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Not to detract from YC's adherence to good principles... but I think this post was written now. Just putting it out there because if seems from your comment tha

by edanm 9y ago

Not to detract from YC's adherence to good principles... but I think this post was written now. Just putting it out there because if seems from your comment that you're assuming these were written in the past, which is what I assumed before reading the article and seeing the "October 2017" date on it. Would love to be told I'm wrong if I'm misunderstanding the publication date... Edit (based on comments): I agree that this accurately summarizes YC's principles as stated over the years. I was just mentioning/wondering whether this specific list was ever put in this form before. I absolutely think this is a good list of principles and it has guided YC, if not explicitly in this form all these years, certainly in spirit.

chaostheory 9y ago
You can say it was written in the past. pg and Jessica have written about YC's philosophy multiple times in greater detail over the years. This post just summarizes all of their writing. imo most of the post is still accurate except for one: "by helping founders to start them." I could be wrong, but I feel today's YC is more about helping companies get from seed to series A and beyond instead of just getting started. Not that this is a bad thing, but it's different from old YC. It's also understandable since the former is much harder to scale and building products is much cheaper today. I think the other big allure for joining YC, aside from the promise of helping you grow, (at least for me) is that it's like a union for startup founders. Unlike other firms, YC won't screw you. In fact, they will fight for you if anyone else attempts to screw you over.
- throwawayknecht 9y ago
  > union for startup founders. "Any industry that still has unions has potential energy that could be released by startups... industries afflicted by unions are sclerotic so have left lots undone."
  - pc86 9y ago
    Typically when you quote someone you attribute the quote to them.
    - throwawayknecht 9y ago
      I felt like the GP's citation was probably enough - "pg and Jessica have written about YC's philosophy multiple times in greater detail over the years." (Graham is regularly quoted on HN without citation, especially in threads about his writing, which is how I classify this one.)
    - tptacek 9y ago
      He's pretty obviously referring to what Graham said, and not favorably (this is one of the more disappointing Paul Graham twitter quotes).
Alex3917 9y ago
These were the principles YC was founded with. That is, in 2005.
pchristensen 9y ago
I followed pg's writing in basically real time since 2005. He wrote basically these principles, said them in interviews, re-told them in talks at Startup School and others, the whole time. This is a concise summary of a decade of intention and actions.
- throwawayknecht 9y ago
  What's in this article has been said before, but not everything said before is in this article. Paul threw a lot of darts, and while they do have clusters, this is just as much him drawing the bullseye. His comments about naughtiness / "what you can't say" / etc., for example, don't play particularly well right now between back-to-back Facebook advertising scandals, and Kalanick, and aren't in here. But he's talked about that as much as many of the things that are in here.
  - philwelch 9y ago
    “What you can’t say” wasn’t even about startups or investing in the first place.
    - konschubert 9y ago
      It also wasn't an invitation to build a company company with a toxic culture.
    - throwawayknecht 9y ago
      It absolutely is. The culmination of the "why" section is basically "because you will run a business better": "In any competitive field, you can win big by seeing things that others daren't. And in every field there are probably heresies few dare utter. Within the US car industry there is a lot of hand-wringing now about declining market share. Yet the cause is so obvious that any observant outsider could explain it in a second: they make bad cars. And they have for so long that by now the US car brands are antibrands—something you'd buy a car despite, not because of. Cadillac stopped being the Cadillac of cars in about 1970. And yet I suspect no one dares say this. [11] Otherwise these companies would have tried to fix the problem."

by edanm 9y ago

chaostheory 9y ago

You can say it was written in the past. pg and Jessica have written about YC's philosophy multiple times in greater detail over the years. This post just summarizes all of their writing. imo most of the post is still accurate except for one: "by helping founders to start them." I could be wrong, but I feel today's YC is more about helping companies get from seed to series A and beyond instead of just getting started. Not that this is a bad thing, but it's different from old YC. It's also understandable since the former is much harder to scale and building products is much cheaper today. I think the other big allure for joining YC, aside from the promise of helping you grow, (at least for me) is that it's like a union for startup founders. Unlike other firms, YC won't screw you. In fact, they will fight for you if anyone else attempts to screw you over.

throwawayknecht 9y ago
> union for startup founders. "Any industry that still has unions has potential energy that could be released by startups... industries afflicted by unions are sclerotic so have left lots undone."
- pc86 9y ago
  Typically when you quote someone you attribute the quote to them.
  - throwawayknecht 9y ago
    I felt like the GP's citation was probably enough - "pg and Jessica have written about YC's philosophy multiple times in greater detail over the years." (Graham is regularly quoted on HN without citation, especially in threads about his writing, which is how I classify this one.)
  - tptacek 9y ago
    He's pretty obviously referring to what Graham said, and not favorably (this is one of the more disappointing Paul Graham twitter quotes).

Alex3917 9y ago

These were the principles YC was founded with. That is, in 2005.

pchristensen 9y ago

I followed pg's writing in basically real time since 2005. He wrote basically these principles, said them in interviews, re-told them in talks at Startup School and others, the whole time. This is a concise summary of a decade of intention and actions.

throwawayknecht 9y ago
What's in this article has been said before, but not everything said before is in this article. Paul threw a lot of darts, and while they do have clusters, this is just as much him drawing the bullseye. His comments about naughtiness / "what you can't say" / etc., for example, don't play particularly well right now between back-to-back Facebook advertising scandals, and Kalanick, and aren't in here. But he's talked about that as much as many of the things that are in here.
- philwelch 9y ago
  “What you can’t say” wasn’t even about startups or investing in the first place.
  - konschubert 9y ago
    It also wasn't an invitation to build a company company with a toxic culture.
  - throwawayknecht 9y ago
    It absolutely is. The culmination of the "why" section is basically "because you will run a business better": "In any competitive field, you can win big by seeing things that others daren't. And in every field there are probably heresies few dare utter. Within the US car industry there is a lot of hand-wringing now about declining market share. Yet the cause is so obvious that any observant outsider could explain it in a second: they make bad cars. And they have for so long that by now the US car brands are antibrands—something you'd buy a car despite, not because of. Cadillac stopped being the Cadillac of cars in about 1970. And yet I suspect no one dares say this. [11] Otherwise these companies would have tried to fix the problem."