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This comment has been made about pretty much every batch of YC, right back to when it was only 8-15 companies. The response is the same now as it has always be

This comment has been made about pretty much every batch of YC, right back to when it was only 8-15 companies. The response is the same now as it has always been in the past: YC knows it can't predict in advance which companies could be home runs, so its approach is to "bet on the field" (which, thanks to power-law returns, actually works in startup investing in a way that it doesn't in horse race betting). Remember, Airbnb and Dropbox were roundly panned when they first appeared out of YC, and in both cases were very nearly not accepted at all (Dropbox was rejected on the first application. Airbnb was accepted even though YC thought their home-sharing business was stupid and would most likely fail. YC accepted them because they were impressed that Airbnb had bootstrapped themselves by selling breakfast cereal). Plenty of other companies that looked like winners early on have failed, and others that looked ridiculous have gone on to become very successful. But nobody knew which would be which at demo day. To understand more about YC's m.o., read these PG essays: http://paulgraham.com/swan.html http://paulgraham.com/swan.html http://paulgraham.com/altair.html http://paulgraham.com/altair.html

stuckFounder 11y ago
> Remember, Airbnb and Dropbox... This comment has also been made pretty much every batch. Trotting out companies that were picked before the growth strategy was implemented as evidence that the growth strategy is a good idea doesn't make sense. Dropbox and Airbnb were massively successfully with in 2-3 years. What are the big successes from 2013 to the present?
- peripitea 11y ago
  Cruise and Zenefits jump immediately to mind.
  - stuckFounder 11y ago
    Cruise was started by Twitch co-founder, again pre-dating the strategy. And Zenefits, LOL.
    - tomhoward 11y ago
      again pre-dating the strategy. YC has been actively seeking to grow as fast as it could since 2009-2010, and was funding over 70 companies in a batch as early as 2012, then they scaled back in 2013 after experiencing growing pains. Plenty of well-known companies have come through in that time eg, Pebble, Stripe, Firebase, Parse, Crowdtilt, Coinbase, Instacart. Cruise went through YC in 2014, after the time you (inaccurately) assert was the beginning of the "growth strategy". BTW when Criuse first hit HN, commenters were generally nonplussed or critical [1], just as they had been with Justin.tv (some dude with a camera on his head??) and then Twitch (watching other people play video games??). From the dude with a camera on his head to Twitch's $1Bn exit took 8 years, and even at year 7 people didn't think it was a winner [2]. So, go easy on the new guys hey? :) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7933045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7933045 [2] http://justinkan.com/the-99-percent http://justinkan.com/the-99-percent
    - argonaut 11y ago
      I would love to start a multi-billion dollar startup like Zenefits and have the career that Parker Conrad has. He is LOLing all the way to the bank and his cushy consultant/VC job.
- tomhoward 11y ago
  Dropbox and Airbnb were massively successfully with in 2-3 years. That's debatable. They both went a long time struggling to get growth and big funding in the first few years, and (particularly for Airbnb) it was more like year 4 when they became mainstream hits. What are the big successes from 2013 to the present? Magic, Myo & Teespring are some of the more promising ones. And if you take it back to 2012 you have Crowdtilt, Instacart and Coinbase. And going right back through the batches you have dozens of companies that are doing very well - servicing big markets, generating big revenues, employing many people, making good returns for investors - but you don't know them because they're not mass market brands. And as for Zenefits; yes they deserve criticism, but they're still a formidable company with big revenues and a strong leadership team and I'd expect them to survive and do very well long term. But the main point remains: it's the easiest thing in the world to scoff at a bunch of nascent companies presenting themselves to the world for the first time after a few months' work. And you will always be about 95%-100% right when you judge a whole batch of startups as trivial and doomed to failure or mediocrity. But that says precisely nothing about the effectiveness of YC's strategy.
staunch 11y ago
Drew Houston said (in an interview) that he viewed HN's response to Dropbox as extremely positive. A few people made critical comments but thousands of people signed up and it was highly upvoted.
- icebraining 11y ago
  "My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive" (3276 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
  - staunch 11y ago
    HN has grown so much since then. That might not seem like much of a response compared to what a top story gets now, but it was a big deal at the time. It was in the top 10 on the homepage for at least a couple days.
- tomhoward 11y ago
  Yes that's true, but there was also a general feeling at the time (among investors, journalists, armchair experts) that cloud storage was a crowded space (there were like 8+ players in the space at the time [1]) and that Dropbox was either too late to the game or it was impossible for anyone to deliver a product that would appeal to the mass market. It took them a long time to raise funding as a result. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2006/01/31/the-online-storage-gang/ http://techcrunch.com/2006/01/31/the-online-storage-gang/
sbierwagen 11y ago
Yes, but there has to be some heuristic of value here, otherwise pg would throw $240,000 at every single person who crosses his path. How does "PetCube, the Dropcam for Pets" fufill that heuristic? How many people are going to buy a special dropcam to point at their dog, rather than... a regular dropcam, which will be cheaper and better?
- tomhoward 11y ago
  How many people are going to buy a special dropcam to point at their dog...? How many people are going to want a Basic interpreter for the Altair? A few points: - It's $120K - PG is no longer actively involved (at least with selections or operations) - They've always been very open about their heuristics for accepting applicants: pick teams that show evidence of being very talented and very determined, working on ideas that may seem laughably trivial now but over 5-10 years have some chance of developing into something huge. - "The fax machine is nothing but a waffle-iron with a phone attached." But seriously, plenty of very successful products have been generic products tailored for a particular use-case. PetCube would have been picked because they were able to explain how their silly-looking idea has the potential to transform pet care over the coming decade (using robotics perhaps?) Remember, everyone including YC knows that the chances of huge success for any individual company are tiny. But as long as about 1% of the companies they back become huge, YC does very well.

stuckFounder 11y ago

> Remember, Airbnb and Dropbox... This comment has also been made pretty much every batch. Trotting out companies that were picked before the growth strategy was implemented as evidence that the growth strategy is a good idea doesn't make sense. Dropbox and Airbnb were massively successfully with in 2-3 years. What are the big successes from 2013 to the present?

peripitea 11y ago
Cruise and Zenefits jump immediately to mind.
- stuckFounder 11y ago
  Cruise was started by Twitch co-founder, again pre-dating the strategy. And Zenefits, LOL.
  - tomhoward 11y ago
    again pre-dating the strategy. YC has been actively seeking to grow as fast as it could since 2009-2010, and was funding over 70 companies in a batch as early as 2012, then they scaled back in 2013 after experiencing growing pains. Plenty of well-known companies have come through in that time eg, Pebble, Stripe, Firebase, Parse, Crowdtilt, Coinbase, Instacart. Cruise went through YC in 2014, after the time you (inaccurately) assert was the beginning of the "growth strategy". BTW when Criuse first hit HN, commenters were generally nonplussed or critical [1], just as they had been with Justin.tv (some dude with a camera on his head??) and then Twitch (watching other people play video games??). From the dude with a camera on his head to Twitch's $1Bn exit took 8 years, and even at year 7 people didn't think it was a winner [2]. So, go easy on the new guys hey? :) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7933045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7933045 [2] http://justinkan.com/the-99-percent http://justinkan.com/the-99-percent
  - argonaut 11y ago
    I would love to start a multi-billion dollar startup like Zenefits and have the career that Parker Conrad has. He is LOLing all the way to the bank and his cushy consultant/VC job.
tomhoward 11y ago
Dropbox and Airbnb were massively successfully with in 2-3 years. That's debatable. They both went a long time struggling to get growth and big funding in the first few years, and (particularly for Airbnb) it was more like year 4 when they became mainstream hits. What are the big successes from 2013 to the present? Magic, Myo & Teespring are some of the more promising ones. And if you take it back to 2012 you have Crowdtilt, Instacart and Coinbase. And going right back through the batches you have dozens of companies that are doing very well - servicing big markets, generating big revenues, employing many people, making good returns for investors - but you don't know them because they're not mass market brands. And as for Zenefits; yes they deserve criticism, but they're still a formidable company with big revenues and a strong leadership team and I'd expect them to survive and do very well long term. But the main point remains: it's the easiest thing in the world to scoff at a bunch of nascent companies presenting themselves to the world for the first time after a few months' work. And you will always be about 95%-100% right when you judge a whole batch of startups as trivial and doomed to failure or mediocrity. But that says precisely nothing about the effectiveness of YC's strategy.

staunch 11y ago

Drew Houston said (in an interview) that he viewed HN's response to Dropbox as extremely positive. A few people made critical comments but thousands of people signed up and it was highly upvoted.

icebraining 11y ago
"My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive" (3276 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
- staunch 11y ago
  HN has grown so much since then. That might not seem like much of a response compared to what a top story gets now, but it was a big deal at the time. It was in the top 10 on the homepage for at least a couple days.
tomhoward 11y ago
Yes that's true, but there was also a general feeling at the time (among investors, journalists, armchair experts) that cloud storage was a crowded space (there were like 8+ players in the space at the time [1]) and that Dropbox was either too late to the game or it was impossible for anyone to deliver a product that would appeal to the mass market. It took them a long time to raise funding as a result. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2006/01/31/the-online-storage-gang/ http://techcrunch.com/2006/01/31/the-online-storage-gang/

sbierwagen 11y ago

Yes, but there has to be some heuristic of value here, otherwise pg would throw $240,000 at every single person who crosses his path. How does "PetCube, the Dropcam for Pets" fufill that heuristic? How many people are going to buy a special dropcam to point at their dog, rather than... a regular dropcam, which will be cheaper and better?

tomhoward 11y ago
How many people are going to buy a special dropcam to point at their dog...? How many people are going to want a Basic interpreter for the Altair? A few points: - It's $120K - PG is no longer actively involved (at least with selections or operations) - They've always been very open about their heuristics for accepting applicants: pick teams that show evidence of being very talented and very determined, working on ideas that may seem laughably trivial now but over 5-10 years have some chance of developing into something huge. - "The fax machine is nothing but a waffle-iron with a phone attached." But seriously, plenty of very successful products have been generic products tailored for a particular use-case. PetCube would have been picked because they were able to explain how their silly-looking idea has the potential to transform pet care over the coming decade (using robotics perhaps?) Remember, everyone including YC knows that the chances of huge success for any individual company are tiny. But as long as about 1% of the companies they back become huge, YC does very well.