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Y Combinator cuts its pro rata stake and makes later investments case-by-case

• jypepin 7y ago
  YC is supposed to be an exclusive program funding companies they believe will work. I find it interesting that they choose to change their investing program instead of changing their application program. Why not keep the program smaller and more exclusive instead?
  • deleted 7y ago
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  • jonathankoren 7y ago
    As the article says, YC is running out of money. They can’t fund the existing companies at the original levels. Shrinking number of companies helps in the long term, but not in the immediate.
    • leroy_masochist 7y ago
      That is true, but I still don't get why this YC announcement wasn't accompanied by an announcement to reduce the class size, which will definitely help in the long run in terms of retaining funds. I do wonder whether this was actually a strategic decision -- if it simply is more profitable to pick winners in deciding whether to participate in follow-on rounds; or perhaps YC would describe it as not picking the companies that don't have a clear path to monetization. In other words, I wonder whether the "we didn't realize how hard it would be to raise the quantum of capital implied by our initial commitment, and also, it turns out we don't like running a big fund" explanation is not the real reason they're doing this; and whether the real reason is in fact that they've realized that being able to exercise discretion in follow-on rights has a tangibly positive effect on fund returns. Which makes sense! The question for YC leadership is whether, in a world in which there were no issues with fundraising or fund operations, they would commit to follow-on participation for every company. If that's the case, and they would like to maintain a YC culture of committing to all future funding rounds for all YC companies, why not fundraise a special purpose vehicle for the funding shortfall to fulfill the commitment that was just abrogated? Give first dibs to current LPs....I bet it would be multiples oversubscribed. With that covered, YC could downscale class size to the point they can continue the full funding commitment using LP funds.
      • jonathankoren 7y ago
        Agree. The blanket investments on later rounds seems like a weird policy regardless of fund size. Some YC participants are going to be weaker than others, and as someone said elsewhere in these comments, YC probably has an idea even before the class is over simply due to having more intimate exposure to the the companies. Unless there was some sort of implicit pump and dump, why bother throwing good money after bad on the underperforming alums?
    • snowmaker 7y ago
      A few points here that might help: 1) It's not quite accurate to say that YC is running out of money, though I could see how the article could read that way. YC is fortunate to be well-funded. However, we saw that if we continued our previous pro rata policy, that that could eventually happen someday, so we made a proactive adjustment well ahead of time. 2) One of the consequences of our old pro rata policy was that it left us without control of how much money we spent. Because we committed to investing in every round of every YC company, our spending was dependent on how many companies raised money, which turned out to be hard to predict. Imagine running a company where your monthly budget could vary by millions of dollars and you wouldn't know until the end of the month how much you'd need! 3) As far as I know, no other investor in the world has a programmatic pro rata policy (what YC tried from 2015-2019, which we are stopping now per the article). The whole idea was a bit of a crazy invention, and while its motivation was good, unfortunately it turned out to have too many drawbacks.
      • frankdenbow 7y ago
        This makes it pretty clear, point #2 is a tough one that I hadn't considered!
      • say_it_as_it_is 7y ago
        YC invested in the long-term success of its startups by participating in every round. Is YC no longer interested in a long term partnership? Seems so. Imagine investing in only one round and pretending that you care about, or even understand, the trials of a startup!
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  • bcx 7y ago
    Automatic Pro-rata was a relatively recent addition to YC. (i.e. when we went through in 2009 it did not exist) It also clearly isn't scaleable without infinite capital. Plus, if you had complete information, why would you ever want to automatically invest any time a company in your portfolio raised money? My guess is the only reason they made it automatic, was to minimize the impact of a negative signal. It sounds like they hope the new changes will still minimize that signal.
    • crazypyro 7y ago
      If anything, the new changes will be a huge signal (YC doesn't think this company is one of its most valuable investment opportunities), except in this case, outside investors without insider information will be the ones left holding the hot potato.
    • s17n 7y ago
      If LP's are willing to fund automatic pro-rata it's pretty clearly in YC's interests to take them up on it. Apparently that used to be the case but now it's not.
      • Judgmentality 7y ago
        > If LP's are willing to fund automatic pro-rata it's pretty clearly in YC's interests to take them up on it. This assumes that automatic pro-rata is a winning investment strategy. YC's goal ultimately is to turn money into more money, or at least that's (almost certainly) the most significant metric of success for them.
  • nogabebop23 7y ago
    Because they want to have their cake and eat it too. YC has followed a similar trajectory to many successful tech innovations. A novel approach that has aligned goals with their clients, strong & visible leadership, a huge emerging market, an appetite for a new approach - we're now essentially 2 generations of leadership removed from PG & co and while I have no doubt the people in charge are very smart and good at VC'ing, YC is now a totally different beast from 10+ years ago. It's motivations, goals and practices have changed and I have no doubt the next incarnation will come along and eat their lunch too.
    • sillysaurusx 7y ago
      It's astonishing how quickly it happened, too. People underestimate the effect of a decade, but a decade feels so short. I still remember YC startup school in 2007-ish.
    • Harj 7y ago
      In what ways does it seems the motivations and goals have changed? I’m particularly interested in this as I just rejoined YC as a partner after running a startup for five years. I first joined as a partner 10 years ago.
      • felipellrocha 7y ago
        For starters, back in the day, YC was mostly seen as a place anyone could get funding and build a great company whether or not they had a great network. Nowadays, it seems more and more like having that network is the primary thing that gets you in YC. (Not a criticism, and I can see the merits of that choice. But, when I talk to my friends about YC that usually comes up.)
        • chii 7y ago
          > YC was mostly seen as a place anyone could get funding and build a great company whether or not they had a great network. that's likely because before the success, there was no way anyone with the network would come to YC as a first port of call. And with technical partners able to judge the incoming seed company on the merits the founders themselves, YC managed to pick the successful ones (mostly - obviously there are failures). When the success of YC's model became so prominent that it is a culture all on its own, the technical partners no longer work the same way as the old way. I don't think it's possible. So network, and human capital is used as a filter, rather than deal with the massive amounts of no-name people.
  • momokoko 7y ago
    The reason for the original idea was because if YC invested in a later round, or chose not to, that was a huge signal to the other investors. Most companies at the time could not raise later rounds if they were not promising. But, since YC was not providing any additional signal by investing in everyone, the original signal carried so much weight that even obviously failing companies so keep raising rounds based upon the original YC signal. So the "hack" about letting the market guide YC's later rounds was foiled by the same reason they came up with it in the first place. I personally enjoy the irony of it.
  • nelsonic 7y ago
    Arguably YC is not meant to be exclusive at all. The idea is to give as many promising people (and products) as possible a chance to get started who might not otherwise have the opportunity. Their application process is still rigorous and weeds out 95%+. Lowering their pro rata stake will only serve to increase applications from people who thought 7% was too high.
• tptacek 7y ago
  Refusing to commit either way until a lead investor term sheet happens seems like a clean way to mitigate the signaling risk. What am I missing about that? If that works, couldn't YC have always picked and chosen investments to follow on with?
  • daniel_levine 7y ago
    Overall, it's a solid solution. Some hiccups: - It's common for new investors to ask about pro rata ahead of writing a term sheet (can impact the investment case/deal). - Especially in difficult times, new investors might invest under the condition that existing investors do their pro rata.
    • sroussey 7y ago
      Some investors don’t want previous investors to exercise their pro-rata. Depends.
    • tyre 7y ago
      investors who act conditionally on other investors are the worst (but still are the majority so you have to account for them) as you said pro-rata can't be after the fact. The company needs to know how much equity it is selling and can't allocate to new investors without knowing what the company has available
      • daniel_levine 7y ago
        Agreed that they're the worst, and agreed that they are an unfortunate reality
    • mrkurt 7y ago
      Hopefully YC has enough power to slap firms around if they try and slip a contingency on YC pro rata into a term sheet.
      • daniel_levine 7y ago
• vikramkr 7y ago
  Is waiting to see a term sheet from a lead investor enough of a move to mitigate concerns about optics? I'm not too familiar with the series A process - is the round basically over by that point? Or is there still work to do in assembling the rest of the syndicate or an opportunity for the term sheet to be revoked? It seems like no matter what, the continuing desire of an early investor to participate on follow on rounds is a strong signal to future investors about the company (especially if it's a prominent early investor like YC) - and there will be a lot of incentive to acquire that sort of information before the funding round is finalized.
• jayzalowitz 7y ago
  This has major signaling issues. That being said I understand it.
• lifeisstillgood 7y ago
  So, and I may have misunderstood, a company can now get into YC, but might not be invested in by YC? So its a two tier system. We like you gorgeous, but not enough to sleep with you (sorry, invest in you). Why not just pick the ones you will sleep with (sorry invest in). Why have the half way signal? If investors don't like investing pro-rata, that's not because they don't like making money - its because they think YC is not picking all winners. Isn't that the problem? Competition? Edit: Perhaps I need to understand raising finance better. But, re-reading the announcement as quoted, it still seems there is a two-tier system, and it looks to me that YC will have placed a bullseye on its shirt - if they will only pick 1/3 of companies, then any investor must assume YC has some extra information in the market for lemons - in which case the simple solution is just wait for YC to invest / SAFE / whatever, and invest in that. If a YC company tries to raise a round without a letter from YC, it just won't get anything ... ? Instead of every investor now either making its own decisions, they just wait for YC to signal its own special knowledge. I would like to see how many companies close a round without YC from now on?
  • daniel_levine 7y ago
    I believe this is related to follow-on investments from YC after the initial investment
    • lifeisstillgood 7y ago
      But that does not matter - YC will always be assumed to know something extra than other investors. They will have seen something at the weekly dinner, whatever. So YC's decisions will impact meaningfully on the ability to raise subsequent rounds. That probably was true for series B anyway, but now its true at the priced seed round. I get it - its silly to throw gobs of money at companies that will fold next week, especially if you know they will. But ...
      • travisjungroth 7y ago
        It does matter because you misunderstood (like your first sentence in your first comment said). Every company that gets into a YC batch is still invested in by YC. You cannot be in YC without being invested in by YC. What's changing is the follow-on investments are not automatic. It used to be they would automatically exercise their right to maintain their 7% stake by investing more. Now they're going to maintain a smaller stake, and it's not going to be for every company. Only about 1/3rd of them.
• readams 7y ago
  Going to 4% makes YC much more attractive. At 7% it's really hard to justify, though even at 4% for such a small investment it may be a hard pill to swallow for founders who aren't right out of college.
  • daniel_levine 7y ago
    I believe YC is still taking an initial stake of 7%, the 4% corresponds to pro ratas and follow on deals. I think the article just messed that up
    • anticsapp 7y ago
      Yeah, I think you're right, I had trouble following the article.
  • threeseed 7y ago
    Especially these days where the sophistication and progress of companies look to be on a different level as each year passes. I know talking to pre-seed and seed investors that they expect you to have enough data to be able to quantify whether people really love your product. At that point you basically have customers and traction and so $150k for 7% looks like a major negative than a positive.
    • quickthrower2 7y ago
      For math arguments sake let's assume YC offers no value other than the cash? Would you say such companies are worth more the $2M on average?
      • exolymph 7y ago
        Median or mean?
        • quickthrower2 7y ago
          I meant mean.
• quaquaqua1 7y ago
  ``` “In addition, processing hundreds of follow-on rounds per year has created significant operational complexities for YC that we did not anticipate. Said simply, investing in every round for every YC company requires more capital than we want to raise and manage. We always tell startups to stay small and manage their budgets carefully. In this instance, we failed to follow our own advice.” ``` Is picking winners difficult? Or is it that the economy has a hard cap on how many winners will occur every year?
  • goatherders 7y ago
    Both. YC batches are littered with companies that disappeared. That's not a criticism of YC, that's reality.
    • quaquaqua1 7y ago
      I completely agree. But I am curious as to why the economy only allows a certain number of winners. As in, why do 90% fail? Additionally, if you fund 100% of companies equally, if 1 becomes FB and 99 become nothing, dont the winnings from FB pay for the losses of the 99?
      • threeseed 7y ago
        1) It has nothing to do with the economy and everything to do with whether people love your product and you have product-market fit. Getting to that point takes time and mostly companies run out of money before they get there. 2) Yes that is how VC works.
        • quaquaqua1 7y ago
          With regard to 2), if that's indeed how VC works, then YC just needs to fund every company. There's no need to do vetting if you are guaranteed to fund the next FB and the earnings will outweigh all operational expenditure on non-FBs. 1) People would definitely love a machine that prints gourmet food for them in their house, but it's really difficult to do that. It's so difficult that the amount of money it would take to make such a machine is pronably greater than all of the money in the world. This is what I mean by "the economy has a cap on the number of new ideas that can be funded"
• threeseed 7y ago
  I am actually surprised they were doing this at all. They have no obligation to support the startup beyond the initial 7% investment more so for the Series A. Companies who can't stand on their own two feet and raise money on their own simply don't deserve to survive. I actually wish YC would take it a step further and offer an option where they don't invest any money at all. You participate in the accelerator, have access to their resources, are part of the alumni but simply don't accept the $150k and 7% equity dilution.
  • goatherders 7y ago
    YC is a for profit entity. Why would they offer a free cup of coffee much less access to the resources and network if they aren't getting anything out of it? I like YC and enjoy HN, but the altruism comes after the profit (as it should).
    • threeseed 7y ago
      I should have clarified. I meant an option where they take some fraction of 7%. Not sure whether this is necessarily a great deal for YC or not. Depends how cheaply they can raise the $150k they need for each company in each batch. I just know for many startups like mine $150k is basically worthless. It's not enough to hire and you just stay somewhere cheaper and commute into YC for the program.
      • anticsapp 7y ago
        You're right. A no investment incubator would kind of suck but there are pay to play incubators?! Reverse investing? Makes no sense, but your scenario would be better than that. Nothing wrong with a Harvard scholarship.
        • travisjungroth 7y ago
          There are few government run 0% equity accelerators. Start-Up Chile gives $35k in reimbursed expenses and six months of office space + mentorship. Their hope is you stay in Chile and they make it back in taxes.
• timavr 7y ago
  The problem here is that everyone will know if YC will follow up or not during the process. Investing is game of information. If an investor can’t figure out who else will be on the cap table, they have much bigger problem. The way it is going to go down is that investor during meeting will ask if founders think YC is in that round. If founders say something along the lines of YC decides after term sheet, it basically means no. In the end , the overall result is that less YC companies will raise, but the good once still will, but it was always the case.
  • FanaHOVA 7y ago
    If they are only taking pro rata, it has to be post term sheet. No reason why YC would commit early.
  • smallgovt 7y ago
    > If founders say something along the lines of YC decides after term sheet, it basically means no. Why would it basically mean no? It seems like the new policy makes the answer "Maybe, and there's no way to find out until a lead investor has signed on the dotted line".
    • dahdum 7y ago
      If you think highly of YC's investment prowess signing on a deal and then watching them bow out is a red flag.
      • ChuckMcM 7y ago
        That would be the biggest challenge I would think. When ever I've been involved in funding rounds the investors are always trying to eek out every possible bit of signalling they can.
    • crazypyro 7y ago
      Well now every rational investor must reduce the value of YC's brand being attached to a company. If YC only invests in X% of YC companies, there must be some Y% discount to the YC brand as a whole, no? If there's a 100% chance YC takes their pro rata stake, then the YC brand is more valuable.
• xxpor 7y ago
  Other than "have a shitload of money", how does one become an LP in a YC fund?
  • jonwalch 7y ago
    Found a successful company, but I suppose that is also "have a shit load of money".
  • jedberg 7y ago
    Work for YC. Everyone gets a chance to buy in (I think).
• brenden2 7y ago
  I don't think there's any opportunity anymore. The market is super saturated, capital has dried up, and only insiders have a shot at funding. The cards are stacked against outsiders. I've lost hope on the Silicon Valley dream and decided to just use my big brain to make money in public markets, which is surprisingly easy given how much effort the government puts into pumping up the stock market. I used to think YC was great, I applied several times, but YC doesn't really represent what it used to anymore (to me at least). Just my 2 cents.
  • chuhnk 7y ago
    The truest words spoken here today.
    • brenden2 7y ago
      Ha, thanks! I try to always stay 100% honest and true to myself and others.
  • Swizec 7y ago
    As an outside insider (live and work here but haven’t gotten funding directly ever), here’s my question: Do you even need funding? It’s never been this easy to start a thing. Build stuff, get some users, see how much they pay. Then go from there. Most funded startups these days just feel unnecessarily bloated. Over engineered, over staffed, building run-of-the-mill boring stuff you could slap together in a couple afternoons using 3rd party tools and some glue.
    • brenden2 7y ago
      It's not the money itself that matters, it's the social proof. Since I personally have no brand, and nobody knows who I am, they won't take a chance on me. Even with lots of money, nobody is going to join a startup or give you the time of day. Admittedly you can do some marketing to change this, but that's not my area of expertise and not something I'm good at (I'm a technical person and a good natural leader). It doesn't really matter that I've done well on my own, or that I've been privileged enough to work at a few successful companies. You need either a lot of Twitter followers or a big name VC backing you before anyone will take you seriously.
• ML_Clockwise 7y ago
  I'm assuming this won't change how YC runs their continuity fund?..
• euix 7y ago
  I am having thinking about doing a startup for a while, whatever trips me up is how to go about acquiring customers short of cold calling. Are incubators helpful in introducing you to potential clients? Especially if your product is b2b or enterprise, having worked in large corporate enterprises I can't imagine how it works to get your foot in the door.
  • robinduckett 7y ago
    It's called advertising. You have to spend money to make money. No one cold called you about a pair of Nikes and yet you know exactly what I'm talking about.
    • gbear605 7y ago
      Advertising to businesses for a b2b startup is very different from advertising to consumers. Perhaps all it is is having targeted ads for company management, but its not a trivial difference.
  • sdan 7y ago
    It's a connections game. I remember last year I was trying to get an internship in an industry where I literally knew no one. So I sent 100-200 personalized emails throughout a 4 month period to every single person I could find in the space. Eventually I got one and made a ton of connections just with that alone. Now I'm also doing a startup and am talking with some big corporations just with getting to the right people and climbing my way to the top to sell my product. Tyler Bosemany did a great talk about how to sell, i'd reccomend you watch it.
    • aspenmayer 7y ago
      Is this the talk? Thanks for the recommendation, I forgot I was even subbed to the Y Combinator YouTube page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZi4kTJG-LE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZi4kTJG-LE
      • 7y ago
• DrNuke 7y ago
  It does not change much for the two very ends of the spectrum, that is the solo-hero bootstrapping from scratch and the moonshots however needing a lot of cash... while anything in the middle gets squeezed if not profitable on its own. Good to me as an observer: less serialization and templates, more unorthodox and fun.
• crazypyro 7y ago
  So now if you are a YC company and YC declines to invest, every other investor loses out. Does this not strongly dilute the power of being in YC? Seems nuts to me. Why not just shrink the number of incoming companies?
  • mattmireles 7y ago
    No, the opposite. Every other investor wins because they can invest more $$$ and own a bigger % of the company. Before, YC had a right to maintain its 7% stake, leaving less room for new investors to acquire ownership.
    • chii 7y ago
      if YC doesn't invest, won't that be a signal that they don't believe the 7% is worth it? it makes it hard for startups that would need more money to prove their profitability to lose out on new rounds, or have to give up more for those rounds (as investors will need better incentive to invest without the YC signal).
• stevespang 7y ago
  "More picky"
• xwdv 7y ago
  This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think YC’s days are numbered, as are many other startup accelerators, and this is just another sign. The model is breaking down and isn’t really up to date with the way startups develop these days. And with the raging bull market of the 2010s winding down, it’s clearly looking like the end of an era. Without another entrepreneurship catalyst (in the early 2010s it was the rise of mobile app markets and social media) we are unlikely to see the return of the accelerator model in its full glory.
• sudosteph 7y ago
  I'll disagree with some of the other comments here and say I'm very happy that YC made this change instead of shrinking class size. YC is still one of the most exclusive programs around, and always will be. Anyone who has the privilege of attending will always have an advantage over those who don't - even if it's just because they'll learn from the best and make great connections. Follow on funding is great, but with how inflated some series A valuations have been lately - it's just too costly to the core YC program to keep doing that type of funding indiscriminately. I'm sure this was a difficult decision to make, but it feels consistent with the YC mission. And it seems like the right thing to do.
• new_realist 7y ago
  YC was always about exploiting the startup mystique by creating a sweat shop of fruit fly startups, some of which will make it big by sheer dumb luck. It’s the index fund of the startup scene, but naive new grads who can’t get audiences with first-tier VC firms still fall for it.
  • mikeg8 7y ago
    So how many times has your application been rejected?
  • gowld 7y ago
    Have any of the founders that made it big and exited rich turned around and said they feel ripped off by YC?
    • landon32 7y ago
      Ask the ones who didn't make it big too. All my friends and batch mates who have done it have good things to say!
    • skolsuper 7y ago
      How many lottery winners feel ripped off by the lottery? Not agreeing with the GP comment but your question is just silly
  • dannyw 7y ago
    Considering how well index funds perform in practice, even if your description was correct it sounds like a Great Thing.
  • tomhoward 7y ago
    "Sheer dumb luck" doesn't produce home-run successful companies like Stripe, Airbnb and Twitch. Companies can get lucky and look successful for a while, but they crash and burn just as fast. YC only succeeds if they invest in the home-run companies. The lucky, flash-in-the-pan companies don't provide the returns YC needs.
• mattmireles 7y ago
  Is YC cutting prices? Is the new YC deal $150k for 4%? The article suggests that YC is reducing its stake to 4%, however the quotes presented don’t seem to be really saying that. I’m not sure if this story is a technical announcement about how they handle pro rata, or an updated version of the YC Deal for newly admitted startups?
  • snowmaker 7y ago
    No, this is a smaller and more technical change. YC's standard deal ($150K for 7%) isn't changing. This is about how we handle pro rata investments.
• joshuakelly 7y ago
  The pro rata was never guaranteed anyways, isn't the the nature of a pro rata? It's an option to act.
• sandGorgon 7y ago
  My prediction here is that for natural and totally understandable reasons, it will be hard to gauge the investability of international companies vs US startups. So over a period of time, we might see prorata moving to US startups fairly naturally . Given the other issues around travel in a post-COVID world, this will might to a return to US centric portfolio allocation.
• hibbelig 7y ago
  The hero image shows a person, but the article doesn't say who that is.
  • dlubarov 7y ago
    Yeah that's a bit odd. It's Michael Seibel, YC's CEO.
• soniman 7y ago
  This raises the question, why didn't AirBNB and Stripe go public when the market was ready? Looks like the strategy of staying private for longer isn't really working out for anybody.
  • stingraycharles 7y ago
    From what I saw in the news, it doesn’t appear Stripe has had any problems attracting funding without going public.
    • soniman 7y ago
      AirBNB raised $1B and Stripe $600M. Just a guess but terms would've been MUCH better if they'd done it in the stock market. Really puzzling why they didn't go public when markets were ripe, now YC is paying the price.
      • serverQuestion 7y ago
        I wouldn't be surprised that companies like Stripe arrive at a point where they want fewer investors controlling their company. When you are Stripe big, what does YC do for you that you can't do with your own money printing machine? Aside from cash, there must be other advantages to having investors.
• quezzle 7y ago
  There used to be prestige, mystique, exclusivity, and desirability associated with being a YC company. I kinda feel now it’s just become a numbers game machine.... back as many as possible, some will win. There doesn’t see anything special about the investors or the investors in this model, it’s just about churning out as many companies as possible and playing the numbers. Am I right or being overly cynical?
  • verdverm 7y ago
    I don't think you are off base here. This seems like an iteration to improve this aspect and open the timeline to rolling admissions
  • im3w1l 7y ago
    Isn't this just natural? That companies start off with the best opportunities and as they scale up they go after more and more marginal opportunities.
  • foobiekr 7y ago
    I first heard YC described that way in 2009 and I think that’s pretty much been their model all along. Before 2010 they were routinely described as “throwing spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.”
  • gbronner 7y ago
    I got the sense that the personal and network support given initially might have been worth 7% of the company (especially for founders who needed that kind of advising), but the partners' ability to add value has gone down recently, making follow-on investments less likely to succeed.
• say_it_as_it_is 7y ago
  This could be a result of a failed investment strategy by YC or insufficient interest by investors to raise additional investment for new funding. I sincerely hope that it is the latter and not the former. The latter can be addressed far easier. In 2017, it was announced that YC was trying to raise a Billion dollar fund. How did fundraising turn out?
• ausjke 7y ago
  Can someone put this whole piece into plain English, e.g. we're going to fund less startups? or no more 150K for 7%, now it's 100K for 4% or something like that in the first paragraph? I have no idea about "pro rata stake", or what "case-by-case" exactly different from what it has been doing.
• ptrenko 7y ago
  YC is nothing like it once was. PG was the man. PG was high priest of what was once a secretive religion for people who liked productizing tech. Over the years its become just another Sandhill VC firm. I haven't heard of any big companies out of YC recently. Is it because PG left and the culture changed?
• naveen99 7y ago
  It’ll be nice when startinvest launches their alternative trading system for crowdfunded startups.