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I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA
YC applications for Winter 2017 are due a week from today and I like to answer questions about applying to YC.
I'm also happy to answer questions about anything else!
EDIT: Going to bed; thanks everyone!
- jondubois 10y agoHow can an engineer become employee #1 or #2 of a fast-growing YC startup? How important is networking (knowing the right people) vs simply having the right credentials/experience? What sort of advice does YC offer founders when it comes to hiring early employees?
- sama 10y agoMany YC companies post job ads for engineers on HN. That's a great way to start. Nearly all are constrained in how quickly they can hire great engineers, so you can also probably just email the CEO directly. Our advice is: Hire slowly Be very generous with equity *Have a very high bar for early employees
- mbaha 10y agoDo you think we'll be seeing more and more XaaS-like businesses growing ? Or do you think we'll move away from selling APIs ?
- sama 10y agoI think this trend is likely to continue for a very long time.
- zeeshanm 10y agoDoes the likelihood of getting into YC increases after you have been rejected five times consecutively? serious question
- sama 10y agoI don't think it increases or decreases. We've had companies get in after 5 rejections and sometimes do badly and sometimes do really well. The negative signal for us is you apply 5 times in a row without anything improving or changing.
- soneca 10y agoHow well suited is YC for a company that only expect to have YC itself as investor? i.e. might have no interest in presenting at demo day or pursue any further fundraising, but instead look for profitability and self-investment as the path to growth.
- sama 10y agoWe care that a company might eventually be huge. Usually that requires raising more money, but if it doesn't, that would be ok with us.
- kinkora 10y agoYou (and by extension YC) always seem to mostly focus on the success stories of the alumni/group. Have you or will you consider talking about the failures? If you can't do it, is there a reason why?
- sama 10y agoWe do try to talk about this but should talk about it more. It turns out that most people (and certainly most journalists) want to talk about/write about the success cases. I'll think about how to best do this.
- wpietri 10y agoI'd especially like to see this in the form of lessons learned. Some of my favorite startup pieces are where a founder sat down, told their story, and said, "Next time, here's what I'm doing different." In the startup world we have to be comfortable making mistakes, but I really want those to be new, interesting mistakes.
- wwwdonohue 10y agoEven better, usually, is the second/third-time founder actually operating differently after making those mistakes the first time around. That way it's less "here's how I messed up" and more "here's how I messed up, and I know because what I'm doing now is working a lot better."
- randall 10y agoLots of bad data there. Sometimes a company just doesn't work (timing / bad market) and founders learn the wrong lessons. Speaking from experience.
- hn4pigs 10y agoTwo & Three trick pony's are very rare, usually a guy gets over confident after his first win, put's it all in the pot, and assumes he's going to win the house. Just like poker, its a losers play. Better for recursive 'winning entrepreneurs' to play it like sam, and dole out their money to 100 different excellent candidates, and then manage the winners, and try to cull the losers early. ... Harvard spends a lot of time on case history, and a lot of time on losers. But in general once you have been an entrepreneur its pretty quick to spot a loser or a winner. For first time young guys with a good idea, and the right experience '25 years' is about right, 2 or 3 founders is right, backed by a good CPA and law-firm is rarely mentioned but this can be more key than TECH, as fighting the legal hassles and avoiding taxation are more important than how much money you make, its all about much money you walk away with when the game is over. Very few people play second rounds, I think most lose their health, and of course most fail, and you don't hear about them. These few people who continue to play VC, are in the game for the love of it, the connections of SV and such, for most people the dream is to get out and grow wine grapes, or just get far from the rat race. I think most 'winners' end up like the WOZ, they just retire early and spend their lives doing as they wish, very few become like Jobs and try be a control freak until death. I think a normal person gets very bored with managing people after a certain point. Even fewer 'winners' become VC enablers, again we only hear about the winner's. Most 'winners' are smart enough to know that making money is easy, keeping it is hard, so said Carnegie of steel in the 1800's.
- mdeligoz 10y agoWhen interviewing, what key points are you looking for?
- sama 10y agoDetermination Effectiveness Clarity of vision Clarity of communication Intelligence Quality of the idea *Potential to be huge
- sbierwagen 10y agoI've seen you try to use the markdown list syntax enough times on HN now that you might consider patching it in.
- nabiha_zahra 10y agoHow do you identify small but fast-growing markets? Is it a good/bad idea to found a startup in a market that is no longer saturated but also has big players (such as social media?
- sama 10y agoPredicting the future is hard. I don't have a great general answer for this, other than to look for highly engaged users. IE, when the iPhone came out, users loved it and used it all the time. Even though the market was small in absolute size, you could be confident it was going to grow quickly. It could be good or bad depending on details, but it's certainly not always bad.
- imkeean 10y agoDo you favour companies on your request for startup list? Such as a pharm/biotech company > a software startup?
- sama 10y agoNo.
- thekevinsu 10y agowhat is YC's stance on cannabis related startups that take the plant?
- sama 10y agoWe've funded several cannabis companies. Some YC partners are customers.
- nabiha_zahra 10y agoThe application for YC has recently changed. You no longer ask the question about what is a person's greatest achievement, which was previously said to be the most telling question on the app. Where are you now getting that info on the new app?
- sama 10y agoWe do still ask that, and it's still one of the questions I read first. It's on the individual section (each person has to fill it out after the submitter enters their email address).
- nabiha_zahra 10y agoWhat do you like to see when reading the answer to that? What are your indicators for success?
- nabiha_zahra 10y agoLet's say someone is a fresh college dropout and wants to focus on learning programming and start a startup, and apply to YC Summer 2017 in March. What advice do you have on how to go about that?
- sama 10y agoWell, my biggest piece advice is not to do a startup unless you have a particular idea you really think needs to happen. But if you want an answer other than that: Start learning programming tonight. There are a lot of tools online, and it takes awhile. While you're doing that, start making an active effort to notice problems in the world.
- konas 10y agoWhat order do you look at an application -- is the video last?
- sama 10y agoVideo first, then the questions about the founders, then the idea, then the traction/revenue, then everything else.
- twelvedigits 10y agoAre applications confidential?
- sama 10y agoThey are read by some alumni and YC staff. We try hard to keep things confidential but the group of readers is large--I wouldn't put nuclear launch codes in them, just because of the risk of accidental breach.
- nabiha_zahra 10y agoWhat do you look for/like to see in a solo founder application? What makes you believe that someone could be successful as a solo founder?
- sama 10y agoFor solo founders, I look for extra evidence that the person is really effective, ideally on this particular startup but if not then previously in their career. It's harder to be effective as a solo founder, so the burden of proof is higher.
- marlonmisra 10y agoDo you plan to release more details about common visa/immigration issues and how Y Combinator helps with them?
- 310BrownGuy 10y agoHi Sam. Can you explain the process for considering a Non-Profit a little bit more? A friend and I naturally think that we have a significant value proposition in the non-profit sector with everything other than the technical part flushed out thus far. EDIT: Particularly if there is potential synergy with a business component as well?
- sama 10y agoFor non-profits, we're looking for large impacts on the world. A lot of the evaluation criteria--how good the founders are, how good the idea is--are the same.
- 310BrownGuy 10y agoThanks Sam. I appreciate it.
- imkeean 10y agoWhat startup stage would you recommend a company be in when applying?
- toocute2care 10y agoThanks for doing this AMA, a quick question... 1. What's the possibility of YC companies doing biz dev with LargeCorp during the 3 month bootcamp? Is this something that YC can help with due to it's large network etc.
- sama 10y agoIt happens but big companies are often slow. We can usually but not always help with it.
- palakz 10y agoWhat are the chances of a Subsidiary in getting accepted to YC? Have you had any case like this previously? P.S.: I'm talking about a case where only the subsidiary has applied for YC and that subsidiary is making a different product than what the parent company is making.
- sama 10y agoI guess I'm not opposed, but I'm not sure we've done it before. Generally we don't like complexity though, so we'd want to be sure you're truly an independent subsidiary.
- konas 10y agoWe happen to match up with your RFS for city-related to startups. Do we need to tie this into your RFS beyond checking the box on the application?
- freese 10y agoWhat are some examples of adding value to a company that's already raised a good seed round ($2-4M)?
- arodceo 10y agoWhat do you look for in a single founder (non-tech) when they apply with their company being very early stage. What helps you determine they'll be a good company even if they are early?
- sama 10y agoHonestly, that's a tough combination. We'd look for evidence that he or she could execute and make stuff happen.
- chadnickbok 10y agoTo clarify - are single founder, early stage applications unlikely to be invited to interview at YC? At what point does 'early stage' no longer matter?
- alexbeloi 10y agoI think the tough combination is 'single founder' and 'non-tech', I have heard him in an interview recommend finding a tech side cofounder in those cases.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- imkeean 10y agoWhat universities stand out to you in particular, if any, when gauging talent from institutions across the world?
- ternbot 10y agoHow do you make a product that is profitable while serving an underserved poor market? i.e. if a market is massive but has no money to spend - is the business model different?
- dietbacon 10y agoHi Sam, My cofounder and I don't live in the same country so we're each recording half the video separately and then editing the pieces together. Does this affect us negatively in any way?
- sama 10y agoNo, that's fine. If you haven't spent significant time together in person, that's a red flag for us, as we've found those teams often (usually, even) fall apart.
- ali30 10y agoSam whst mean the word hustling to you??
- ali30 10y agoWhat mean hustling to u sam?
- ali30 10y agoWhat mean hustling to u sam?
- LifeOfRio 10y agoWhat will be included in the Startup Class MOOC? How will the MOOC differ from the previous Start-Up Class?
- kfish15 10y agoIf you were in early 20's, what 5 things would you deem most important to work on to help the world?
- sama 10y agoWhat matters here is what _you_ deem most important--don't live someone else's life. But for fun, here is my list: •AI •Biotechnology, especially anti-ID and anti-aging. •Energy •Better governance •Education
- schoen 10y ago> anti-ID I didn't know what this was, and I was idly hoping that this was somehow about making biometrics not work. :-) It turns out to be an idea in immunology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiotopes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiotopes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-idiotypic_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-idiotypic_vaccine (in case other people weren't familiar with the concept)
- transcranial 10y agoPretty sure he means anti-infectious disease
- schoen 10y agoThat's a simpler interpretation, but search engines seem to strongly favor the idiotype interpretation, and it also seems to be the most common in medical research https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=anti-id https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=anti-id
- LifeOfRio 10y agoAre there any books on Start-Up Market-Research a.k.a Talking to users? If not, what are the top mistakes startups make when talking to users?
- polmersgh 10y agoWill you fund a startup that has no idea about monetizing, like AI research companies?
- sama 10y agoOnly if the founders wanted to eventually monetize in the future. If not, it would be more appropriate for something like YC Research, which is a non-profit.
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- GFischer 10y agoAre you planning on another project to fill the void left by the YC Fellowship? Especially on the "a little funding" part, and the "remote" part. I understand you have limited resources and that YC's core is focused on fast growing companies, but some early-stage ideas/prototypes need a little help before becoming something YC would accept (and, it looks to me, the bar is higher every year). The MOOC fills one part of the gap, but, will it enable promising students to get some sort of funding?
- sama 10y agoI think in future versions of the MOOC we will explore ways to give some funding. Though I think the answer to this is just to apply to YC. We fund lots of very, very early companies all the time.
- hashnsalt 10y agoCould you give examples of such companies that have stood out?
- sama 10y agoA recent one that is top of mind because Chad just spoke at Startup School is Rigetti Quantum Computing. He had nothing but an idea when YC funded him in Summer 2014, and now is one of the leading QC companies in the world.
- hashnsalt 10y agoI'd love to see a How to Build the Future episode about this and how Chad got his start!
- fitzwatermellow 10y agoAwesome talk, BTW!
- Yinka_Adepoju 10y agoWhat do you think about younger people under 18 applying to YCombinator?
- sama 10y agoAt least one founder has to be 18 or older, otherwise no one can sign the legal documents. But we've funded teams with 15, 16, or 17 year olds on them before.
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- charlesyost 10y agoMy partner and I think search engines will look and feel completely different in the future, thus we're working on this next generation. Do you agree with this? How do see these evolving?
- sama 10y agoIt would be surprising if they don't change, but I haven't thought enough about it to have any strong belief about where they're going.
- jbpetersen 10y agoWhat direction are you predicting they'll go? I've got the same sentiment.
- hindsightbias 10y agoDoes the YC Group provide any psychological counseling/guidance/referals for attendees? Does it feel any responsibility to?
- sama 10y agoYes, mostly via referrals, but some internally.
- buechs 10y agoyep, i do this for yc! just like the rest of yc, taking care of yourself and your cofounder relationship is DIY but we offers resources to help. i'm an executive coach (with a specialty in startup founders) and our founders book office hours with me when they need support around managing stress/anxiety, troubleshooting conflict in difficult relationships (with cofounders, investors, loved ones, etc), communicating effectively, and generally thriving on the roller coaster of startup founderdom. i also provide referrals to therapists and coaches when necessary. it depends on what the founder's looking for and what they need. i'm happy to answer any other questions you have about this.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Kevin_S 10y agoHi, I am so incredibly interested in this. I always liked the idea of being an executive coach, it seems so fascinating. And the idea of doing that for YC founders sounds awesome! My first thought after reading this was that it may be kind of like being a resident advisor. I was an RA for Freshman in undergrad, and found it very rewarding helping students make the transition to a college lifestyle. Although this has a bit higher stakes, working with young founders likely isn't very fundamentally different. How do I get your job?
- jaypaulynice 10y agoI'm actually working on a startup to provide medical/mental health benefit for startups, but I think we might be too early to apply to YC...we're doing a private beta right now...interesting to see this come up.
- hashnsalt 10y agoWhat visa do international founders apply for when they are selected to join YC? And those who decide to stay in the US and establish their startup here after the 3-month time period, what immigration options do they have?
- sama 10y agoIt depends on the particular situation for each founder--people we fund apply for lots of different visas. We try to help as much as we can.
- KeatonDunsford 10y agoHey Sam. I'm considering applying with my nonprofit edtech startup (a new crowdsourced education system that's peer-to-peer and mobile -- built around software, like Watsi). I'm a solo-founder still currently building the MVP. Quick question 1: Is there a "Delaware C Corp" equivalent for the incorporation process/legal structures of nonprofits by state, or does it not matter? Real question: Is there something to be said about founders waiting until they have users and initial growth to then use the YC opportunity to transition towards growing their company? In other words, if a startup is only getting one shot to go through YC, generally is finding initial product-market fit harder, or is growing the company? Granted, the latter can't happen without the former happening first. But it would seem that for some founders that have genuine insights into real big problems, it would suck to waste the opportuniy of YC just "checking the boxes" of building their MVP, which they could know how to do already from PG's essays/YC's blog/Startup Class -- whereas they could be getting genuine advice on problems unique to their specific domain problem if they just waited and applied later.
- sama 10y agoQQ1: It does not matter. RQ: In general I think waiting is a mistake, except that you should wait long enough to have a good idea about what you're going to do.
- annerajb 10y agoSam, are the odds stacked against us if we have 5 founders? (EE, ME, EE, SW, Sales/Business) Also does a startup that can help reduce carbon emissions/move from something that generates lots of emission classify under the energy section of request for startup?
- sama 10y agoSlightly against--we're not sure why it is, but 5 or 6 founder companies have (with some notable exceptions) significantly underperformed our average.
- annerajb 10y agoThanks!
- pabloarteel 10y agoWhat are your guesses about this?
- daveguy 10y ago> we're not sure why I expect it is early burn rate and simply getting too far ahead of your potential income. Half the founders means twice the runway.
- dcposch 10y agoAlso much higher probability of founder drama
- the_watcher 10y agoI've volunteered with 3 Day Startup in the past, which is more about teaching students that entrepreneurship is an option, as well as highlighting the importance of talking to users, but one of the things that consistently came up was that teams greater than 5 were nearly always the team with the most problems. My guess has always been that it's somewhat related to the design by committee or too many cooks problem, but we also never totally figured it out.
- afchavez40 10y agoDo you prefer international companies that don't have U.S as a market?
- sama 10y agoNo preference here.
- wcchandler 10y agoI want to be a farmer. Is there a place for me in YCombinator? (p.s. I have several other follow up questions I'd love to ask if you entertain me with a response)
- sama 10y agoIf you want to be a farmer, why do you want to be in YC? We are the best in the world at helping people be some things, but probably not that :(
- wcchandler 10y agoNot sure if rhetorical, so I appreciate the thought exercise and your approach to a simple question. If you were genuinely interested -- there's quite a few reasons why YC is appealing but ultimately one thing sticks out. Farming has a lot of potential for control and subsequently, abuse. You said in a recent blog post -- if I can grow the product either better or cheaper (talking about food/produce), I'll win. With current technologies and my background and experience it seems very likely I will be successful. YC is one of very few organizations that I trust to assist and embrace the humanitarian responsibility of being a potential global leader. In a nutshell.
- mattkrisiloff 10y agofwiw we've funded Iron Ox (http://ironox.com/ http://ironox.com/) -- they're basically farmers
- rojobuffalo 10y agoHey, I applied to YC with a web platform for farmers. Are you strictly wanting to be a farmer or are you primarily interested in helping farmers?
- wcchandler 10y agoWhats your product and use case? Right now I'm only interested in being a farmer, but I'm a technologist at heart and would love to hear about your product.
- soneca 10y agoIs this thread being punished by a flaming war trigger? It is not on front page, not even the first Ask HN page.
- pan_w 10y agoI'm working on a startup that provides live remote video assistant as a service and we piggy backs off of existing technology platforms (FaceTime, Hangouts, Skype) rather than building the tech ourselves for the meantime. Do you prefer that companies have their own technology or is it okay that a company utilizes existing platforms in the beginning? My team consist of CS and ME/EE. It's PokeBin.com if you wanted more information.
- sama 10y agoIt's usually a good idea to leverage other platforms, at least as the start, as long as you're not entirely dependent on one.
- tima101 10y agoSam, thank you for working on a new online course. I think it will have a huge impact. For how many companies per batch, YC is a second accelerator? How many companies have raised Seed round?
- sama 10y agoThanks! I'd guess less than 10% are pre-accelerated. A much larger percentage have raised some (usually a small amount, but not always) capital.
- avi0103 10y agoWhat is the minimum stage the product should be in to be selected in yc ?
- fitzwatermellow 10y agoI'd guess its probably something on order of: $10K revenue per month 100,000 monthly users (or 100 recurring enterprise customers) 10% monthly growth
- Finbarr 10y agoThere are no minimums. We assess each application on its individual merits.
- sama 10y agoAs Finbarr says, non minimums at all. Sometimes we fund just an idea if the EV seems high enough.
- dietbacon 10y agoHow do you assess the "quality" of founders that have no startup track record?
- andy_ppp 10y agoCan you be clearer about minimum requirements? I have an incomplete prototype but I get the impression you want more? It'll probably have a few security issues right now that I need to iron out too. When to put this on the Internet to show you guys and how much should I have. Working on this in my spare time is very difficult to get to a point I'm happy with. Maybe I should quit my job? Be good to be super clear on this...
- sama 10y agoAn incomplete prototype is ok. Obviously more is better, but we've funded companies with no prototype at all. You have little to lose by applying.
- r0naa 10y agoWhy are you primarily looking for >billion dollars startups? I would wager that if you take a look at an accurate distribution of markets according to potential you would find a magnitude more small/average markets (that are untapped) than billion dollars ones. And similarly, I suspect that the success rate for those "boring" ventures is much higher than the exciting shiny rising stars. Question: Why not optimize for companies that are certainly not going to become Airbnbs but will capture the full value of an averagely sized market (say between 50 and 300 millions)? And if my guess is correct and they end-up eating a lot less resources than the soon-to-be-unicorns, you could even optimise for volume. Is the pay-off (wrt. to the energy spent and success rate) for unicorns really worth it?
- sama 10y ago1) This is where effectively all of our returns come from. 2) These companies are the most fun to work with. 3) It turns out that it's harder than it sounds to capture the full value of a smaller market for a bunch of reasons, and so the failure rate is much higher than expected. I think the payoff, at least in our case, is well worth it.
- r0naa 10y ago>3) It turns out that it's harder than it sounds to capture the full value of a smaller market for a bunch of reasons, and so the failure rate is much higher than expected. What kind of reasons? Direct me to some resources if there are too many to enumerate
- dmux 10y agoI'm interested in this as well. Doesn't this go against Rob Walling's advice in "Start Small Stay Small" as well as Peter Thiel's advice in "Zero to One"?
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- jondubois 10y agoDoes YC ever plan to open a new office/branch in another country (not the US)?
- sama 10y agoYes I expect we will, but haven't figured out details yet.
- spynxic 10y agoDo individuals have the opportunity to participate in funding start-ups via YC? If so, what type of minimum requirements exist for getting started? If not then how quickly can the [unrelated] problem below be solved, algorithmically Unrelated Problem: Given a set of numbers of length n, find a single rule that can map each item x to the corresponding item x+1
- sama 10y agoYou can come to Demo Day and invest in YC startups there! Or did you mean invest in YC itself?
- aimo 10y agoIs it possible to invest in YC itself?
- sama 10y agoNot yet but that would be interesting to offer some day.
- baccredited 10y agoPlease please please do this. I have invested in over 100 YC companies but my only way to do so has been FundersClub, Angel.co, and WeFunder. I love those guys but I would rather invest directly through YC. I am giving 20% to them for no good reason (other than access).
- csdreamer7 10y agoHi Sam, Do you need to be an accredited investor to invest? Do you take funding from the public through A+ for any YC startups?
- spynxic 10y agoAwesome! I didn't realize it was an open event Are they held on a regular basis?
- ikeboy 10y agoI'm a solo founder, technical but my prototype website was built by someone else. The main part of my idea isn't technical (in the sense that Amazon wasn't technical when it first started). What should I know about applying based on that? Also, for the competitors question, should I put a list of 15-20 names I made, or choose the top 3 or so? Finally: I may be able to launch within the next few days. Should I try to launch and wait to apply until I have launch data, or should I apply now? (The nature of the startup is consumer facing and I think I can gain some traction within the first week.)
- sama 10y agoThat's ok--at least you're taking action. We'll probably have some questions about how you'll develop the in-house technical talent you'll eventually need. Top 3. Wait to apply until you have launch data if you think it will be significant (but still apply before the deadline, the bar for late apps is definitely higher).
- tomrod 10y agoSam, I greatly respect the positive impact YC and you are having on society. This question is unrelated to YC. How often do you go with your gut in decision making, and how well does it turn out?
- sama 10y agoIf there is data, I try to decide with data. If there is not data, I am very happy (probably too happy) to make the best guess I can.
- rojobuffalo 10y agoHow many applications are you guys expecting this year and what percentage do you expect to invite to interview?
- sama 10y agoAs a very rough guess I'd say around 6000. I expect we will interview around 450 in person and video interviews with more.
- rojobuffalo 10y agoThanks, good to know.
- rojobuffalo 10y agoI noticed you guys added Food and Farming to the RFS. How did that decision come about?
- sama 10y agoThe same way every other item on the RFS got there--a partner was passionate about it and chose to add it.
- rojobuffalo 10y agoWhat is a company (other than SpaceX) with a super long-term goal that you are excited about?
- sama 10y agoHere are 5 out of ~200 that fit this category: Helion Oklo Rigetti OpenAI Gingko Bioworks
- rojobuffalo 10y agoThanks Sam -- OpenAI is the only one I'm familiar with, and Ginko Bioworks looks awesome. Are there any other companies that come to mind who are doing things now that will be critical to Mars colonial ventures?
- nathcd 10y agoLinks: - http://www.helionenergy.com/ http://www.helionenergy.com/ - http://oklo.com/ http://oklo.com/ - http://rigetti.com/ http://rigetti.com/ - https://openai.com https://openai.com - http://www.ginkgobioworks.com/ http://www.ginkgobioworks.com/
- YuriNiyazov 10y agoWhich of the partners is passionate about financial services?(#16 on the old list at http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/ http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/ )
- davidlee1435 10y agoYou've been very outspoken about AI, but tangentially related to AI are intelligent chatbots and more general conversational interfaces. What are your thoughts on chatbots?
- sama 10y agoI think that's a great application of AI. It's a very crowded market at this point, so my biggest question would be "why will this one win?"
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- ta11 10y agoI have applied many times . I now have a patent for a technology that I believe is a disruptor of enormous proportion. I have asked repeatedly to get a few minutes with someone to discuss this technology, because your application process doesn't seem to work for this.
- no_protocol 10y agoWhy don't you share your idea right here to try to catch someone's attention? Being vague isn't going to help.
- robbiemitchell 10y agoIf I were in their shoes, I would avoid conversations with someone who boasted a patented technology. It's just begging for legal trouble.
- daveguy 10y agoIf the patent is actually issued then it is only benefit in the form of legal protection.
- sama 10y agoWhat doesn't work about our process for this?
- ta11 10y agoI have applied again and again and have been rejected each time. I honestly don't mean to be vague but have found that it is very difficult to convey in words. It's a graphical technology that takes just a very brief chat for people to understand. It's a large horizontal departure with wide possibilities. That makes it difficult to explain as a single targeted product
- pritianka 10y agoIt sounds like you could benefit from technical friends in the space who have more experience with technical writing/documentation, etc. Another option would be to try and attend some of the office hours YC and other VCs hold. Ofc, they tend to be localized in the SF Bay Area.
- ckehoe 10y agoIf one of our 3 co-founders (CTO), is in a different state right now, should we still include him in our application video?
- carapace 10y agoHave you read Christopher Alexander? (Pattern Language, et. al.)
- tonyabram 10y agoSam, I have several pet projects, but I know YC loves teams severely committed to a single project. Is there a reasonable chance not just to get the interview, but to join the batch if I send multiple applications but most of them won't have this "three months of growth of KPI" kind of traction?
- tonyabram 10y agoAnd thank you for the Playbook. This, along with cs183, is among main materials of my life so far.
- sama 10y agoThank you for telling me!
- xzion 10y agoAny tips/examples on trying to sell a product that provides ethical/moral benefits but very little/nothing financially? Some friends and I were throwing around ideas on how to eliminate scalping, a practice we get bitten by. We came up with some solutions that might work, but they don't provide any financial gain for event organisers so I couldn't see them going for it.
- ikeboy 10y agoYou eliminate scalping by charging market prices, so there's no opportunity. Charging less is just a gift to the middlemen. (If you want to give that gift to the people who actually come, charge more and give a rebate inside the event, so scalpers can't collect it.) Not sure how you're conceptualizing this that makes scalpers harmful, could you elaborate?
- xzion 10y agoI understand that this is an economics problem; the ($5b?) market exists because there is significantly more demand than supply and ticket prices are not adjusted to accommodate this imbalance. Why that's the case I'm not sure. Perhaps that's another avenue to investigate for solving the problem but not what I had in mind (partly because I like affordable tickets). Seeing scalpers as harmful is definitely an emotional response. Popular events go on sale at a set time and set price, with "equal" opportunity for any fan to get a ticket. Scalpers claim significant amounts of the tickets and resell them at 200-1000% of the face value. My friends and I often miss out on tickets only to see hundreds available on third party resale sites. It also enables ticket scammers which are a huge problem as well. Many music artists and sports teams are very outspoken about their disappointment with the industry, die hard fans waiting at the gate miss out while the person with the most cash gets in. While I can appreciate the scalpers are taking advantage of an economic opportunity, I can't help but view them as the scum of the earth and would have no issue with eliminating their practice.
- ikeboy 10y agoThe scheme I described above leads to affordable tickets, it's basically a way of enforcing nontransferability. But at its core, disgust with scalpers implies preference for a non Kaldor Hicks optimal world. If someone is willing to pay $X for a ticket, and you're only willing to pay $Y<$X, it is non optimal for you to get a ticket if you'd sell your ticket for less than $X. There's no way around that fundamental fact. At some point, if there are more people who want tickets than tickets, some process needs to determine who gets them, and wishful thinking doesn't help anyone.
- neom 10y agoBunch of folks in the city world keep asking me how your city stuff is going. How's the city stuff going?
- no_protocol 10y agoDo you prefer startups from a certain level on Maslow's hierarchy of needs?
- santoshimz 10y agoWith so many companies like General Assembly offering part time bootcamps without one leaving the job can't YC follow the same approach where one can work on a startup without having to leave the job. This will bring in more ideas and products by people who don't want to quit their day-to-day job.
- turnip1979 10y agoYou know .. this is a quirky but interesting idea. PG started YC because of his experiences/challenges as a tech founder. Maybe someone can address this niche. Obviously, the funding terms would be different. There are legal issues having to do with existing employer contracts .. this could be a rathole. I am not sure doing a startup as a side project is at all useful .. but I might be wrong. One comment I have to make .. risk is the name of the start up game. Maybe business in general. You cannot completely de-risk it and still call it a business.
- aantix 10y agoWhy is that? If a majority of businesses fail, then finding new ways to minimize that risk should be the priority. In the context of a side project, can go both ways. The founder is minimizing their monetary/opportunity risks by maintaining their current job. YC should be minimizing their investment and/or offering the basics (the network, office hours, and invites to guest speaker engagements).
- sama 10y agoI think it's good that different people try different approaches, but also good that we do what we're good at what we believe in. If it turns out it's better to offer part-time startup accelerators, then the market will speak.
- pg_is_a_butt 10y agowhy?
- rexreed 10y agoGiven YC's increasing more social and larger-world problem solving focus, is being Silicon Valley-centric still a core goal of YC? Are you planning on coming back to the East Coast?
- sama 10y agoThe East Coast is not the first place I'd go to find more people who want to focus on solving larger problems. If anything, I think I'd probably go further west...
- breck 10y agointeresting ellipsis. is there a yc china coming soon?
- mattnewton 10y agoI'd say India, but either would be exciting.
- callmeed 10y agoYC Hawaii? Now we're talking ...
- cannabis_sam 10y agoWhat is your view on income inequality? Do you think the start-up structure of running a business could increase or decrease income inequality (and what do you consider beneficial?)
- sama 10y agoI think it's a consequence of technology but a real challenge for society. I think the right goal is probably to eliminate poverty--conceptually, I like the idea of a guaranteed floor but no ceiling. I'm very interested in basic income and we're running a large experiment on it. If that doesn't work we have some other ideas.
- ethbro 10y agoOut of curiosity (realizing how early current experiments are) do you expect there to be any correlation between providing basic income and people engaging in entrepreneurial activity? I'd expect the YC volume has to have given you some sense of how much "mouths to feed" affects ability and inclination to jump off the startup cliff in a wingsuit.
- bottled_poe 10y ago> I like the idea of a guaranteed floor but no ceiling Raising that floor seems like it would simply devalue the dollar. I'm not sure how having no ceiling helps the situation.
- Liron 10y agoRaising the floor logically implies redistributing real wealth to the poor from the non-poor, but implies nothing about the value of a dollar.
- bottled_poe 10y agoIt seems to me that prices and wages would rise as a result of raising the floor. The important question is where the money comes from to raise the floor. If it is not from the top end, the gap between rich and poor doesn't change in terms of actual buying power. It may just widen the gap.
- aestetix 10y agoI see a lot of companies being advised to focus exclusively on user growth, but many have no business model and must eventually make serious compromises, often at their users' expense, to succeed. How often would you say companies are able to tack on a profitable business model after the fact without making such compromises? Twitter seems to be the example du jou, but there are many.
- Jd 10y agoDo you really think that financially incentivizing voting will create good downstream effects? Almost all ideas of civic duty are historically drawn from non-financial incentives and the idea of attaching some financial incentive to them potentially seems to further exacerbate a "pay to play" atmosphere that is one of the reasons people (like myself) don't find it particularly stimulating to participate in the present political climate.
- danieltillett 10y agoHere in Australia we get a fine if we don’t turn up at the polling place and have our name crossed off the list on election day. Of course this creates a pool of voters (5-10%) who really don’t want to participate (these people typically spoil their ballot by doing things like drawing a penis on the ballot), but what this does do is keep a much larger section of the population engaged in the political process. What happens is that many people who don’t really care about politics most of the time take notice in the last few weeks of an election campaign because they know they will be voting. While not perfect, I think the good of “compulsory voting” outweighs the negative.
- Jd 10y agoDo you think the penalty works better than a positive incentive? i.e. if you got $5 to vote or a 1 in 100 chance of $1000? Also, was the penalty introduced in order to increase turnout? Is there any data on how it affected it, including among which demographics?
- danieltillett 10y agoNormally people give a higher weight to a loss than the equivalent positive gain so I think fines should work better than a cash payment. We have had the fine system since the 1920s so it is really hard to know how it affects the political process. One thing it does do is get the turn out to >95% (we also get a fine if we don’t register too). One of the big positives is it takes away the decision of voting or not - it is just one of those things like paying your taxes that you have to do.
- mazeway 10y agoHow do you evaluate more technical startups like the one you mentioned: Rigetti Quantum Computing. I assume one needs some theoretical quantum physics knowledge to evaluate it.
- sama 10y agoI generally have very broad but very shallow knowledge. It's helpful because I can screen a lot of different kinds of companies very quickly. If I feel out of my depth I usually know a smart person I can ask to go deep. But one of the advantages of our model is mistakes of inclusion are cheap.
- mieko 10y agoI've been running an east-coast-but-middle-of-nowhere startup, primarily implemented by myself, and self-funded, with the occasional with help of random one-off contractors in the hospitality/IoT space for two years now. Basically during off-hours from a (pretty successful) day job in a non-tech company I started years ago. My choke point has always been finding another technical-minded parter that gets the industry. Every time I've seen the YC application season roll around, I've thought it'd be a perfect fit for applying to YC, with the connections and clout that come with it. What's stopped me, even at my half-assed pace, was the chance of the huge ego/momentum hit of getting rejected, considering it's still a labor of love (although profitable). I have a handful of customers that are already paying monthly for "The Vision Lite" at discounted prices: just enough for me to continue development. But larger competitors are sure to move more aggressively into the area over the next year or so, before my current trajectory can deliver on the "this is Star Trek-level shit" experience I've got planned. I'm sure I can grow my customer base at a moderate rate, but I'm not sure I can keep up once the field gets serious against better-funded competitors. Where do you think the tipping point is between the Basecamp-style "Just get profitable, stay profitable, and move forward" model vs. "Take VC money and turn a two-year schedule into a six months, and get entrenched while you can?" (Fred Brooks notwithstanding)
- sama 10y agoOne of the most important life skills is to get good at taking rejection and failure and then picking yourself back up and continuing. If you are going to run a big company, far, far worse things will come your way than a YC rejection. Try again. And again. And again. Giving up too early is one of the biggest causes of failure I know. In terms of the two models--it really depends on your company and market, and what you want to do.
- CardenB 10y agoHey Sam, What's the difference between being persistent and wasting time? I'm curious as to where you draw the line.
- 10y ago
- Jd 10y agoHave you ever invested in a band or music production company or considered doing that?
- meowface 10y agoI'm not sure if he has, but why would he ever do that? Unless it was not only production but also engineering/innovating in some sense.
- Jd 10y agoYep, well that would be interesting in the sense of how you could disrupt the music business by "manufacturing" beats. We've seen some similar progress around machine generated art (e.g. deep dreaming and the like).
- meowface 10y agoI'd sooner expect strong AI than an AI that can actually produce good music purely autonomously.
- alexbeloi 10y agoWho knows what you mean by purely autonomously since even people can't help but learn from their experiences. Nevertheless, here's a novel composition made by an NLP algorithm trained on classical music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEjdiE0AoCU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEjdiE0AoCU
- meowface 10y agoI stand corrected. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcGYEXJqun8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcGYEXJqun8 also changed my mind a bit.
- jmcmahon443 10y agoCan you make the application autosave?
- tmatthewj 10y agoMost recent startups from India backed by YC seem to be solving problems within the country. Examples - Razorpay - Stripe for India, Kisan Network - Online Agriculture marketplace in India, Innov8 - Co-working spaces for Indian startups. Is that relevant when YC looks at an application that comes from an Indian startup / co-founders? We could generalise the question by replacing India with developing economies with good infrastructural problems to solve. How would an Indian startup trying to build a global product primarily for the U.S / Europe market fit into the scheme of things?
- mkagenius 10y agoIf you are a billion dollars business, they would love to talk - geographies don't matter.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sama 10y agoWe'd be delighted to fund an Indian company trying to build something for the entire world. My general criticism of non-US startups (this is very general and there are important exceptions) is that too many are building the <<US Company>> for <<home country>>. I think it's more exciting to build something brand new that someone in the US will copy.
- tmatthewj 10y agoThanks for sharing your thoughts sama and mkagenius.
- EGreg 10y agoWe applied many times in the last 5 years, since launching our company (Qbix). Every time we go through the application process, it seems we've grown. Our main app is now about to break 4 million downloads and we've tripled our revenue this year and talking to VCs. Does it make sense to keep applying to YC, given our size now? From what I understand, we got rejected every time because our equity split is around 80-20, which makes us more like a single-founder company. We would have liked to be part of YC but if YC strongly prefers not to consider single-founder companies then we would save time and not apply.
- ttam 10y agoWhat is your opinion today on cryptocurrencies and how big was the decline in Bitcoin/Ethereum startup applications? Do you feel the YC partners are mainly bullish or bearish irt cryptocurrencies?
- sama 10y agoThe decline has been pretty precipitous. I'm still fairly bullish myself and hold a lot of bitcoin. I think this is a far, far better time to go long bitcoin or start a bitcoin company than 2014, for many reasons including that the hype is gone.
- tinbad 10y agoWhat companies have you seen/interacted with lately that have a good chance of taking IoT to mass adoption that are worth watching for?
- a13n 10y agoWould you consider negotiating the equity percentage for startups that stand out in terms of team/traction? If not, why not?
- sama 10y agoWe do this in exceptional circumstances, but maybe only once per batch (as far as I know, we didn't do it at all last batch). I think YC adds far more than 7% of value to companies we fund. And I hate negotiating/conflict.
- ttam 10y agoa question about anything else: what's you opinion on product managers and when/do you think a startup should hire one?
- ne01 10y agoWhat do you think about bootstrapped startups like Basecamp, Wildbit and Campaign Monitor?
- partycoder 10y agoWhat do you think of South America?
- marknadal 10y agoCan you be too far along? We already raised from billionaires Tim Draper and Marc Benioff of Salesforce. Is this still okay to apply? And how much does being a solo founder reduce chances of getting in?
- GFischer 10y agoI'm not from YC, but I think that's actually a big plus for them. I've seen many companies for the last few batches that already had substantial investment.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cjhanks 10y agoHow important is technical defensibility? On one extreme I could have a technically sophisticated product with a poor user experience. On the other, an off the shelf software catalog with great user experience. Ideally you have both... Realistically it is difficult given time constraints. Where does one settle for success?
- sama 10y agoWhat's important to us is business defensibility. Sometimes the way to get that is with a user experience. Sometimes with technology. Often it's something else entirely. It really depends on the company.
- lizziepika 10y agoWhat do you think of the women in tech movement, and other diversity initiatives?
- sama 10y agoI'm supportive, obviously. I think in some ways diversity in tech is very bad (e.g. very many, or perhaps nearly all, of the CEOs of 'unicorns' are white men). I think YC has made good but not great progress here. I don't pretend to know all the answers. About 11% of the founders that apply to YC are women, and I've heard that's a fair bit higher than what other investors see. We fund women (and Black and Latino founders) at very nearly the rate they apply. In addition to a pipeline problem, I think there are further problems once women and underrepresented minorities start companies that make it unwelcoming. I also think the conversation has become so polarized by the extremes on both sides that I feel uneasy participating, and I know other people feel the same way. But I'll certainly keep doing whatever I can do to get YC to help. We're always open to advice about what to do here.
- venantius 10y agoCould you elaborate on the further problems you're alluding to here?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Xcelerate 10y agoWhat are your thoughts on quantum computing?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- allenleein 10y agoHi Sam, in interview with Elon Musk, you asked him 'Do you think people that want to be useful today should get PhDs?' Elon: Mostly not. Here are my questions: 1. Do you think people need to get a PhD degree to become useful research scientist in AI industry? 2. Do you think people need to get a PhD degree to become Member of Technical Staff (Machine Learning) in Open AI? Thank you.
- sama 10y ago1. No 2. Definitely not!
- allenleein 10y agoThanks Sam!
- rafaquintanilha 10y agoHow much advantage (if any) you estimate a person holding this degree will have over other that doesn't? In short, although you said it's not necessary, do you think it's worthy?
- asimuvPR 10y agoI know this is addressed at sama, but as someone doing AI without a PhD: 1. Not at all. You need to develop a consistent work schedule that will consist of researching papers, applying the knowledge, and writing your own. There is a lot of theory and practice. Very exciting time to be in AI. What you need is time and the interest in doing it. Feel free to email me if you have questions (not a sales pitch, just being friendly).
- allenleein 10y ago@asimuvPR thank you for your decent reply! I will.
- ptero 10y agoA personal data point: I have a PhD and looking back at it from 10+ years later I would say that it was a good thing for me because: A) I enjoyed it (most of the time) and B) I learned a lot. As far as formally completing a degree (i.e. getting a printed piece of paper that says Ph.D. next to my name) I find it practically irrelevant for either getting hired in the industry or being useful once hired. My 2c.
- anexprogrammer 10y agoTwo related questions. It's known YC prefers teams. Do you have a preferred shape or size for the team (2 tech, 1 marketing, or 1 tech, 1 web, 1 marketing and business etc); is any combination shown to be more likely to succeed within YC? How do you view teams too heavy on tech? It's common for a group of tech people to have the idea, but as a team have some gaps on say the marketing side, and probably other areas. A startup I was involved in, years ago, lacked much depth in sales and marketing. Filling that gap was a nightmare. Candidates would happily talk out of their hat, claim allsorts they didn't have, and those we trialled failed hard then invent no end of "reasons" why it's working perfectly. Suddenly recruiting programmers was easy! Even people we've known in this area suffered from at least some of these habits, sometimes meaning it's a case of "nice guy, don't trust him as co founder". Made it hard to resolve, so the least worst techie got stuck with site copy etc. No surprise, I've learnt much more about online marketing since those days. :)
- sama 10y agoNo particular shape, but in general we'd rather see it be overweight tech. If no one on the team is good or is willing to get good at sales and 'business', that's a problem.
- neurotech1 10y agoHave you seen a startup team that is "overweight" non-tech actually be successful? eg. 3 sales and business, one tech/developer
- jayjay71 10y agoAirBnB
- ajmurmann 10y agoWhat's the largest team YC has accepted?
- Gustomaximus 10y agoSome tips I've found for finding/actuating a good marketer; 1) Dig into exact contributions to campaigns for past roles. Ask for the logic around decisions. Often marketers talk about their campaigns results but really they were a body in a room with little input. Dig for detail and motivations to decisions and you will find out who is who. 2) Look for initiative. Many marketeers repeat what is always done optimising here and there. Especially for dynamic businesses i'd look for people that see the world independently of their enviroment, have the initiative to shift how things are done. This is someone that will deliver results vs turn wheels for the sake of it. 3) Look for someone that has experience working big and small companies. The big brands will train comms, project management and procedure. Small brands should give the 'getting it done' skills, generalist experience and show they can get technical/dirty hands. Larger brand experience can look impressive but often the work is more project management for agencies and doesnt suit hand on. Likewise if you're business is big enough to run agencies if someone has always been hands on they can be weak project managers and communicate needs ineffectively. 4) Find someone that can analyse data vs report it. There's a big difference in the 2 and the former is surprisingly rare. 5) Avoid anyone that shows narcissistic tendency or is generally 'me' focused. This personality tends to be bad comms people (especially with social) as they see the world from their POV, not the customers. 6) Give marketers product input. They should have their finger on the customer pulse and valuable views on what sell/motivates users. Dont let tech side shut out marketing. 7) Don't go cheap. I often see startups advertising low paid roles a couple years experience, while they pay for experienced developers. Half the price sounds great but they will bring a fraction of the value. 8) Make sure they have a budget. This goes well with the above point. Generally I'd say a 10-20x marketing salary would be a good rule of what you should be looking to spend if bringing a permanent marketing role in. 9) Sales and marketing are not the same thing. Know what you need. They dont often come all-in-one. 10) While not an absolute I usually check linkedin contacts to skill endorsements ratio. Typically this ratio is higher for the people I know are good marketers. I wouldn't make my decision by this but is seems one of those soft indicators. 11) When you interview give a 10min exercise before to discuss and cover up real-time actual skills. E.g. show them some relevant to role campaign materials (e.g. landing pages/EDM's) and ask them how they would improve. Ask them what they would do with $50k. Typically I add in some spelling/grammar mistakes to also look for attention to detail as it tends to be a 'you have it or you dont' skill (like initiative) and not something you can train up. ...hope that's useful...not a rant :)
- BillionaireBear 10y agoHey. We received an email saying to reapply because we were in the top 10% for the last cycle. In this case, what order do you look at the application? How useful are alumni recommendations?
- sama 10y agoThe first thing I look at for people reapplying is still the video, but the second is what has changed since the last application. Alumni recommendations are useful if they're strong, but neutral or slightly negative if they're weak. If someone isn't excited enough to give you an independent recommendation with you asking, it's probably not worth requesting.
- BillionaireBear 10y agoThanks Sama. PS: if it's helpful to know. The diversity office hours convinced us to apply last time. I hope you continue to do more!
- diziet 10y agoIf you went back in time and did Loopt again, what would you differently?
- econnors 10y agoWhat are the best ways for hardware startups to show traction pre-launch? We feel like we have a compelling prototype, but are worried that a lack of pre-sales/press/etc. will be a red flag.
- BillionaireBear 10y agoDisclaimer: I'm just a random person. Rigetti computing was accepted with no traction but the founder had significant market expertise. That said, keen to hear what kind of milestones are expected of early stage hardware startups.
- liseman 10y agoLaunch:) Short of this, get your cardboard-box-level prototype into users' hands. No matter how early and rough, show your product to potential customers and listen to what they say. You'll learn more from an hour doing this than a month of brainstorming with your team about what features you should someday maybe add to make your product compelling. Over many cycles of sharing many prototypes with customers, you'll figure out what your future users actually want your product to do. This will almost always be way different than your original vision. And stop worrying about whether you're too early: many of our best startups get rejected before applying again with progress and getting accepted. Pretty much everybody thinks they're too early or late for YC, and they're all wrong;) (Disclaimer: I work for YC advising hardware startups.)
- econnors 10y agoThanks for following up on this, that's helpful advice.
- du_bing 10y agoHi, Sam, how do you think about the opportunity of technology in China, do you think China a good place for investing and developing? What the difference between the China market and USA market?
- sama 10y agoI think China is probably the second most interesting startup market to me in the world right now (after Silicon Valley).
- mathattack 10y agoAnywhere in particular in China?
- du_bing 10y agoGreat, it's really inspiring for you to say so, haha, I am an English Literature major with epilepsy in China, now I am learning technology to make a living remotely, hoping someday I will be able to apply to YCombinator with my friends. I am also translating some articles on Hacker News that I love into Chinese, I love the site, it's precious on the Internet.
- wwwdonohue 10y agoHow important do you think blog posts/videos/other forms of content are for startups coming out of YC?
- foobarqux 10y agoWithout mentioning what was actually discussed, do you think the Bilderberg conference results in significant actions/effects in the real world?
- sama 10y agoI enjoyed attending and I thought many of the conversations were interesting. The format is just discussions. Some of them changed my mind about things, many didn't. No direct actions come out of it, but hopefully there are some benefits to smart people sharing ideas.
- Lordarminius 10y agoA delegation from YC was recently in Lagos, Nigeria. What data and/or considerations did you take into account that kindled your interest in Africa (instead of say, Brazil ?) Do you have any particular industries in mind to invest in? where do you see the most potential?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ne01 10y agoI don't want to sound too arrogant but why should I apply if I think I can succeed on my own?
- sama 10y agoYou should apply if you think the company will be worth ~7% more if you do YC that it would be worth if you do it on your own. If you could make a $10B company on your own, but doing YC could make it be a $20B company, then it would obviously be well worth it.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- the_watcher 10y agoThis is a (sadly) very commonly misunderstood concept.
- h4nkoslo 10y agoDo you stand by your statements calling for government supervision and control of machine learning research? Is it likely that machine learning will become a highly regulated industry roughly on par with nuclear power plant development?
- nodesocket 10y agoSam... Do you think bootstrapped companies, where founders want to build a "lifestyle" business and not raise capital can compete and be successful in SF and the valley? Put in another way, would there ever be a case where you'd recommend a bootstrapped company not take investment (assuming the terms were good) in the bay area?
- mangeletti 10y agoWhat are your thoughts on Zcash[1] (either the product OR the company behind it)? 1. https://z.cash/ https://z.cash/
- shams93 10y agoHave you seen any patterns in terms of idea generation, do successful startups come up with the idea for the business in the same way, or is it basically extremely diverse, I'm wondering if people are tending to use any analytic methods to find low hanging fruit to get started or whether its largely "scratching an itch."
- CN7R 10y agoHow does a college freshman get into startup culture without technical skills learned in upper division classes? Is working at a start up a viable path for college graduates or is it recommended starting at a more established company? Do you see Silicon Valley maintaining its dominance as a tech capital in future decades or will there be better entrepreneur ecosystems? Which industries are ripe for entrepreneurship? Like the automobile industry at the moment has innovations of self-driving and electric energy source. Thanks!
- sama 10y agoWorking at a startup is the right answer to your first question, and it's definitely a viable path! I expect the rest of the world will trend towards Silicon Valley. But I'm biased. To find industries ripe for new companies, look for places where technology is causing a high rate of change.
- CN7R 10y agoI really appreciate your answers as it solidifies my goals -- now if only I can convince my mom to stop asking to go to medical school.
- hellojebus 10y agoI want to transform the way we use checkins and turn them into awesome real world experiences. I have the idea, a v1 design, portion of the API, and incomplete web app prototype... all built by me. I lack the business plan in paper however have pretty cool ideas on how I can eventually generate income. Is this enough to be considered? Have companies come to you with less while still being accepted?
- leroy_masochist 10y agoDo you plan to allow future YC teams to attend the program remotely, or with a greatly reduced expectation of spending time in Mountain View? I get that SV is a great place to start a startup, all things being equal. But there are a lot of great opportunities that are 8-12 time zones away. And leaving your customers alone for 3 months -- especially if you are trying to grow rapidly during those 3 months -- sounds very risky. Additionally, the money spent living in SV for three months could otherwise be spent on working capital; this is extra true in developing markets where costs are lower. In the absence of a formal policy change re: moving to SV for 3 months, would you be willing to extend a bit more leeway for founders who really want to get their companies into YC but don't want to spend too much time away from the customers they're trying to please?
- sama 10y agoWe have discussed trying a remote group through the YC batch. Although we're all varying degrees of skeptical, I think it's worth a try. As you point out, there are (some) good reasons that MV doesn't make sense, like your customers being very far away. That said, it's only three months.
- thekevan 10y agoNo particular point to this comment other than I noticed at the time of this comment,the AMA started 6 hours ago, the question was asked an hour ago and you replied 9 minutes ago. Good on you for checking back and updating things, not doing an hour long hit and run like so many do on reddit. It reinforces that you care about keeping people informed and not just getting some visibility to your business. Thanks!
- pchiusano 10y agoI think it can be tough to move to SV for someone who is married with kids. That is what has stopped me from applying, and I have definitely thought about creative ways I could make it work logistically. :)
- snowwrestler 10y ago
- stevens32 10y agoYou've mentioned that you look for solo founders to show above all that they're effective - what would be a good metric for that? Is being able to push out an MVP and getting the first handful of users seen as being effective? Is the bar a lot higher?
- sama 10y agoThat's a very good initial step.
- michaelbarton 10y agoAre there ways to apply to HARC, or demo at HARC for people who have ideas that might fit within its remit?
- bfrog 10y agoMy hardest decision in the past has often been when to decide a startup has failed and its time to move on. Having seen many startups both succeed and fail you're in a unique position to perhaps give some strong opinions on this. Do you have any sort of timelines/guidelines you like to look at as a gauge of success and when it's time to double down or dump it off the side and try again?
- sama 10y agoYou should give up when no one loves what you're building and you're out of ideas about how to make it better.
- nswanberg 10y agoYou've said it's important for founders to be able to communicate and persuade, both in public and one on one. I think in that same talk you claimed to not be a very good public speaker but that you were much better in person. There are lots of examples for learning better public communication. How do you learn to be better one on one?
- afar 10y agoWhat do you think is the biggest blind spot or most limiting aspect of YC Group and how do you plan to fix it? Asked another way, what are YC's weaknesses, in your opinion?
- sama 10y agoWe're spending a lot of time right now thinking about where we should add new groups (i.e. where we're limited and where the biggest opportunities are). Hopefully will be ready to talk about it early 2017.
- davidw 10y agoHow much investment money is simply "transferred" to local landlords in the bay area? Any ideas how your 'YC cities' thing is going to look?
- sama 10y agoI shudder to imagine. It's a real problem with the system. Not yet.
- mathattack 10y agoThis is also why retail is such a bad investment. As soon as an area is hot, the landlords capture all the value. (And why Kmart became a real estate play rather than retail)
- toomuchtodo 10y agoIs YC still looking for contributions towards its New Cities project?
- watermoose 10y agoSam, thanks for taking the time to talk with us. I hope it's ok, but I've got a few questions about something not directly related to YC applications. As a middle-aged developer, I've seen a lot in my lifetime, but I believe that right now, even though in some ways I'm much more hopeful for the future than I've ever been, I feel like there are many huge time-bombs out there in the world that make focusing on a startup just to have a chance to become financially successful a petty and, for some, a possibly futile ordeal. For example: political divisiveness/change/chaos, scary world leaders and potential world leaders discussing/threatening/testing nuclear weapons, wars for and against religions involving terror, causing mass death, spawning racism and restricted freedoms, other random shootings/acts of violence, discord and violence between people that are racially targeted and those who want to serve the public to protect people regardless of their race, terrible diseases/epidemics some without cures or growing resistance to cures that we've long depended on, weather related natural disasters, economic troubles, etc. The list goes on and on. Given the climate of the world today and all of our problems, what things do you want to see- not just in the startups that you and/or YC as a whole want to help, but across the board? And what do you say to those that think that just don't feel safe enough to invest the time, money, and effort on a startup which has a greater chance of failure than success when they could just be working a stable job to try to save enough to survive what is ahead?
- sama 10y agoYou raise very good points. The future will either be great or terrible--I think an intermediate outcome is unlikely. I think it's a super exciting time to be alive, but I feel the shared sense of responsibility most others do to do everything I can to get safely through the other side. I understand the desire to save enough for a scary world ahead, and I think it's prudent to do that. Beyond, that, if you're nervous about these things, probably the most satisfying and reassuring thing you could do is figure out how to use your talents to maximize the chance of the a good outcome.
- rojobuffalo 10y agoAbsolutely that last sentence. I'm 27 but only in the past 12 months have I figured out what I'm supposed to be doing. So keep asking the question: what is something I can I do that is helpful to people, I enjoy doing, and am good at? If you're fortunate enough to come up with a reasonable answer, the pursuit of that thing in and of itself is enough.
- kgc 10y agoDo you secretly have a Japanese nickname that goes something like Sama-sama?
- sama 10y agoYes, some people call me that...
- marauder016 10y agoHi Sam — seems like 'Science' was removed as a category in RFS. Can you comment on this?
- sama 10y agoPeople never really understood what we meant by it. Will try to break out into several more descriptive RFSs in the future.
- draghu_1 10y ago1. Where do you think the jobs in the software field will be after 10 years? Currently, we can say that the jobs are in the web developer and mobile app developers categories. Like that what would be the major category in software? And what would be the future of web and mobile app developers if they know nothing about machine learning now. 2. In the competition of web vs mobile? What would be their state after 10 years? Will there be more native mobile apps or websites? Thanks!
- bourneliu 10y agoWill you come to China? When?
- dave1619 10y agoHow involved are you and Elon in OpenAI? What are your roles specifically, both for you and Elon?
- sama 10y agoWe both go in most weeks for about half a day and talk to the team whenever they need.
- 40acres 10y agoHave founders successfully applied to YC with just an idea? A "hey I think this would be cool, here's some data with respect to the market but I don't have a product"? If not, what would you need to see from an application with no product to be accepted into YC? If so, what was about that application that made you believe in them so much?
- Det_Jacobian 10y agoI'm 27 and I've cofounded only one company in a lifestyle industry (video games). Despite being nearish the top of my particular field, I don't have a PhD in a relevant field like AI. Games are hard in that they are very competitive, but we're not exactly curing cancer. How behind am I, assuming my primary goal is maximizing positive impact on the world?
- sama 10y agoYou are 27. Hard to imagine you'd be behind in anything. But no reason to delay in making the impact you want.
- dharma1 10y agoYour game/GPU programming experience can be very relevant to AI. Take a look at these projects https://unrealcv.github.io https://unrealcv.github.io https://gym.openai.com https://gym.openai.com https://m.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/54p6zq/160907061_quantized_neural_networks_training/ https://m.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/54p6zq/16090...
- rbloughlin 10y agoIf we edit our application after we submit it, then are you notified? Or is there a chance you read our application before we edit it and you miss our edits?
- davemel37 10y agoIt seems half these questions are from Single Founders. Considering YC's interest in experimenting with who and what they fund... Has YC ever considered a class of only single founders and trying to solve the problems YC anticipates with single founder startups (i.e. emotional support, etc...) It seems to me that the demand is there, and the potential for single founders to succeed is certainly possible... why not experiment putting together a track that "fills in the blanks" for singe founders much the way YC does with legal and accounting for startups to get started. Edit: I recognize the signaling issue of not being able to convince a cofounder to join, etc... but sometimes signals are just noise.
- sama 10y agoWhat we've thought about the most is creating a better way for potential cofounders to meet each other.
- w1ntermute 10y agoDo you think it's usually possible for two potential cofounders who don't already know one another to sufficiently evaluate one another quickly enough to start a company together in the short term (say, less than 3 months)? There seem to be similar challenges to creating a scalable solution for finding an SO/spouse (another unsolved problem).
- arm55 10y agoPerhaps YC could pay people to take a 4-12 week startup school, in which group projects were heavily encouraged. If a company was formed out of the school, YC would get the right to invest at the standard investment terms.
- GFischer 10y agoYC actually has a new MOOC lined up. Maybe encourage group work in it? https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-changes https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-changes
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- bazsouthafrica 10y agoHi Sam, I would like to apply for Winter 2017. If we are not accepted for this batch, would it hurt our future chances (i.e. could we apply again for the next batch without being negatively affected).
- sama 10y agoNo, it doesn't hurt future chances!
- peter_retief 10y agoInventors and innovators in Africa have a really hard time getting access to international markets and funding. Can you help?
- pfarnsworth 10y agoWhat is the oldest age for a founder that you have accepted for YC?
- sama 10y agoEarly 70s.
- echelon 10y agoThat's awesome! :)
- abcd_f 10y agoCan you tell us how it went (or is going)? Genuinely curious. It's a very interesting data point.
- mdasm 10y agoThat's awesome! Male or female? As an older(40+) female single founder in EdTech, I find it very difficult to attract investment and so have others with the same profile as me. How should we approach fund raising?
- tim333 10y agoI'm guessing it's John Slough of Helion http://www.helionenergy.com/?page_id=704 http://www.helionenergy.com/?page_id=704
- danielonco 10y agoHow important is for YC founders to be ethical in a world that cares mostly about financial success, profit margins, exponential growth, etc? Think Theranos, Zenefits et al.
- sama 10y agohttps://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/
- clydethefrog 10y agoSo the answer is not that much - as long as it doesn't damage the image of YC it's okay.
- forgottenpass 10y agoAnd the points listed seemed to be about maintaining productive working relationships among colleagues - not ethics. Funny choice of topic for an ethics page.
- BrandonM 10y agoI don't think that's a fair assessment (I'm not affiliated with YC in any way). I think that: > Not using misleading, illegal or dishonest sales tactics. > Keeping your word... and: > Generally behaving in a professional and upstanding way. cover more ground than you imply. While it might not hurt for them to take a few more stands (e.g., "ensure the integrity of customer data", "don't be a net drain on public resources"), I think it would be a bit difficult to add a lot more ethical requirements without getting overly industry-specific and excessively lengthy.
- bourneliu 10y agoOn average, how much time will you spend on handling 1 application ?
- mrhektor 10y agoWhat is an ideal stage for a company to apply to YC? We've gotten together an excellent team and partners, and are just starting to build out the value prop. However, we don't have any customers / traction yet. Should we wait to apply, or apply right now?
- berpasan 10y agoApply, you lose nothing. And apply again once you get more progress. There is no ideal stage, but they'll fund the most promissing of them. The more your startup grows and the more times you apply (= persistance and staying alive), the more interesting your startups gets, hence better the odds. At Quero we applied 3 times before being invited for an inverview and approved.
- mrhektor 10y agoThanks for the advice, I think we'll fill out an application and see what happens :)
- davemel37 10y agoTwo Questions: 1. Would YC consider a media/publishing company that is not really a tech startup short of leveraging tech to reach a broader audience. (it's more like investigative journalism to arm buyers with info. needed to negotiate better deals.) 2. The info. in these reports can capture value by being sold right away, but giving the info. away for free is more in line with the mission of eliminating information asymmetry (by selling we are just replacing one inbalance, with another)...so is it better to capture initial value...or try to build trust to the point of people going straight to you to research purchases...and monetize later on or with add-ons (i.e. outsourced negotiation.) or eventually becoming the defacto source for consumer research (which is bound to be monetizable one way or another)?
- pr5k 10y agoHas there been any graphic designer co-founders accepted into YC? If so, has there been anything noticeably different about that dynamic compared to usual co-founder teams of hackers? If not, are applicants that include graphic designer co-founders at all desirable at YC?
- w1ntermute 10y agoJoe Gebbia (cofounder of Airbnb) studied graphic design prior to founding Airbnb.
- jstnjosepht 10y agoNot sure how much overlap there is with your particular skill set, but Brian Chesky had a Product Design background before starting Airbnb. Paul Graham even recommends attending design school over b-school in his How to Start a Startup lecture. Q: Do you see any value in business school for people who want to pursue entrepreneurship? A: Basically no, it sounds undiplomatic, but business school was designed to teach people management. Management is a problem that you only have in a startup if you are sufficiently successful. So really what you need to know early on to make a start up successful is developing products. You would be better off going to design school if you would want to go to some sort of school. Although frankly the way to learn how to do it is just to do it. One of the things I got wrong early on is that I advised people who were interested in starting a startup to go work for some other company for a few years before starting their own. Honestly the best way to learn on how to start a startup is just to just try to start it.
- VaedaStrike 10y agoIs someone's creds on 'getting things done' largely based on visible projects? Or are other things considered? For example becoming a self taught programmer? Quadrupling one's income? Doing all that while starting a new family? I feel like I'm becoming significantly more formidable. But the side project that pulled me into becoming a programmer, itself, is still lacking clearly visible progress.
- stansedberry 10y agoSam, thank you so much for taking the time to add so much value to all of the applicants of YC. I have learned so much. For emerging industries like our's in the virtual reality space, there is so much money driving the industry into gaming and the desires of the bigger players like Facebook and Oculus. Is it more valuable to align with these bigger players and play along with their game, or disrupt the industry but risk being outcasted? Thanks! Stan Sedberry Vidi VR
- stansedberry 10y ago* And I want to throw a personal question that I haven't seen anyone ask. If ELon asked you to be the president of his Mars colony, would you take the role and if so, what would be your first action as ruler lol
- fernandillo 10y agoRedomestication. We're based in spain with some public help in form of soft-debt (very common in spanish startups). That makes slower the process of redomestication, typically around 4 months. If chosen for YC, Is it possible to create a parent company in US to give the x% for the YC investment? Tnx!
- kriro 10y agoCould you outline the exact reasoning why YC still believes SV is the place to be for a startup. I've never heard any explanation that went deeper than "well investors are there and network duh" It seems very broken that IT specifically should be bound to a physical place. Are there any plans to innovate in this regard or any research YC is doing?
- coralreef 10y agohttp://www.paulgraham.com/hubs.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hubs.html
- kriro 10y agoThat's the article I had in the back of my head. I think it might be a good time to reassess some of the ideas from the article (it is 5 years old after all). """being in a place where startups are the cool thing to do, and chance meetings with people who can help you""" I think "the cool thing to do" isn't as relevant as it was 5 years ago due to some well publicized success stories and things like the shark tank etc. Startups are generally considered a more viable career option these days so that need (and thus the competitive advantage of SV) is quite a bit less than 5 years ago (imo) Chance meetings...yeah I get it. It's also lessened to some degree due to social media and random chance on the internet (someone reading a tweet of yours and knowing how to help, help on HN/reddit etc.) but that's still a great point in favor of SV. It's also self-reenforcing. So for arguments sake I'll offer the counter position to "move to a startup hub" namely "move to a place where you expect the highest density of your customers" (which should help with chance meetings as well) The second alternative I'll suggest is...stay at a place you feel comfortable at especially if it has low living cost until you are ramen profitable given SV cost structures...then move. [there's a lot of it depends here but those are just suggestions to kickstart a hopefully interesting discussion]
- jasode 10y ago>I'll offer the counter position to "move to a startup hub" namely "move to a place where you expect the highest density of your customers" (which should help with chance meetings as well) Based on empirical history of how successful startups have turned into $1 billion companies, it looks like the density & quantity of the hiring pool and investors are higher priorities than location of customers. In SV, you get a pipeline of fresh Stanford grads and also the ex-employees from Apple/Google/Facebook/etc. For investors, you have a bunch of them clustered on Sand Hill Rd. For B2C consumer facing internet businesses, there are no geographically concentrated customers to move to. The prioritization of proximity close to the customers may make more sense for a lifestyle business[1]. E.g. you're developing a SaaS cloud service for surfing shops to manage their inventory of surfboard gear. In that case, it might make more sense to locate the headquarters in San Diego and it's a calculated tradeoff to rely on the smaller pool of programmers in that area. The startup CEO physically visits each surfing shop to see how the software is used and gets real feedback for new features. Investors would also be less of an issue because a lot of lifestyle businesses are bootstrapped to profitability. That said, YC and VCs don't invest in lifestyle businesses so their bias towards SV wouldn't apply. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business
- wishdock 10y agoWhy didn't I see this earlier :(
- scinering 10y agoWhen you want to start a startup and you don't have any kind of job experience in tech industry, do you think that is necessary to be intern in some tech company, or just to focus first on coding skills, and to build stuff?
- oli5679 10y agoYou have said that the best founders believe their success is inevitable, yet YC (understandably) has a really high failure rate. Do you think it helps, as a founder and in life, to be optimistic rather than realistic?
- ifemide06 10y agoSam, what would you say to a bootstrapped fast-food delivery startup, cash positive, little overhead and 10,000's of customers applying to YC?
- ENadyr 10y agoHi, I know you started accepting hardware startups recently, I also realize you value teams that can iterate quickly. Having spent 18 months working to show that what the complex hardware product is feasible, my worry is that we would be seen as "slow" because in the software world , where I came from, 18 months is a lifetime. So my question is, do you treat hardware and software startups the same in terms of iteration speed? Cheers!
- truth_teller 10y agoIn 2015, Paul Buchheit and Dan Gackle used Hacker News and YC portfolio companies such as Quora in an all-out war against a private individual, Michael O. Church. In a normal company, run by adults, this abuse of the company name to settle a personal grudge would lead to their being fired in disgrace. Why didn't this happen? It seems especially strange that these people were retained, given how disliked Buchheit and Gackle are even in the YC community. What did they have to offer (or threaten) in order to keep their jobs?
- brianbreslin 10y agoHow do teams deal with families? I'm curious how many founders can uproot their entire families for 3 months to relocate, or do they just try to make long distance work for the 3 months while the spouses/kids stay back home?
- tmaly 10y agoI watched your startup course that was done at Stanford. Have you ever considered writing a startup book?
- huntermonk 10y agoHe compiled a list of recommended readings for the class here (http://startupclass.samaltman.com/lists/readings/ http://startupclass.samaltman.com/lists/readings/), and in the morning macro it was stated that "We’re going to replace the Fellowship with a much larger MOOC launching next year.". I know that's not what you're looking for, but at least it gets us close!
- rnc 10y agoSam, you started Loopt when you were 19 and figured things out very quickly along the way. Could you give us some insights on how to increase the speed at which we learn stuff? Many people here(myself included) rely on books to learn about something or solve their problems, and that doesn't seem to be the case with you and other top founders(Collison brothers, Drew Houston, etc.)
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- internaut 10y agosama, a big picture question, what is your take on the Stagnation Hypothesis? I know you know a bunch of people who are concerned about technological stagnation and I was curious about your personal take on it. Thanks