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YC is not very successful in my measures of success. Profitable, yes, but all companies together = less than bitcoin Spawn companies, yes, but total number of
by 1996 7y ago
YC is not very successful in my measures of success.
Profitable, yes, but all companies together = less than bitcoin
Spawn companies, yes, but total number of public companies that IPOed = 2
- soup10 7y agoThis is an incredibly insightful post, YC companies are overhyped CRUD apps mostly. Meanwhile bitcoin and crypto has a a far larger market cap and is reshaping the entire economy. /s
- Kye 7y agoYour measure of success would make a lot of good companies look like failures.
- scarface74 7y agoSo what if we measure success by profitability? Neither Pagerduty nor Dropbox are profitable.
- Kye 7y agoI'm not a capitalist. Profitability is helpful under capitalism for survival, but it's a poor measure of anything other than whether one number is higher than another. YC funds a lot of companies who do cool things that aren't very profitable. I don't know what most of them do, and that's great. So many of them serve niches I haven't even heard of. If they break even making someone's life better, then they're a success. Imagine a world without Stripe or something like it. The current boom in membership services might not have happened. Even VC-juiced Patreon, which I use, handles payments through Stripe. How many successful companies by your measure glue their business together with companies that got their initial funding and guidance from YC?
- scarface74 7y agoSo exactly how do you run a business as an ongoing concern if you continuously lose more money than you make?
- Kye 7y agoThe answer is get bought by an ad-funded behemoth or a VC-funded behemoth or struggle to get by. I didn't say better measures of success were viable under this system. There's a reason I'm not a capitalist. Profit as the only measure of success is how we ended up in this hell world. You're welcome to only care about that, but I prefer to imagine and work toward better futures.
- scarface74 7y agoSo did you give up all worldly goods to live in a monastery and live on the charity of others or do you work for a company that seeks to make money?
- tambourine_man 7y agoThose are not the only choices.
- scarface74 7y agoWell what “choice” did you make to food on your table?
- tambourine_man 7y agoMany. Sometimes I manage to make interesting stuff that people are also willing to pay for. Those are the good ones.
- scarface74 7y agoSo you’re providing stuff that people are willing to pay for - ie capitalism.
- rvnx 7y agoThe thing is, YC is like a school for newbie entrepreneurs, it's not their role as a seed-fund, and you can't expect them to find you an exit. What they offer is to give you some money and tell you how to spend it. That's basically it, all the rest you are on your own, it's your company.
- 1996 7y agoIt is a bit like a social club - say the Lions club of SV. Socially it sounds important and people network and know the brand. But if you ask a random person in the street, they will know what crypto is, they may know dropbox if they are computer litterate, but they won't know YC unless they are a geek. And for those who want to be successful by creating their company, I have strong doubts. Profitable businesses are laughed at as "lifestyle business", and profitability itself is considered less important than network effects. In the end, I'm not surprised companies like wework are happening, where no sane person should invest a dollar. It's like the dot com boom again.