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Sounds like a reasonable question, with a perfectly logical explanation. A reasonable (if misguided) question. Huge companies with huge success are very uncom

Sounds like a reasonable question, with a perfectly logical explanation. A reasonable (if misguided) question. Huge companies with huge success are very uncommon - that's why we can list them off the top of our heads. YC invests in a lot of companies, but not many in terms of the total number of startups in the world. So lets say that out of 10,000 startups, 1 gets huge (Google, Facebook, etc), 9 get big (Digg-sized). That's 1 in 1000. YC has invested in ~80 startups (call it 100 for easy math sake), which is 1% of the "market". 100 tries at 1 in 10,000 isn't great. Even if you say that YC companies are 10x more likely to succeed (not unreasonable given the training, motivation, selection bias, etc), 100 shots at 1 in 1,000 still isn't that good. Becoming huge requires a lot of things - including luck and timing. No matter how much value YC adds, it can't add those two things. What it can do is increase 1) the odds of success and 2) the expected value of that success (0.1% chance of $1B, 99.9% chance of $0 isn't very appealing). I think pg's goal isn't to create billionaires (although he wouldn't mind). His goal is to help smart hackers solve "the money problem" so they can have the freedom to pursue other productive pursuits they wish. Look at what he, rtm, and tlb have done since they sold Viaweb (Arc, YC, HN, Harvard prof, awesome homemade robots). None of that would have been done if they were working at Google for $110K/yr. Trying to solve "the money problem" in a couple years shows an excess of ambition, especially since programmers earn decent coin in the corporate world.

dennykmiu 19y ago
So basically YC is in the "micro-loan" business??? If so, then I think the original premise of the comment is valid and interesting ... that "YC startups are less ambitious (perhaps by design)".
- pchristensen 19y ago
  No, more like realistic. It's like how every kid wants to be an astronaut, but there are only 100 in the world. Or how every actor wants to be the next Brad Pitt but very few actors (dozens ever?) achieve that level of success. Creating a billion dollar, public company from scratch is something very, very few people have ever done. Getting rich (single or double digit millions) has been done millions of times and so although difficult, is a reasonable goal to pursue. And the $$ is probably the least useful thing YC provides. If I had to guess, I'd say the most useful things they provide are (in this order): (actually turned into its own post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=147984 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=147984
  - dennykmiu 19y ago
    By the way, I am very supportive of YC and I am in awe of what is being done within this community. But I can't help but to make the connection. As it turns out, money is also the least useful commodity that the Microloan Foundation provides. The following is out of their mission statement ... "We provide ... basic business training and continuing guidance ... enables them to develop self-sustainable livelihoods ..." http://www.microloanfoundation.org.uk/about_us.asp http://www.microloanfoundation.org.uk/about_us.asp
    - pchristensen 19y ago
      Well, add connections to the right people and that's about right then. Although the goal is a little higher than sustainable livelihoods.
      - dennykmiu 19y ago
        Thanks for tolerating my twisted sense of humor.
  - kuldeep_kap 19y ago
    Thanks for putting this aptly, it does sound convincing to me and I do agree very much that YC puts startups at very strong position and holds the metaphor correct that it helps a kid become an astronaut. May be we will see this astronaut touch the mars, one day.
    - pchristensen 19y ago
      Not exactly my point, more like encouraging kids to become a pilot instead of an astronaut. You can do everything right and still not become an astronaut, but if you're smart and work hard you can probably become a pilot.
simplegeek 19y ago
His goal is to help smart hackers solve "the money problem" so they can have the freedom to pursue other productive pursuits they wish. Yeah, smart hackers who happen to be in US, what about us ;(
- pchristensen 19y ago
  Poor simplegeek, again a victim of angry downvoters who don't understand emoticons! I'm sure pg would love for US immigration policies to be reformed (can you imagine him licking his chops at getting access to all the world's hackers?), but that sounds like a hard problem that makes you stupid (like programming the Win32 API).
  - simplegeek 19y ago
    No problem about the downvotes ;) But I'm wondering how do they call themselves hackers if they don't understand emoticons ;)
    - kingnothing 19y ago
      I downvoted the comment because it contributed nothing to the discussion at hand and was a poor shot at a one-liner, akin to what reddit is filled with these days.

dennykmiu 19y ago

So basically YC is in the "micro-loan" business??? If so, then I think the original premise of the comment is valid and interesting ... that "YC startups are less ambitious (perhaps by design)".

pchristensen 19y ago
No, more like realistic. It's like how every kid wants to be an astronaut, but there are only 100 in the world. Or how every actor wants to be the next Brad Pitt but very few actors (dozens ever?) achieve that level of success. Creating a billion dollar, public company from scratch is something very, very few people have ever done. Getting rich (single or double digit millions) has been done millions of times and so although difficult, is a reasonable goal to pursue. And the $$ is probably the least useful thing YC provides. If I had to guess, I'd say the most useful things they provide are (in this order): (actually turned into its own post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=147984 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=147984
- dennykmiu 19y ago
  By the way, I am very supportive of YC and I am in awe of what is being done within this community. But I can't help but to make the connection. As it turns out, money is also the least useful commodity that the Microloan Foundation provides. The following is out of their mission statement ... "We provide ... basic business training and continuing guidance ... enables them to develop self-sustainable livelihoods ..." http://www.microloanfoundation.org.uk/about_us.asp http://www.microloanfoundation.org.uk/about_us.asp
  - pchristensen 19y ago
    Well, add connections to the right people and that's about right then. Although the goal is a little higher than sustainable livelihoods.
    - dennykmiu 19y ago
      Thanks for tolerating my twisted sense of humor.
- kuldeep_kap 19y ago
  Thanks for putting this aptly, it does sound convincing to me and I do agree very much that YC puts startups at very strong position and holds the metaphor correct that it helps a kid become an astronaut. May be we will see this astronaut touch the mars, one day.
  - pchristensen 19y ago
    Not exactly my point, more like encouraging kids to become a pilot instead of an astronaut. You can do everything right and still not become an astronaut, but if you're smart and work hard you can probably become a pilot.

simplegeek 19y ago

His goal is to help smart hackers solve "the money problem" so they can have the freedom to pursue other productive pursuits they wish. Yeah, smart hackers who happen to be in US, what about us ;(

pchristensen 19y ago
Poor simplegeek, again a victim of angry downvoters who don't understand emoticons! I'm sure pg would love for US immigration policies to be reformed (can you imagine him licking his chops at getting access to all the world's hackers?), but that sounds like a hard problem that makes you stupid (like programming the Win32 API).
- simplegeek 19y ago
  No problem about the downvotes ;) But I'm wondering how do they call themselves hackers if they don't understand emoticons ;)
  - kingnothing 19y ago
    I downvoted the comment because it contributed nothing to the discussion at hand and was a poor shot at a one-liner, akin to what reddit is filled with these days.