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> Aside from some basic information, all you need to do to apply is submit a one-minute video with answers to these three questions: > What are you interested
by d--b 8y ago
> Aside from some basic information, all you need to do to apply is submit a one-minute video with answers to these three questions:
> What are you interested in and what are you working on?
> What have you done so far that shows your potential for greatness, adjusted for whatever life circumstances you were born into?
> In a best-case scenario, what do you want your obituary to say?
Ugh... what a terrible selection process...
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoI like it. I’m curious what makes you say it’s terrible?
- umeshunni 8y agoIt self selects for people who are great at talking about themselves i.e narcissists.
- vex 8y agoIf you don't have anything interesting to say about yourself or your ambitions, maybe you just aren't that interesting of a person...
- avmich 8y agoBut maybe not?
- doublekill 8y agoI think the intent behind question 3 is to find people who want to work on something that defines their life enough it makes it on their obituary. Selecting for life passion, not temporary dreamers.
- detaro 8y agoBit obvious for that, isn't it? (Although I guess "willing to say whatever they think YC wants to hear" might be part of the filter too, possibly in multiple ways)
- airstrike 8y agoI thought these were all very relevant questions. Fit is everything, and presumably they already have the candidate's resume / portfolio to review, so they're digging into more qualitative stuff
- avmich 8y agoFit of what to what? If it's a fit of candidate to the event, then YC doesn't have information about potential applicants. If it's a fit of somebody already well inside YC circle, then that should be stated - but I don't think YC would limit their intent that much, even though the size (120 people) suggests otherwise. So, no, I don't think this kind of fit is good here.
- andrepd 8y ago1 and 2 seem like good questions, but 3 does look like a bullshit question.
- avmich 8y agoTo me, 1st and 3rd are way more reasonable, than 2nd.
- decebalus1 8y agohttp://n-gate.com/ http://n-gate.com/ is gonna have a field day with this
- simplecomplex 8y agoYeah these questions scream “only 20 year old naive idealists need apply” The obituary question is so insincere and disingenuous.
- pcmaffey 8y agoThese seem poorly phrased, too broad and not connected enough to succinctly answer in 1 minute. How about: 1. What do you want to accomplish with your life's work? 2. What have you accomplished so far to get there? 3. What's next?
- trevyn 8y agoIt’s adorable because initiatives like this are designed to get fresh blood into a system, but the people running the system are afraid of fresh blood, so you get selection criteria like this. :)
- uptown 8y agoReally puts a damper on people who are interested in immortality.
- chrisweekly 8y agothat's actually really funny (still chuckling)
- jpwagner 8y agoi don't think you're imagining the selection process properly. i think to get the right mental model, imagine instead that they only wrote "send a one-minute video and convince us to invite you".
- avmich 8y agoThat exactly how it looks, and this approach seems wrong here. For somebody who can articulate - on video, no less - you have some who can't. Not sure who's more promising.
- dang 8y ago"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- erbium 8y agoPeople eventually get tired of giving useful feedback to unhelpful people. Maybe that's a piece of advice someone should share with sama sama.
- dang 8y agoYou may not owe Sam or any individual better than this, but you do owe quite a bit better to the community you're participating in here.
- erbium 8y agoI hope so.
- lkbm 8y agoThere's no obligation to give useful feedback. Just to not waste people's time with unuseful feedback. We want to maintain the high signal to noise ratio. If you don't feel like providing signal is worth your time, the correct alternative is not to add noise.