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YC invests its own capital, capital accrued through voluntary exchange, and that capital will be freed to more productive ends should they make poor choices. T
by ataggart 16y ago
YC invests its own capital, capital accrued through voluntary exchange, and that capital will be freed to more productive ends should they make poor choices. The application says as much:
"The original motivation for Y Combinator was benevolent, but this is not a charity. If our investments pay off, we can invest in more startups, and if they don't, we can't keep doing this indefinitely."
Contrast that with this Chilean taxpayer-funded scheme.
- daleharvey 16y agoMy point wasnt that they were equivalent investments, just that they were investments and its pretty offensive to suggest that founders would be "mooching" because you dont happen to agree with the basis of the investment.
- ataggart 16y agoIt's mooching precisely due to the nature of the inequivalence. One is the voluntary, contractual exchange of capital for equity; the other is glad-handing politicians giving away money taken from other people in order to foster a pro-business image through anti-market means. Participating in the former is commerce, participating in the latter is rent seeking. If this sort of consequence-free pay day doesn't count as mooching, then nothing does.