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I'm trying to work out what bothers me about this. I wonder if it's actually bad advice for all those thousands of entrepreneurs to be advising them to go for

I'm trying to work out what bothers me about this. I wonder if it's actually bad advice for all those thousands of entrepreneurs to be advising them to go for being mega gigantic. It's bad advice because those thousands of new entrepreneurs have a much greater chance of long term success by NOT following the "go super big" path. Indeed it appears that taking a "quite successful" company down the "go super big" path might lead to a variety of adverse outcomes (as I have gleaned from reading the stories of many failed venture backed companies). I suspect that what is niggling me is that perhaps YC and all the other venture capitalists maybe are really now acting and advising what is in their interests, which is really not in the interests of all these bright eyed new entrepreneurs. I suppose YC's history and origin make it feel like they are on the side of the entrepreneur, but is that still true?

dnautics 9y ago
I dunno. I got accepted into office hours, and yc didn't provide me with Amazon credits that they said were part of the program, and I didn't feel like the advice the person gave me was anything I didn't already know, besides "do what you're doing, but harder". Perhaps it's jumped the shark. I distinctly got the feeling that yc is now peddling a narrative of the hacker that is either untrue or no longer true, and is dispensing platitudes instead of actually getting people help with "the hard parts", as in connecting people with a real process that helps them get money (or conversely, critical responses to "stop wasting your time", if that's what's deserved)
- hoodoof 9y ago
  Perhaps they have refined their business down to the essential core which is to back large numbers of entrepreneurs in the hope they don't miss one that gets big. Like 500 startups. Hard to believe that backing large numbers of companies can be much more than betting on lots of horses.
  - ericb 9y ago
    They aren't backing any of these companies financially. It is hard to tell what is in it for them yet. The only way this makes sense is if it is a pre-filter for their application funnel to increase the quality of their selections. Contrary to this, they originally claimed that startup school would not give you any leg up in the application process.
- andy_ppp 9y ago
  Yes, I'm a little concerned about this too; we've all presumably watched most of the startup talks and I know more information about this stuff than I think I really need to. It's easy to follow the checklist of things not to do but proving out new ideas is always going to throw up specific challenges. I'm more concerned about the detail focused questions like which features I should build first, how should I test (with a proper statistical probability) and a low number of users? What leads us astray most as startup founders (apart from investors and running out of money)? How can I simplify this feature so it takes me a day to try rather than 4-5 days? Should I remove it if no-one liked it or persevere with improvements? I mean even stupid questions like what size should I make my DB server if I'm posting my startup to Show HN on a Friday afternoon? What logging/dashboard/analytics should I set up to start? The problem is I'm not sure someone who talks to me once per week would be anything other than a sounding board for my own thoughts as I should know my business so much better than they ever could. The real reason to do YC of course is their unmatched network of people and the brand recognition you get when talking to investors...
  - dnautics 9y ago
    I'd actually be more worried that none of that matters and other things like "who you know" matter more. A lot of the technical things you mention could be just a wierd inverse cargo cult. Those are things that actually would be effective for running a real company, but you're going through the motions because that's what everyone else "did to get money" even though that's not what they did to get money. Look at indie.bio -- almost every single one of their companies is a joke chasing some hot topic in biotech with often little or no real market or effective business strategy. The folks running the company make big noise about, open source science and breaking free of the postdocapalypse/community science, and the ruination brought to a generation of academic PhDs. Yet not a single one of their companies licenses operates with free ip licensing and about half of the companies are spinoffs with full time academic professors on the founding team or advisory board. In general there is a disconnect between the narrative that's sold and what actually happens.
taneq 9y ago
> I suspect that what is niggling me is that perhaps YC and all the other venture capitalists maybe are really now acting and advising what is in their interests, which is really not in the interests of all these bright eyed new entrepreneurs. Do you really doubt this, on any level? YC exists in order for the investors to secure a large stake in the next Facebook, no matter who that ends up being. They're not philanthropic, that's just the sales pitch.

dnautics 9y ago

I dunno. I got accepted into office hours, and yc didn't provide me with Amazon credits that they said were part of the program, and I didn't feel like the advice the person gave me was anything I didn't already know, besides "do what you're doing, but harder". Perhaps it's jumped the shark. I distinctly got the feeling that yc is now peddling a narrative of the hacker that is either untrue or no longer true, and is dispensing platitudes instead of actually getting people help with "the hard parts", as in connecting people with a real process that helps them get money (or conversely, critical responses to "stop wasting your time", if that's what's deserved)

hoodoof 9y ago
Perhaps they have refined their business down to the essential core which is to back large numbers of entrepreneurs in the hope they don't miss one that gets big. Like 500 startups. Hard to believe that backing large numbers of companies can be much more than betting on lots of horses.
- ericb 9y ago
  They aren't backing any of these companies financially. It is hard to tell what is in it for them yet. The only way this makes sense is if it is a pre-filter for their application funnel to increase the quality of their selections. Contrary to this, they originally claimed that startup school would not give you any leg up in the application process.
andy_ppp 9y ago
Yes, I'm a little concerned about this too; we've all presumably watched most of the startup talks and I know more information about this stuff than I think I really need to. It's easy to follow the checklist of things not to do but proving out new ideas is always going to throw up specific challenges. I'm more concerned about the detail focused questions like which features I should build first, how should I test (with a proper statistical probability) and a low number of users? What leads us astray most as startup founders (apart from investors and running out of money)? How can I simplify this feature so it takes me a day to try rather than 4-5 days? Should I remove it if no-one liked it or persevere with improvements? I mean even stupid questions like what size should I make my DB server if I'm posting my startup to Show HN on a Friday afternoon? What logging/dashboard/analytics should I set up to start? The problem is I'm not sure someone who talks to me once per week would be anything other than a sounding board for my own thoughts as I should know my business so much better than they ever could. The real reason to do YC of course is their unmatched network of people and the brand recognition you get when talking to investors...
- dnautics 9y ago
  I'd actually be more worried that none of that matters and other things like "who you know" matter more. A lot of the technical things you mention could be just a wierd inverse cargo cult. Those are things that actually would be effective for running a real company, but you're going through the motions because that's what everyone else "did to get money" even though that's not what they did to get money. Look at indie.bio -- almost every single one of their companies is a joke chasing some hot topic in biotech with often little or no real market or effective business strategy. The folks running the company make big noise about, open source science and breaking free of the postdocapalypse/community science, and the ruination brought to a generation of academic PhDs. Yet not a single one of their companies licenses operates with free ip licensing and about half of the companies are spinoffs with full time academic professors on the founding team or advisory board. In general there is a disconnect between the narrative that's sold and what actually happens.

taneq 9y ago

> I suspect that what is niggling me is that perhaps YC and all the other venture capitalists maybe are really now acting and advising what is in their interests, which is really not in the interests of all these bright eyed new entrepreneurs. Do you really doubt this, on any level? YC exists in order for the investors to secure a large stake in the next Facebook, no matter who that ends up being. They're not philanthropic, that's just the sales pitch.