3 ms·

You know nothing more about most of these startups than a few sentences written for investors. That you dismiss them so summarily and so nastily says more abou

by pg 17y ago

You know nothing more about most of these startups than a few sentences written for investors. That you dismiss them so summarily and so nastily says more about you than them. Why don't you just wait and see how they do?

run4yourlives 17y ago
I'll admit re-reading my comment it is a little harsh and has an insulting tone, which wasn't my intent. I'm more disappointed; I don't really feel twitter and like applications really add any value in the long term. Their sphere of influence barely extends outside of a very vocal and visible extended SV community. I respect and value both YC and all your applicants. Everything I've seen highlights the enormous amount of intelligence, creativity, and 'shutzpah' that you all have. Because of that, I find it very disturbing that a lot of your collective effort goes into problems that are 1) barely issues for 90% of computer users and 2) are insular to SV and the particularities of that community. There are a whole host of areas where YC and those it funds can make huge inroads. I just find it disappointing that I see one or two offerings to 80% of the market while the majority of funded focus on the 20% - albeit a very investor friendly 20%, perhaps making my disappointed grow - that an insular community has dictated to be the "trend". ADDED: I'm your typical customer. It's views like mine you should be listening to, not discarding. If I say "Meh, no value add" your response should not be "You simply don't understand how wonderful we are". That's a failure in your message delivery.
- webwright 17y ago
  How valuable in the long term do you think a classified mailing list for San Francisco is to the world? Or an online bookstore? Or a social network for a school? Yet Craigslist, Amazon, and Facebook morphed into amazing things. YC companies do things that are tractable and fundable within 3 months, which is the first test. Then, with some focused success, they grow/expand. At this point, it takes some vision to imagine what these companies COULD be in 7-8 years (which is the average time to liquidity for venture investments).
  - run4yourlives 17y ago
    Three outliers does not a trend make. I'm surprised you didn't throw google in there as well, since that one instance is all everyone ever talks about. In 2000, everyone thought they were an Amazon. A boatload of people were wrong about that.

by pg 17y ago

run4yourlives 17y ago

I'll admit re-reading my comment it is a little harsh and has an insulting tone, which wasn't my intent. I'm more disappointed; I don't really feel twitter and like applications really add any value in the long term. Their sphere of influence barely extends outside of a very vocal and visible extended SV community. I respect and value both YC and all your applicants. Everything I've seen highlights the enormous amount of intelligence, creativity, and 'shutzpah' that you all have. Because of that, I find it very disturbing that a lot of your collective effort goes into problems that are 1) barely issues for 90% of computer users and 2) are insular to SV and the particularities of that community. There are a whole host of areas where YC and those it funds can make huge inroads. I just find it disappointing that I see one or two offerings to 80% of the market while the majority of funded focus on the 20% - albeit a very investor friendly 20%, perhaps making my disappointed grow - that an insular community has dictated to be the "trend". ADDED: I'm your typical customer. It's views like mine you should be listening to, not discarding. If I say "Meh, no value add" your response should not be "You simply don't understand how wonderful we are". That's a failure in your message delivery.

webwright 17y ago
How valuable in the long term do you think a classified mailing list for San Francisco is to the world? Or an online bookstore? Or a social network for a school? Yet Craigslist, Amazon, and Facebook morphed into amazing things. YC companies do things that are tractable and fundable within 3 months, which is the first test. Then, with some focused success, they grow/expand. At this point, it takes some vision to imagine what these companies COULD be in 7-8 years (which is the average time to liquidity for venture investments).
- run4yourlives 17y ago
  Three outliers does not a trend make. I'm surprised you didn't throw google in there as well, since that one instance is all everyone ever talks about. In 2000, everyone thought they were an Amazon. A boatload of people were wrong about that.