I can't answer that but pg talking about what may have been Sendgrid was quite interesting along those lines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMqgiXLjvRs&feature=youtu.be&t=49m4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMqgiXLjvRs&feature=youtu.be...
  - namenotrequired 11y ago
    I recall pg previously stating that there was no correlation between how close to the cutoff an accepted candidate was and how well they ended up doing. Now Sam says the opposite. I can't find the original quote now and this was when PG was still in charge, so they probably have improved their interviewing process and collected more data since.
- gogopuppygogo 11y ago
  Can you elaborate on what makes a company "not very good"? Would you ever consider releasing anonymized data on companies that apply and are accepted along with those who apply but aren't accepted into a batch? That'd give future applicants much more insight into the process.
  - beachstartup 11y ago
    EDIT: i should emphasize this is only my experience as a startup hiring manager. maybe YC attracts nothing but geniuses, i dunno. i'm just a guy on the internet. since yc is obviously not going to talk shit on their own applicants, i'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it's just like every other job application process when six figures (or more) of money is on the line. big paychecks attract plenty of, shall we say, 'aspirational' applicants. 1. apps where spelling and grammar is clearly not a priority (sure, i'll give you 5 figures a month to spell shit wrong) 2. the wrong kind of company will apply, i.e. a restaurant 3. bullshit artists gonna bullshit, even when they stink 4. people simply not smart enough to do the job. just plain dumb is a real thing, folks. 5. people with too little real world experience 6. really stupid ideas (who's to judge? well, the people with the money get to judge, that's sort of how applications work) the fact that you can use the term 'anonymized data' in a sentence that actually makes sense is going to put you in the top 10% automatically - yes, the bar is that low when you're dealing with the general public. the trick is getting into the top 1% though. it's a power law distribution of difficulty. every job advertisement attracts applications like these, and yc is basically just a really, really fancy and structured super-duper college/job application process combined, but for crazed entrepreneurs (like me). you are going to get a lot, maybe even mostly people on the left hand side of the normal distribution of iq, talent, and work ethic/experience. the easy thing is the dipshits and fakers are easy to spot-and-drop almost immediately. i can basically glance at a resume and disqualify it in 10-15 seconds if it's not good enough. you just can't bullshit someone far smarter, more experienced, and better at bullshitting than you. CAVEAT: there are extremely smart and experienced bullshitters out there though -- that's the real danger area. that's what you're really worried about. basically the only thing you can count on is that they want your money!!
    - 11y ago
- nikkwong 11y ago
  I can second this. I worked for a similar unnamed incubator company in the Bay Area and a vast majority of the ideas sent to us were from good-hearted people, but absolutely ludicrous and—at least from our opinion—would never be able to become successful businesses. Some people just really seem to have problems understanding product-market fit. My guess would be that applicants to Y-Combinator are probably along the same spectrum–some great ideas, some decent ideas, and a lot of junk inbetween.
  - vonklaus 11y ago
    If possible to ethically disclose this, what was the craziest thing you think could have worked, amd the outright craziest.
    - kleer001 11y ago
      If they don't answer just watch a few seasons of Shark Tank or Dragon's Den (any country). I highly doubt there's much different in business nut-bar factors. Some people just have no grasp (yet) of what it takes to get good.
    - lancewiggs 11y ago
      There are plenty around - one example where I live is a very persistent chap with some sort of mystical flying machine based on garbage physics and a track record including fraud by scamming investors.
    - nikkwong 11y ago
      Yeah. The way a person communicates tells you a lot about their ability to lead a company. Most people would pitch us ideas and we wouldn't even vaguely get a sense of what they were trying to sell—native english speakers too. Not surprising at all—but people who had chances to get funding were those who were clear & concise. Those who's pitches who we didn't understand immediately were for the most part mentally discarded and never acted upon by us.
biot 11y ago
Or another idea along these lines might be to have a checkbox on the application that says "Submit to audience choice if rejected" and, if they don't get in, those applications are opened to voting by HN users above a certain karma threshold. Pick the five highest ranked applications and bring them in as a normal YC company.
- sushid 11y ago
  Aren't you afraid that something like that can be easily gamed? Or maybe voting can be limited to accounts that are 2-3+ years old and/or Karma greater than n.
- spacehome 11y ago
  The fact that the voting is public would kill the blinding.
- daveguy 11y ago
  I like this. An alternative would be to have borderlines ranked by those who got into YC in the current round or in past rounds. Top peer ranked would get in just under the cutoff. HN sounds even more exciting (probably couldn't include the whole application, maybe just a company description -- although that might not be something people are comfortable with). Either way, I wonder if there is any peer non-YC consideration.
ryandrake 11y ago
If the thought is that randomly selected start-ups might possibly outperform hand-picked ones, then I suppose anyone with a few million $$$ laying around is free to test that hypothesis. If true you could make bank!
- ec109685 11y ago
  Nobody besides YC has their network. The question is whether it is their selection process or other factors that contribute to a startup's success.

by krstck 11y ago

sama 11y ago

We do talk about that every once in awhile, but the average company that applies to YC is not very good and thus the experiment would hurt the network (and be painful for us to work with). What we've more seriously considered is randomly funding some companies just below the threshold. Also, we do look at our ranking to see how companies at the top vs companies near the cutoff do. It's rare (but not unheard of) for a company very near the cutoff to be one of our most successful companies.

w1ntermute 11y ago
Were the companies rejected by YC that have gone on to be the most successful often just below the cutoff?
- tim333 11y ago
  I can't answer that but pg talking about what may have been Sendgrid was quite interesting along those lines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMqgiXLjvRs&feature=youtu.be&t=49m4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMqgiXLjvRs&feature=youtu.be...
- namenotrequired 11y ago
  I recall pg previously stating that there was no correlation between how close to the cutoff an accepted candidate was and how well they ended up doing. Now Sam says the opposite. I can't find the original quote now and this was when PG was still in charge, so they probably have improved their interviewing process and collected more data since.
gogopuppygogo 11y ago
Can you elaborate on what makes a company "not very good"? Would you ever consider releasing anonymized data on companies that apply and are accepted along with those who apply but aren't accepted into a batch? That'd give future applicants much more insight into the process.
- beachstartup 11y ago
  EDIT: i should emphasize this is only my experience as a startup hiring manager. maybe YC attracts nothing but geniuses, i dunno. i'm just a guy on the internet. since yc is obviously not going to talk shit on their own applicants, i'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it's just like every other job application process when six figures (or more) of money is on the line. big paychecks attract plenty of, shall we say, 'aspirational' applicants. 1. apps where spelling and grammar is clearly not a priority (sure, i'll give you 5 figures a month to spell shit wrong) 2. the wrong kind of company will apply, i.e. a restaurant 3. bullshit artists gonna bullshit, even when they stink 4. people simply not smart enough to do the job. just plain dumb is a real thing, folks. 5. people with too little real world experience 6. really stupid ideas (who's to judge? well, the people with the money get to judge, that's sort of how applications work) the fact that you can use the term 'anonymized data' in a sentence that actually makes sense is going to put you in the top 10% automatically - yes, the bar is that low when you're dealing with the general public. the trick is getting into the top 1% though. it's a power law distribution of difficulty. every job advertisement attracts applications like these, and yc is basically just a really, really fancy and structured super-duper college/job application process combined, but for crazed entrepreneurs (like me). you are going to get a lot, maybe even mostly people on the left hand side of the normal distribution of iq, talent, and work ethic/experience. the easy thing is the dipshits and fakers are easy to spot-and-drop almost immediately. i can basically glance at a resume and disqualify it in 10-15 seconds if it's not good enough. you just can't bullshit someone far smarter, more experienced, and better at bullshitting than you. CAVEAT: there are extremely smart and experienced bullshitters out there though -- that's the real danger area. that's what you're really worried about. basically the only thing you can count on is that they want your money!!
  - 11y ago
nikkwong 11y ago
I can second this. I worked for a similar unnamed incubator company in the Bay Area and a vast majority of the ideas sent to us were from good-hearted people, but absolutely ludicrous and—at least from our opinion—would never be able to become successful businesses. Some people just really seem to have problems understanding product-market fit. My guess would be that applicants to Y-Combinator are probably along the same spectrum–some great ideas, some decent ideas, and a lot of junk inbetween.
- vonklaus 11y ago
  If possible to ethically disclose this, what was the craziest thing you think could have worked, amd the outright craziest.
  - kleer001 11y ago
    If they don't answer just watch a few seasons of Shark Tank or Dragon's Den (any country). I highly doubt there's much different in business nut-bar factors. Some people just have no grasp (yet) of what it takes to get good.
  - lancewiggs 11y ago
    There are plenty around - one example where I live is a very persistent chap with some sort of mystical flying machine based on garbage physics and a track record including fraud by scamming investors.
  - nikkwong 11y ago
    Yeah. The way a person communicates tells you a lot about their ability to lead a company. Most people would pitch us ideas and we wouldn't even vaguely get a sense of what they were trying to sell—native english speakers too. Not surprising at all—but people who had chances to get funding were those who were clear & concise. Those who's pitches who we didn't understand immediately were for the most part mentally discarded and never acted upon by us.

biot 11y ago

Or another idea along these lines might be to have a checkbox on the application that says "Submit to audience choice if rejected" and, if they don't get in, those applications are opened to voting by HN users above a certain karma threshold. Pick the five highest ranked applications and bring them in as a normal YC company.

sushid 11y ago
Aren't you afraid that something like that can be easily gamed? Or maybe voting can be limited to accounts that are 2-3+ years old and/or Karma greater than n.
spacehome 11y ago
The fact that the voting is public would kill the blinding.
daveguy 11y ago
I like this. An alternative would be to have borderlines ranked by those who got into YC in the current round or in past rounds. Top peer ranked would get in just under the cutoff. HN sounds even more exciting (probably couldn't include the whole application, maybe just a company description -- although that might not be something people are comfortable with). Either way, I wonder if there is any peer non-YC consideration.

ryandrake 11y ago

If the thought is that randomly selected start-ups might possibly outperform hand-picked ones, then I suppose anyone with a few million $$$ laying around is free to test that hypothesis. If true you could make bank!

ec109685 11y ago
Nobody besides YC has their network. The question is whether it is their selection process or other factors that contribute to a startup's success.