4 ms·

Y Combinator

50 points by prakash 19y ago

hooande 19y ago
I posted a lengthy comment on the site. Summary: YC people rock, I can't wait to join you.
gruseom 19y ago
they pop out thinking, talking, and building companies in a way that is remarkably similar to the way that PG would Hmm. I'm all in favor of what YC is doing, but this makes me decidedly uneasy. Groups with a charismatic leader have a tendency to devolve into personality cults. In my experience, to avoid this requires conscious, ongoing effort on the part of the leader (and enough of the followers) to stay aware of such tendencies and counteract them. First and foremost that means staying aware of these tendencies in oneself. I don't mean to be harsh on the author of the post. I don't think he was being cultish, just enthusiastic, and that's good. But the risk is a very real one. It would be wise to alloy that enthusiasm with something else.
- pg 19y ago
  It makes me uneasy too. Boy, did I cringe reading those bits. One thing that will protect us against YC getting cultish is that the qualities you'd want in a cult follower and a startup founder are exactly opposite. To succeed, startup founders have to be very determined and independent-minded. And since we want the startups we fund to succeed, those are the people we try to find. Basically, we're looking for more Sam Altmans, and Sam Altman is no one's follower.
  - wanorris 19y ago
    > It makes me uneasy too. Boy, did I cringe reading those bits. Not meaning any offense, but boy am I glad to hear you say that.
  - alabut 19y ago
    It only makes you uneasy because it's written about you rather than something abstract like your core values, although that would be just as true. I'm sure Sam is equally uncomfortable with your description of him, even if he agrees with your assessment of what qualities you're looking for in a startup founder.
  - ivankirigin 19y ago
    Give credit where it is due. You're an excellent salesman. Working on pitches for Demo Day helps the startups express clearly what they're working on. But, to the ear accustomed to your style, you can literally hear PG talking in other presentations. That isn't cultish. That is taking good advice. YC is largely about giving good advice and putting people together. This is nothing like the cultish following your essays and sometimes this community gets. Remember the drama around the applications on this site last time? People took that way to seriously. And each of your essays spawns dozens of comments equivalent to "zomg, smartest thing evar". But these two negative facets of this community don't actually make it into the YC program. That means you're choosing well, I suppose. I firmly believe the #1 reason YC is good is the quality of the other founders and the alumni founders network.
  - yters 19y ago
    No one is no one's follower. Someone who thinks they are is a blind follower. A better approach is for people to realize who's ideas they follow and why.
  - dfranke 19y ago
    It's funny you should put it that way, because just the other day I was describing YC to someone as a "reverse boot camp".
- Prrometheus 19y ago
  I think most people would benefit from thinking more like Paul Graham does. However, they would benefit from adopting the worldview and ideas of lots of other people too. The point is to borrow from everybody worth borrowing from. Usually people tend to over-imitate the person that they have borrowed from most recently, but this works itself out. In the long run they will benefit from having a little more Paul Graham in them, not “acting like Paul Grahams”.
alabut 19y ago
When you put it like that, PG sounds like John Galt.
- maxwell 19y ago
  Who is John Galt? ;)
  - alabut 19y ago
    A destroyer :) and I'm sure that's exactly the way that recruiters for large boring companies think of their competition when they go up against cool workplaces and try to land young programmers. YC expands the scope of cool workplaces beyond the Google-like perks that a handful of companies might offer and get people to consider entrepreneurial options as well. And it's not a problem solely for technology companies, even Pixar has this problem - talented people have to leave to get opportunities elsewhere because only a handful of inner circle elite ever get to direct a film: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-pixar12mar12,1,4053284,full.story http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-pixar12mar12... Which is ironic because Brad Bird's big break with The Incredibles came from his experience not getting a chance for creative expression with the old traditional animation studios like Disney.
    - zach 19y ago
      Pixar has the same bottleneck problem they had at Disney during their feature era - there were "nine old men" established as the (supervising) animators and hardly any room for anyone else. Just like Pixar may have no room to let Doug Sweetland direct a fantastic movie, John Hubley saw limited opportunity at Disney, so he founded the animation startup UPA. Anyway, it brings up the issue of what I'm going to call superlearning environments. The kind of places that become legendary because of the seemingly unbelievable concentration of talent. For animation, the late-70's Disney training program. For 3D graphics, anywhere Ed Catmull has been. For console games, I'd actually say Virgin Interactive Entertainment, which none of you have heard of. These kind of environments are hard to discover unless you happen upon them and are blown away by the level of talent involved. But YC is most fascinating to me because it's a continuing (although periodic) experiment in creating one of these environments that's freestanding. And this kind of environment is exactly what you don't get in a lonely startup. I know this all too well -- it's great to spend time with your co-founders, but I'd always worked with people significantly smarter and wiser than myself and it is absolutely the number one thing I miss.
serhei 19y ago
http://www.rubinghscience.org/memetics/dawkinsmemes.html http://www.rubinghscience.org/memetics/dawkinsmemes.html
andreyf 19y ago
What would YC be like if only YC founders (and "famous people") can comment/vote, or their votes count as 10x of everyone else?
deleted 19y ago
[deleted]

50 points by prakash 19y ago

I posted a lengthy comment on the site. Summary: YC people rock, I can't wait to join you.

they pop out thinking, talking, and building companies in a way that is remarkably similar to the way that PG would Hmm. I'm all in favor of what YC is doing, but this makes me decidedly uneasy. Groups with a charismatic leader have a tendency to devolve into personality cults. In my experience, to avoid this requires conscious, ongoing effort on the part of the leader (and enough of the followers) to stay aware of such tendencies and counteract them. First and foremost that means staying aware of these tendencies in oneself. I don't mean to be harsh on the author of the post. I don't think he was being cultish, just enthusiastic, and that's good. But the risk is a very real one. It would be wise to alloy that enthusiasm with something else.

pg 19y ago
It makes me uneasy too. Boy, did I cringe reading those bits. One thing that will protect us against YC getting cultish is that the qualities you'd want in a cult follower and a startup founder are exactly opposite. To succeed, startup founders have to be very determined and independent-minded. And since we want the startups we fund to succeed, those are the people we try to find. Basically, we're looking for more Sam Altmans, and Sam Altman is no one's follower.
- wanorris 19y ago
  > It makes me uneasy too. Boy, did I cringe reading those bits. Not meaning any offense, but boy am I glad to hear you say that.
- alabut 19y ago
  It only makes you uneasy because it's written about you rather than something abstract like your core values, although that would be just as true. I'm sure Sam is equally uncomfortable with your description of him, even if he agrees with your assessment of what qualities you're looking for in a startup founder.
- ivankirigin 19y ago
  Give credit where it is due. You're an excellent salesman. Working on pitches for Demo Day helps the startups express clearly what they're working on. But, to the ear accustomed to your style, you can literally hear PG talking in other presentations. That isn't cultish. That is taking good advice. YC is largely about giving good advice and putting people together. This is nothing like the cultish following your essays and sometimes this community gets. Remember the drama around the applications on this site last time? People took that way to seriously. And each of your essays spawns dozens of comments equivalent to "zomg, smartest thing evar". But these two negative facets of this community don't actually make it into the YC program. That means you're choosing well, I suppose. I firmly believe the #1 reason YC is good is the quality of the other founders and the alumni founders network.
- yters 19y ago
  No one is no one's follower. Someone who thinks they are is a blind follower. A better approach is for people to realize who's ideas they follow and why.
- dfranke 19y ago
  It's funny you should put it that way, because just the other day I was describing YC to someone as a "reverse boot camp".
Prrometheus 19y ago
I think most people would benefit from thinking more like Paul Graham does. However, they would benefit from adopting the worldview and ideas of lots of other people too. The point is to borrow from everybody worth borrowing from. Usually people tend to over-imitate the person that they have borrowed from most recently, but this works itself out. In the long run they will benefit from having a little more Paul Graham in them, not “acting like Paul Grahams”.

alabut 19y ago

When you put it like that, PG sounds like John Galt.

maxwell 19y ago
Who is John Galt? ;)
- alabut 19y ago
  A destroyer :) and I'm sure that's exactly the way that recruiters for large boring companies think of their competition when they go up against cool workplaces and try to land young programmers. YC expands the scope of cool workplaces beyond the Google-like perks that a handful of companies might offer and get people to consider entrepreneurial options as well. And it's not a problem solely for technology companies, even Pixar has this problem - talented people have to leave to get opportunities elsewhere because only a handful of inner circle elite ever get to direct a film: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-pixar12mar12,1,4053284,full.story http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-pixar12mar12... Which is ironic because Brad Bird's big break with The Incredibles came from his experience not getting a chance for creative expression with the old traditional animation studios like Disney.
  - zach 19y ago
    Pixar has the same bottleneck problem they had at Disney during their feature era - there were "nine old men" established as the (supervising) animators and hardly any room for anyone else. Just like Pixar may have no room to let Doug Sweetland direct a fantastic movie, John Hubley saw limited opportunity at Disney, so he founded the animation startup UPA. Anyway, it brings up the issue of what I'm going to call superlearning environments. The kind of places that become legendary because of the seemingly unbelievable concentration of talent. For animation, the late-70's Disney training program. For 3D graphics, anywhere Ed Catmull has been. For console games, I'd actually say Virgin Interactive Entertainment, which none of you have heard of. These kind of environments are hard to discover unless you happen upon them and are blown away by the level of talent involved. But YC is most fascinating to me because it's a continuing (although periodic) experiment in creating one of these environments that's freestanding. And this kind of environment is exactly what you don't get in a lonely startup. I know this all too well -- it's great to spend time with your co-founders, but I'd always worked with people significantly smarter and wiser than myself and it is absolutely the number one thing I miss.

serhei 19y ago

http://www.rubinghscience.org/memetics/dawkinsmemes.html http://www.rubinghscience.org/memetics/dawkinsmemes.html

andreyf 19y ago

What would YC be like if only YC founders (and "famous people") can comment/vote, or their votes count as 10x of everyone else?

deleted 19y ago

[deleted]