9 ms·
YC is a cult
- mattmaroon 18y agoHilarious. Blatant linkbait, but hilarious. Clearly he does not know many actual participants. Working 18 hour days for two months is not the norm.
- unalone 18y agoYeah. I'm not a participant, but I'll be applying in the future, and from the descriptions I've heard from people that's really not what the program is all about.
- mattmaroon 18y agoWill you be applying for the next batch? Come on in and drink the Kool-Aid. Or, more accurately, the Goya.
- unalone 18y agoI'm a college student, so when I apply it will probably be for one of the summer rounds. While I'm fine with abandoning college for a bit to work on something if it picks up steam, I don't want to miss a semester actually beginning the project. Or does that not make sense with YC? I already feel like a newbie, though. I haven't the faintest idea what Goya is.
- mattmaroon 18y agoIt doesn't really make sense with startups in general. You can't tell much after the two months or so before you have to decide on going back to school. You're lucky to just launch something by then, let alone iterate, let usage define your future, seek funding, etc. I'd be more inclined to just finish school and then do it. And it's fruit juice.
- unalone 18y agoAh, gotcha. I don't know. On the one hand, I feel like applying and really seeing where this idea of mine can go. On the other, I'm not certain if it's the best idea, to want to test my concepts out so early. But four years' wait right now seems like pretty awfully long.
- mattmaroon 18y agoCan you take a year off of school? I feel like a very large number of startup founders that ended up successful probably would not have seen much evidence that that would happen within two or three months.
- unalone 18y agoI can, yeah. I would be completely willing to do that, too. At the same time, I still wouldn't want to miss my first two semesters. And I don't think there's much of a loss to be had waiting an extra few months.
- maximilian 18y agoIts extremely delicious tropical fruit juice in flavors like Mango and Peach that has a heavenly mouthfeel and drinks way too fast. "Fruit juice" alludes to like welches or something similar.
- unalone 18y agoWow. This Y Combinator thing suddenly seems even more tempting.
- parker 18y agoYeah, the 18 hour days reference was simply to imply that starting a startup is a full-time, front-of-mind undertaking. I think it's safe to say that this guy took it a bit out of context.
- pdubroy 18y agoI think the article is a troll, but I don't think you can fault him for the way he interpreted that sentence. You said you've been working 18 hours a day, and then you implied that the only time you took off was to watch a movie now and then. I interpreted the statement literally too.
- parker 18y agoYou can check out my response on my blog for the clarification. I suppose it was a bit awkwardly worded at first.
- danielharan 18y agoThank you :) So, what exactly is the norm? What we hear from blog entries and the like is that you're all working from the time you get up to the time you fall asleep clutching your laptops.
- adrianwaj 18y agoCults are defined in other ways too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult#Definition_according_to_secular_opposition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult#Definition_according_to_se... "A cult is a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g. isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of [consequences of] leaving it, etc) designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community." For and exhaustive list, see here: http://rickross.com/sg_alpha.html http://rickross.com/sg_alpha.html This is no laughing matter. People's lives are ruined by cults, and even if taken away from a cult, their effects linger.
- danielharan 18y ago"Unethically manipulative"!? WTF is that?
- stcredzero 18y agoI think that a mother using reverse psychology to motivate her child to do her homework is "ethically manipulative." I think a national leader using lies to lead his country into war is unethically manipulative. I don't yet have a formula for it though.
- mattmaroon 18y agoI don't like that formula, because in both cases the manipulator would think it's for their own good. It's too subjective.
- dshah 18y agoHe got at least one thing wrong: YC folks don't work hard to make money. Many of them work really hard, but I don't think it's to make money.
- SwellJoe 18y agoSometimes it's to make money.
- alaskamiller 18y agoPretty sure it's for the money.
- mattmaroon 18y agoI did it for the cheese. The Boston batch gets some pretty good stuff.
- alaskamiller 18y agoI would like to try podolico.
- mattmaroon 18y agoI've heard it's not worth the money.
- kajecounterhack 18y agoMoney is what we use to buy bread, iphones and laptops. Hacking, we do for fun and enjoyment. But also to buy bread, iphones and laptops. Well, its all good.
- aneesh 18y agoIt's not just for the money, I agree. But the money is surely a part of it. Imagine if they gave you the same chance to "change the world", but said, we'll keep 90% of your equity.
- YuriNiyazov 18y agoFirst there was "All YC startups produce unoriginal second-rate stuff" (unfortunately, I don't have the link handy). Now there's this. It is impressive how YC-hate is evolving.
- Hexstream 18y agoIf you plot its success and the hate it receives on a graph I think you'll see a strong correlation.
- william42 18y agoIf you've read http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/08/physics_of_pass.html http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/0... you wouldn't be surprised at that.
- sutro 18y agoDoes YC require its participants to practice polygamy? I checked the FAQ but this wasn't covered.
- whycombinator 18y agoIf you love what you do and are good at it, programming is only somewhat more mentally exhausting than playing computer games all day (and I do relatively complicated stuff: algorithms and numerical math in C++ and ML - don't ask about details, I like my relative anonymity). The "burnout" happens when there is no reward in sight, or worse: you work hard for many months, produce good results, then your PHB shits on them for political reasons (so you wouldn't get too stuck up), or is just too stupid to appreciate your work. I'm not a web programmer, and I tend to be very skeptical of much of what PG writes (especially the last few years), but I think independent enterprise is the way to go for the more gifted and hard-working people.
- richcollins 18y agoThere is some evidence that your ability to make good decisions is depleted as you make decisions: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=tough-choices-how-making http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=tough-choices-how-making (No matter how fun the act of decision making is)
- whycombinator 18y agoThat's pretty interesting. I find the cube scary to look at, for some reason. Makes it hard to read the text.
- azharcs 18y agoI am surely going to be a part of this cult.
- pc 18y ago- People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations; - Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized; - They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic; [sic] - They get a new identity based on the group; - They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled. To the extent that YC fits this definition, so does any intense and ambitious collaboration. Take the Manhattan Project, the Apollo missions, and some parts of the Human Genome Project -- they all fit criteria 1, 2, 4, and the first part of 5 to a much greater extent than YC ever does. So it looks like we have a broken test function. (Though perhaps it's just missing a type-check -- maybe it's only supposed to be applied to religions.)
- kschrader 18y agoCome on now, let's not go overboard here and compare YC to the Manhattan Project or Apollo missions. Doing a start-up is hard work, but we're talking about a slightly different scale here.
- pc 18y agoWhere did I compare them? My comment just pointed out that the definition of a cult used in the blog post falls down badly when applied to famous successful projects (which we can presumably agree were not cults), and is therefore either being misused or broken.
- kschrader 18y agoHe's using the accepted psychological definition of a cult. The reference is right there in the post.
- theoneill 18y agoHardly. Did you try following the link in the post? The link text says "textbook definition of a cult," but it's just a link to the Wikipedia article. This list is one of several that appear in the article, and judging from the multiple citations it is an amalgam created from several different sources.
- SwellJoe 18y agoLinkbait, and not even original. People were calling pg a cult leader years ago.
- knarf 18y agoI, for one, welcome our new YC overlords
- jrockway 18y agoI am opinionated, concerned about environmental issues ... surrounding software and data access. We've got to stop dumping the used ones and zeros into the oceans! It's melting the ice caps!
- rbanffy 18y ago"We've got to stop dumping the used ones and zeros into the oceans! It's melting the ice caps!" Really, it's the ones. It's a well known fact ones have more energy than zeros. We should right now start dumping more zeros to cool down the oceans. If we do it quickly enough, we may stop global warming. We should also switch to other binary architectures as x86 code has a one-to-zero ratio that exceeds 1.
- rokhayakebe 18y agoAnd several years ago the same thing was said about Schools.
- MaysonL 18y agoWith much more justification.
- eugenejen 18y agoSo what? I sometime doubt why I've been living my life most of time by ignoring mainstream culture, being isolated from my relatives, with a few really good friends far below Dunbar's number that will help each other without questions, working 60 to 80 hours on non leisure stuffs, and living in the opposite side of the earth to my birth place since I was 15. I even joined a quasi-cult organization once to see how does it work. It has been a quarter of century and I love it. Because I do what I want to hack in my life and I learn from PG that beside that I also need to figure how to make something that people want! And I still have some chance to know some very attractive females and keeping myself fit. At least I feel much better now because I know I can survive under inhuman conditions so I just need to persist till I get my share of glory. Of course I may die tomorrow but I didn't live a life that feel pressure from peers, pointing hair boss and failed marriages.
- mtts 18y agoIt's responses like these that at the very least do very little to disprove the author's point. Of course YC is not a cult and PG is not a cult leader, but some people here do seem to treat them as such. Some of the questions asked here (like the "Is 40 years too old to start a startup" one alluded to in the original article) and some of the material posted here (like the ramblings of the poor college kid who thought being glued to a computer for 80 hours a week was a fulfilling existence) indicate that PG's message "running a startup is one of the most rewarding things you can do in your life" gets distorted in some people's minds to "running a startup is the only thing in your life that's worthwhile to do". The irony, of course, is that PG himself, in his writings, demonstrates an interest in a lot of other things besides web start ups. It's not only PG who seems to have an unusually broad world view, however. The same holds true for a large number of the people who post here. Unfortunately, a small number of people such as yourself seem to overlook that and reduce the message (if there is such a thing, which I doubt) to something ridiculous. The author definitely has a point there.
- eugenejen 18y agoHmm, Did I say I glue myself 60 to 80 hours in front of computers for 25 years? I included my time thinking over ideas as work, reading books as work, congregation in cult as work. I even analyse strategic consequences of my friends relationship problems as logic and psychology exercises in work. It is really inhuman conditions because my mind has to run all the time to challenge itself without paycheck. I see a big difference is most people thinking work/learning as slavery to the employers/teacher. So leisure time is classified as the time to avoid their work/learning. While you are working for yourself, everything you do in your life is work and learning. But you are right that I don't care what the author said and have no intent to disprove what he wrote. I just enjoy my own way of living.
- zenspider 18y agoThe best definition of a cult that I've heard was from some guy on NPR (no clue who, I was driving and came in mid-program)... he said, quite simply, that a cult is any organization who's ulterior motive is to have sex with minors. I'm sure there are counter-examples, but I think it fits pretty well.
- mattmaroon 18y agoBy that definition, I know a lot of guys who are cults.
- khafra 18y agoI think it's different when that's the overt motive.
- abiek 18y agoThe solution is to apply the YC principles that fit for you and still live your life and to not get overly caught up in the message and let it block out outside reasoning.
- fallentimes 18y agoThis guy is presumptuous, ill informed and appears to have a thing for blanket statements. Hi, I'm currently in YC for the summer. Although I certainly don't speak for everyone in YC, I think I'm somewhat more qualified than the author who has never been in the program and who apparently receives his information from blog posts and hearsay. Most of his assertions apply to startups or any intense forms of collaboration (as PC noted) in general. Although we work a significant amount of hours, it's not as if we never get out. I've gotten to know many of the other cofounders very well outside of YC. Additionally, is it really work if you enjoy what you're doing? I rather work 60-80 hours per week on something I like that challenges me, than 40 hours per week on something I'm disinterested in. As for the pure speculative, link-baiting stuff: "Young, impressionable and inexperienced entrepreneurs are willing to sacrifice their health, happiness and creativity while pursuing wealth." This is the second company I've started. It's my business partner's second as well. Many of the founders in YC have worked at startups or run their own businesses before. Happiness/Creativity? I went from working a 9-7 office job I wasn't interested in to working on my dream project. Health? Due to increased schedule flexibility, I've actually been able to exercise more and eat better. I've lost a good 5 lbs. "They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic..." You should have been at my team's first meeting; it was like this, but the opposite. Informal founder feedback sessions have been similar. The carebear environment the author described wouldn't work anyway - the VCs would destroy us. "They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled." Isolation? My parents just visited this past weekend. I still keep in touch with all of my friends even if many of them wear the hat of beta tester. If anything, I've been able to keep in _better_ touch with my friends because they're all curious about what I'm working on. Talking about a startup is a lot more fun than talking about a 9-5 or 9-7 for that matter. Without YC I'd still be at my same old job trying to work on our startup on the side. This is not only difficult to do, but very slow as well. YC essentially moved everything up a year or two and allowed us to work on what we love while being surrounded with a bunch of brilliant people to bounce ideas off of and anxious investors to present to. What more could two cofounders originally from Ohio ask for?
- alnayyir 18y agoFellow Ohioan (still there) here. Want to work independently in some capacity or another on a programming project but I don't really seem to be brimming with ideas. Any particular ways you utilize to be inspired for project ideas?
- paul 18y agoIt's sad to see this trollish content rising to the top of news.yc.
- mattmaroon 18y agoVery.
- prakash 18y agoI made some comments about this, YC is slowly but surely going down the reddit way. Unfortunate, since there are so many smart folks that make insightful submissions and comments.
- benjamincanfly 18y agoI'm interested to see how HN avoids its eternal September. I'm optimistic. There's more than one way to go about it.
- run4yourlives 18y agoSorry, but all your comment does is pretty much confirm the article. Dismissing criticism as "trolling" is exactly what a cult member would do. Even invalid criticism warrants a proper rebuttal, if at the least to educate those leveling the criticism as to their errors. The fact that it has risen to top stop this morning only serves to illustrate that there are many things about the YC process that people don't particularly enjoy. Why those things are either a) misunderstood or b) essential to the process is the way to properly comment on the article. EDIT: Wow, look at the downmods! So much for discussion being valued!
- pg 18y agoI think you may be mistaken about which Paul you're responding to. http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=paul http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=paul
- run4yourlives 18y ago
- h34t 18y agoFour parts ridiculous, one part true. 1. Young and inexperienced? That's the point. This is how you gain experience. Impressionable? Another word for "quick learners". 2. Sacrificing happiness? Not if it feels good to work on something you believe in. 3. Sacrificing creativity? Since when is it not creative to create a new business? 4. "18 hour days for two straight months" -- from the point of view of "hard work," big deal. Good stress makes you stronger. You're alive all 18 hours anyway -- if you believe in what you are doing, and you take care of yourself along the way, then all that effort can actually add to your energy levels. 5. But the key line is "if you take care of yourself." The effects of sleep deprivation (and eating shit for food) are real. If think and act as though you're invincible, you really can burn out, and that is <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=69097 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=69097">a hellish experience</a>.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- pageman 18y agoOlympians put in 18 hours a day - so they're cults too? http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/08summer/olympics.asp http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/08summer/olympics.asp "...Talk of "magic" swimsuits obscures the incredibly hard work swimmers such as Russell, a second-year pharmacology major, actually put in. Before I went to university it would be 20 hours a week, weights and swimming. When I went to Indiana [his first school] my training stepped up to 30 hours of weights, swimming and dry land, though that is really excessive for me. Now it’s about 18 hours..."
- jwinter 18y agoIf you read closely, you'll find that's 18 hours a week.
- DanielBMarkham 18y agoI love contrarian articles. Not only is it fun reading a scathing criticism, (and I think he went too far in some ways and not far enough in others) the really funny part is watching the target audience digest (or rather, regurgitate) it. There is a strange similarity between YC and a cult. You guys quote PG all the time like he's the next Buddha or something. YC is looked at as the only way towards making your startup happen. Sometimes around application time the posts get really out there as far as hero worship -- and Paul's said so himself. Having said that, there's a LOT of dissension here as well. Lots of folks that have nothing to do with YC and just think Paul's a nice, regular schmuck like the rest of us. I know I'm here because of the crowd -- and by that I mean the larger startup crowd, not necessarily the YC bunch. This is the first board I've been on that has a long-running discussion about how single-arrow voting sucks, for one thing, or the role of contrarian comments in a healthy community. So yeah, he's got a bit of a point. But it's mostly overblown, and I wouldn't worry about it. If you're 22 years old and don't have somebody to look up to? Then I'd start worrying.
- vidar 18y agoObviously the guy is trolling, but a useful question does emerge: Are people taking pg's advice without critically evaluating it? If they do not then all is fine and dandy but if they do, the guy has a point (albeit poorly presented).
- endlessvoid94 18y agoI'm not sure that's it. Just because many, many people take pg's advice doesn't mean they aren't evaluating it. We only hear about the ones that come to the opposite conclusion (that he's wrong).
- pierrefar 18y ago- People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations; - Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized; - They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic; [sic] - They get a new identity based on the group; - They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled. You mean just like doing a PhD or building a company or heck, being a geek about anything in life. A baseball fan who can recite stats about everything and everyone for the past 100 years is, by this definition, part of a cult.
- endlessvoid94 18y agoIsn't how much people hate you a sign that you're doing something different and right? I'm certain I read that somewhere.
- sofal 18y agoBe very careful about using that as a measuring stick.
- pg 18y agoActually there's a fundamental incompatibility between cults and startups. Cult followers tend to be people who want someone to tell them what to do. There are a lot of people like that, but they're the opposite of the kind of people who make good startup founders. What you want in a startup founder is the sort of tenacious independent mindedness that makes you start a new search engine in 1998, when everyone else thinks it's too late. If the startups we funded were run by the kind of people who'd feel at home in a cult, they'd get creamed as soon as they hit the real world, and our returns would be terrible. A regular company could tend toward the cultish and succeed (some technology companies show signs of it), but a venture firm couldn't be, because its startups would lose in the market.
- danielharan 18y agoSo, what's up with these insane hours? You've written about the need for working long hours, but aren't Michael Parkatti and Mike Marrone taking it a bit too far?
- pg 18y agoAs far as I can tell, how hard people work has little correlation with whether they have follower-type personalities. It does, however, have quite a high correlation with working on a startup. So my guess is the cause is that they're working on a startup.
- danielharan 18y agoSo do you condone working such long hours that founders are routinely sleep deprived?
- ed 18y agoQuit trolling. Clearly it's the founder's decision how many hours to work, not PG's.
- staunch 18y ago"Even during Viaweb I still slept 8 hours a night (roughly 3-11). The most productive people rarely have more than 6 hours or so of really concentrated work per day, except in emergencies. If you can ensure you get that every day, you don't need to economize on sleep..." -- by pg 358 days ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39778 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39778
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- KirinDave 18y agoI guess maybe I'd be more concerned about this accusation if YC wasn't one of the smaller players in the space. Simply put, people will go and make bad and self-harming decisions all the time (god knows I've done it), it's a constant. If YC is an unhealthy environment–and I see no evidence that it is, but perhaps the kool-aid is in my brain–then it's a relatively small one. I mean, most people here realize they don't need ycomb, right? It's one of many ways to get some initial funding, but it's certainly not the only way or even the normal way. It's more of a publicity stunt for a new startup than a real viable path to large-scale funding (if funding is what you need).
- pg 18y agoIt's more of a publicity stunt for a new startup than a real viable path to large-scale funding Of the 80 startups prior to the current cycle (who haven't had Demo Day yet), I believe 14 have raised series A rounds so far. Probably the same number again could have if they wanted to, but either didn't want to raise that much money, or got acquired first.
- ivankirigin 18y agoPublicity and large scale funding are related, aren't they? Buzz about your company will help you get funding.
- demandred 18y ago"5. They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled." Yet on Hacker News, the recruiting grounds of said cult, this post (information contrary to the teaching of said cult) has ascended to the top?
- ChaitanyaSai 18y agoSpeaking of the news.yc community and not of the founders, what if the perception of cultism keeps the quality of postings here from deteriorating rapidly? Most of the level-headed ones here do not buy into that percept and vote and comment independently and intelligently. The inevitable band of pg worshipers do amplify the noise, but could that be the cost of keeping the unaffiliated, median slashdotter away?
- sethg 18y agoIMHO (based on my reading, and based on my observations of a certain organization where I went to college), the distinguishing feature of a cult is the exploitation of unanimous peer pressure (cf. the Asch conformity experiment) to make everyone follow one charismatic dictator. E.g. you give all your money to The Guru because that's what a loyal follower of The Guru does, and all the people you hang out with are loyal followers of The Guru. All the people you hang out with are loyal followers of The Guru because they love you so much and they have so many things for you to do together and go on all these lovely weekend retreats where you are told that if you hang out with someone who's not a loyal follower of The Guru then it would be very bad for your karma. The unanimity and the single leadership make cults different in kind, and not just different in degree, from other kinds of organized goal-seeking human groups. And I really don't see how the cult model, seen in this way, applies to YC.
- adrianwaj 18y agoWith over 22000 karma points, (~5000 more than nickb) you could construe that Paul Graham is the cult leader of this board, whereby his words are not just approved, they are also a guide. If you start disagreeing with PG in a large way, those that like him will scrutinize you and take aim as they may feel they are also being questioned. So there is a slight cultish behaviour going on with this board and maybe with its larger YCombinator fund context, but not intently by PG, he's an investor for the most part. YCombinator as a 'startup scene' is not a cult because no harm is being done, and the absorption of minds is for the most part very beneficial. Cult leaders, I think take advantage of their own charisma to defray free choice in their environment for their own benefit. All in all, Ycombinator has a culture but is not a cult. The notion "build something people want" I think is an ideology and ideologies are at the foundations of many cults, but cults generally have spiritual or religious overtones.
- aswanson 18y agoDidn't yamada cover this ground about a year ago? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=51989 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=51989
- scorpion032 18y agoAs Jason said it elsewhere, "If U want to work 9 to 5, Go work for Starbucks"
- cbrinker 18y agoThe cylinder only fits in the circular hole. You can't assume that you always have a cylinder or a cube to fit into the mold. Heck, you may end up with an icosidigon and have only a triangle to try to shove it into. As amazing as the Y Combinator idea may sound to some, you also have to have a healthy sense of skepticism and apply it appropriately to every situation and oppourtunity that comes your way. Make it work for you, not you for it.