5 ms·

The problem arises when you put these two statements together. Sometimes we hear a key insight or have an interesting thought and seem to forget it instantly. I

The problem arises when you put these two statements together. Sometimes we hear a key insight or have an interesting thought and seem to forget it instantly. In reality, it's often filed away somewhere in our heads, only to be refreshed later when something similar jogs our memory. The true danger for a non-accepted startup is for their ideas to be absorbed into the subconscious memory of the YC advisers, only to bubble up later as a seemingly-original idea or interesting angle for another startup to pursue. This kind of accidental "idea theft" is practically guaranteed.

boucher 15y ago
Honestly, your idea probably isn't that great. Even if it truly is, these things tend to have pretty short half lives. By the time it accidentally made its way to another startup through a YC partner you'll probably have had a lot of opportunity to already act on it. Or someone else will probably already have come up with it.
- BrandonM 15y ago
  I'm not talking about "my idea" (I didn't even apply) or the value of ideas in general. I merely dispute the notion that a YC partner would hear an idea, forget it, and never make use of it again. I've seen it said several times over the last few years by defenders of YC and I don't buy it. The reality is that some people will have genuinely good, novel ideas but not be accepted (perhaps the applicant didn't seem motivated enough). Not using that idea takes conscious effort; "forgetting" the idea is exactly the recipe for inadvertently passing it on to someone else. I'm not contending that it does not make sense to share an idea with YC as part of the application process. Weighing the financial impact of giving away the idea (most would contend this is relatively small) against the potential benefit of getting into YC, submitting an application to YC will often be the rational decision.
  - abbasmehdi 15y ago
    I couldn't agree with you more, Brandon. It happened to me! In college I TA-ed a technology commercialization class (I had never taken it myself). I got to look at all their papers, assignments etc. The next term I took a similar class (entrepreneurship), and was charged with plagiarism by the college!! I was shocked, I never plagiarized! They said there was a lot of work turned in the other class that shared similar ideas. They told me what part of my work was in question. I dug around my old files, and found that I had subconsciously pieced together my entire proposal based on three or four submissions! I didn’t even remember them! However each unique aspect of my proposal was ripped off. The profs liked me, I got off the hook, had to re-do the work. But since then I have known that what we know and what’s in our arsenal are not the same thing always. You know how they say you forget a huge percentage of what you learn every day, I say forget? Maybe. Unable to "come up with it ourselves in the future", unlikely.
  - tomsaffell 15y ago
    Just for argument's sake, let's assume your right - that subconscious idea leakage is unavoidable. Now ask the question, "how did the entrepreneur come up with the idea?". The thoughts any any individual has are a function of their environment (that's the abstracted version of your theory :). There are lots of people having lots of ideas all the time, many with in similar environments as the entrepreneur. The net result is that if the entrepreneur did not allow their idea to 'leak' into YC's consciousness, some other person in YC's environment would do so within a short period of time. So there is no loss to the entrepreneur of exposing the idea to YC, aside from a small chance of a small time shifting of the 'leak' (only if they really are the first person to expose that idea to YC, which is statistically unlikely). Simple version: even if subconscious-idea-leakage exists, the likely cost is vanishingly small, as your idea is unlikely to be new to YC. If it would have been new, then withholding it only buys you time until the next bright person exposes the same idea to YC. If you believed in conscious/active idea leakage the numbers would look different. I feel confident that no such leakage exists - it over estimates the caching capabilities of those involved ;)
    - abbasmehdi 15y ago
      Newton was not the first person to detect gravity, but he took notice. Guess what we did? We wrote a paper about "discovering gravity" and instead of publishing it we passed it on to an assembly line that produces paper-publishing scientists.
  - sbarre 15y ago
    I forget who said this (and I may be mangling the quote too), but you know success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Your ideas aren't really worth anything (I'm generalizing here - if you dream up the cure for cancer, hooray!). It's your ability to execute on and realize those ideas that are worth something.
    - abbasmehdi 15y ago
      Are you saying that YC companies aren't ready to perspire if inspired?

boucher 15y ago

Honestly, your idea probably isn't that great. Even if it truly is, these things tend to have pretty short half lives. By the time it accidentally made its way to another startup through a YC partner you'll probably have had a lot of opportunity to already act on it. Or someone else will probably already have come up with it.

BrandonM 15y ago
I'm not talking about "my idea" (I didn't even apply) or the value of ideas in general. I merely dispute the notion that a YC partner would hear an idea, forget it, and never make use of it again. I've seen it said several times over the last few years by defenders of YC and I don't buy it. The reality is that some people will have genuinely good, novel ideas but not be accepted (perhaps the applicant didn't seem motivated enough). Not using that idea takes conscious effort; "forgetting" the idea is exactly the recipe for inadvertently passing it on to someone else. I'm not contending that it does not make sense to share an idea with YC as part of the application process. Weighing the financial impact of giving away the idea (most would contend this is relatively small) against the potential benefit of getting into YC, submitting an application to YC will often be the rational decision.
- abbasmehdi 15y ago
  I couldn't agree with you more, Brandon. It happened to me! In college I TA-ed a technology commercialization class (I had never taken it myself). I got to look at all their papers, assignments etc. The next term I took a similar class (entrepreneurship), and was charged with plagiarism by the college!! I was shocked, I never plagiarized! They said there was a lot of work turned in the other class that shared similar ideas. They told me what part of my work was in question. I dug around my old files, and found that I had subconsciously pieced together my entire proposal based on three or four submissions! I didn’t even remember them! However each unique aspect of my proposal was ripped off. The profs liked me, I got off the hook, had to re-do the work. But since then I have known that what we know and what’s in our arsenal are not the same thing always. You know how they say you forget a huge percentage of what you learn every day, I say forget? Maybe. Unable to "come up with it ourselves in the future", unlikely.
- tomsaffell 15y ago
  Just for argument's sake, let's assume your right - that subconscious idea leakage is unavoidable. Now ask the question, "how did the entrepreneur come up with the idea?". The thoughts any any individual has are a function of their environment (that's the abstracted version of your theory :). There are lots of people having lots of ideas all the time, many with in similar environments as the entrepreneur. The net result is that if the entrepreneur did not allow their idea to 'leak' into YC's consciousness, some other person in YC's environment would do so within a short period of time. So there is no loss to the entrepreneur of exposing the idea to YC, aside from a small chance of a small time shifting of the 'leak' (only if they really are the first person to expose that idea to YC, which is statistically unlikely). Simple version: even if subconscious-idea-leakage exists, the likely cost is vanishingly small, as your idea is unlikely to be new to YC. If it would have been new, then withholding it only buys you time until the next bright person exposes the same idea to YC. If you believed in conscious/active idea leakage the numbers would look different. I feel confident that no such leakage exists - it over estimates the caching capabilities of those involved ;)
  - abbasmehdi 15y ago
    Newton was not the first person to detect gravity, but he took notice. Guess what we did? We wrote a paper about "discovering gravity" and instead of publishing it we passed it on to an assembly line that produces paper-publishing scientists.
- sbarre 15y ago
  I forget who said this (and I may be mangling the quote too), but you know success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Your ideas aren't really worth anything (I'm generalizing here - if you dream up the cure for cancer, hooray!). It's your ability to execute on and realize those ideas that are worth something.
  - abbasmehdi 15y ago
    Are you saying that YC companies aren't ready to perspire if inspired?