4 ms·

I think this comment at 3:51 PM EST on 10/17/2010 may be the official death knell of structured data. A few years ago, YC would have maintained portfolio data

by portman 16y ago

I think this comment at 3:51 PM EST on 10/17/2010 may be the official death knell of structured data. A few years ago, YC would have maintained portfolio data in a spreadsheet or database. But in today's world, it's probably in a wiki. It might be surprising that an uberhacker like PG doesn't have a custom database of YC startups (which would, by definition, make it trivial to export the "non-secret" stuff). That's why I think this comment speaks volumes about how -- even amongst supernerds who think in a systematic, structured way -- a loose affiliation of hypertext documents is the preferred way to capture and record institutional knowledge. Or maybe it is in a spreadsheet and PG is just lazy. But I doubt it.

Jd 16y ago
spreadsheet != laziness (at least, not necessarily)
- jackowayed 16y ago
  I think his point was that if it's in a spreadsheet, it would only take a few minutes to copy the "name" column, excluding all startups where the "launched" column indicates that they're still in stealth. He wasn't calling using a spreadsheet lazy; he was calling using one and still being unwilling to compile a list of YC startups lazy. Of course, PG is busy enough that I wouldn't blame him anyway (but he does have people working for him to do things like that).
c1sc0 16y ago
Well, in all geekiness, pg could release the structure of 'the list' without revealing the actual data & put an end to all of this structured vs. unstructured speculation. Just sayin'.
pg 16y ago
We do have a custom database. What makes it hard to export data is that we have no representation of what info is public. The database knows only that e.g. startup x has raised a series A round, or has been acquired, but it doesn't know whether those things have been announced yet.
- Sukotto 16y ago
  Would you be willing to release lagged data? 12 months, for example?
  - pg 16y ago
    There's no way to do that, except I suppose by retrieving a copy of the data from backups.
- portman 16y ago
  I believe the only dataset that YC needs to furnish is the official list of alumni. Follow-on rounds, exits, and current status can all be provided by the community. But there seems to be no authoritative dataset that shows which startups participated in YC. But from your comments, I'm guessing that some companies prefer that their mere involvement with YC not be disclosed at all, which makes this a harder task then just periodically exporting the name and URL of every portfolio company. "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." - Structured Data
  - ig1 16y ago
    There is a reliable source of YC alumni list from outside of YC, but I hesitate to mention it as it includes founders of startups that are still in stealth. If anyone needs the list PM me. Although with a bit of thinking I'm sure most people can figure out where to get it from.

by portman 16y ago

Jd 16y ago

spreadsheet != laziness (at least, not necessarily)

jackowayed 16y ago
I think his point was that if it's in a spreadsheet, it would only take a few minutes to copy the "name" column, excluding all startups where the "launched" column indicates that they're still in stealth. He wasn't calling using a spreadsheet lazy; he was calling using one and still being unwilling to compile a list of YC startups lazy. Of course, PG is busy enough that I wouldn't blame him anyway (but he does have people working for him to do things like that).

c1sc0 16y ago

Well, in all geekiness, pg could release the structure of 'the list' without revealing the actual data & put an end to all of this structured vs. unstructured speculation. Just sayin'.

pg 16y ago

We do have a custom database. What makes it hard to export data is that we have no representation of what info is public. The database knows only that e.g. startup x has raised a series A round, or has been acquired, but it doesn't know whether those things have been announced yet.

Sukotto 16y ago
Would you be willing to release lagged data? 12 months, for example?
- pg 16y ago
  There's no way to do that, except I suppose by retrieving a copy of the data from backups.
portman 16y ago
I believe the only dataset that YC needs to furnish is the official list of alumni. Follow-on rounds, exits, and current status can all be provided by the community. But there seems to be no authoritative dataset that shows which startups participated in YC. But from your comments, I'm guessing that some companies prefer that their mere involvement with YC not be disclosed at all, which makes this a harder task then just periodically exporting the name and URL of every portfolio company. "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." - Structured Data
- ig1 16y ago
  There is a reliable source of YC alumni list from outside of YC, but I hesitate to mention it as it includes founders of startups that are still in stealth. If anyone needs the list PM me. Although with a bit of thinking I'm sure most people can figure out where to get it from.