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I've been following the DreamWorld saga on YouTube for a hot minute now, mainly because I find it so interesting how they got through the YC vetting process whe
by dvt 5y ago
I've been following the DreamWorld saga on YouTube for a hot minute now, mainly because I find it so interesting how they got through the YC vetting process when I myself have applied twice (maybe 3 times) and I also know plenty of people -- brilliant, motivated, entrepreneurial folks -- that applied many (many) times as well and were rejected (YC is mega-competitive after all).
IMO, it's a bit insulting to the struggling startup community at large, and not to mention damaging to the YC brand.
- kemonocode 5y agoWhich is why I suspect the title will be changed, even though it is relevant to the discussion.
- sanxiyn 5y agoIt is an editorialized title and should be changed.
- kemonocode 5y agoThe "blatant scam" part, maybe. The fact it's Y Combinator-backed is still relevant, though.
- variable11 5y agoWhat's worse, you don't agree with the title, or somebody at YC blatantly engaged in nepotism to let some two-bit scam artist fraud use their name to bilk ordinary people out of money? Priorities, in order.
- dang 5y agoThe submitted title blatantly breaks the site guidelines, which ask "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.". It is a no-brainer of standard HN moderation that we would change it immediately, as you can see from countless previous examples (and these are just the ones I posted about): https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20misleading%20or%20linkbait&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20editorializ&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20level%20playing%20field&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... When readers email about a title complaining that it's breaking the rules (as happened with this one), you know it's bad. However, I don't think I'm going to change it, even though it shamelessly distorts the article's meaning and adds extra linkbait on top. The reason I'm not inclined to change it is that we moderate HN less, not more, when a story is about YC or a YC-funded startup. That's explained here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20%22not%20more%22%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... More on that elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27321978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27321978.
- esturk 5y agoJust like brilliant people that gets rejected from prestigious universities and companies, there's bound to be undeserving people that gets in. Even if there's a vetting accuracy of 99.9% (for the sake of argument), there's still a chance that some lemon will fall through the cracks. So after 1000 seeds, there should be 1 lemon. Now does that make the program any less prestigious? No, but these things happen.
- dvt 5y ago> Just like brilliant people that gets rejected from prestigious universities and companies, there's bound to be undeserving people that gets in. This isn't that great of an analogy because there are plenty of "hard" cutoffs at both elite companies and elite schools. For example, no matter who you are, you'll never get into Yale Law with an LSAT of 125.
- sommohapatra 5y agoI'd argue it's a fine analogy. You can get into Yale undergrad with an SAT of 1250, for example.
- mattnewport 5y agoPart of the scandal mentioned in the article is the accusation that they got in through nepotism and bypassed the usual vetting process.
- runawaybottle 5y agoIf you have to ask, I’ll go ahead and take a wild guess. I looked at the founder’s bios. A couple of white guys, think one worked at a few FAANGs - textbook archetype for ‘certainly people of this type know what they are doing’. Yeah, we do live in that world. This shit might be the most valid textbook case of white male privilege ever. Edit: I usually have a very high bar for throwing around while male privilege thing (I’m talking Joe Rogan levels of defense against the claim), for what it’s worth. But my spidey senses are tingling on this one from a mile away. This shit looks worse than the Asian mmo’s that are still being built on the Unreal3 engine.
- elliekelly 5y agoI (woman without CS degree) once pitched to an investor and his first question was “Okay, but who’s going to build it for you?” Um... me? I _built_ it. It already exists and I have users and I said that several times but apparently the idea of me being able to do that on my own was simply too confusing for him to understand. His next question? “Who’d you hire to build it?” facepalm
- neolog 5y agoOuch. Did you find a good investor eventually?
- bcrosby95 5y agoPlenty of articles, including this one, have interviewed insiders that have revealed that they got to skip the vetting process due to nepotism. You might want to re-asses your "high bar" and stop making "wild guesses".
- runawaybottle 5y agoI’m not married to this fight. Nepotism is a gameplay mechanic in the whole privilege thing. So is corruption, collusion, etc. The broader theme can still stand. But, I don’t want this fight, and you are probably right I’m off base and too quick on the trigger here.
- 5y ago
- kleinsch 5y agoYea, I’ve found it interesting reading about YC companies from this batch that include: - A scam MMO - Terminal autocomplete as a service - A Splitwise clone - An app that puts your next meeting in your menu bar (for $10/month!) YC gets 5K+ applications/cycle, accepts 1-3%, so they rejected 4500+ companies for these?
- new299 5y agoI have some sympathy for the difficulty evaluating tech plays when "an RSS search engine" turns into twitter. These ideas are the starting point, but it's difficult to tell what they might turn into. Quite possibly they evaluate the ability of the founders to shape the company into something interesting during the program. But more than that, they're probability are trying to figure out how well the founders will perform at demo day, after they've helped them polish the play.
- wearywanderer 5y ago"Invest in the team" makes some sense when you're talking about bright people with a lame idea (RSS search engine, or whatever.) But in this case the idea isn't merely lame; it's a scam, and the team being invested in are a team of con-artists. What might they pivot to, if not another scam?
- aidenn0 5y agoA key skill of con-artists is being able to make yourself resemble someone competent. If you go back to 5 years ago, YC probably wasn't on the radar for con artists yet, but starting about then, it was becoming clear that VCs had more money than there were good companies to fund. We are now seeing the results.
- api 5y agoUnfortunately the con artists make funding harder for people who are not con artists. A con artist can spend 100% of their time and effort on polish and marketing, while someone trying to actually do something often has to make those things an afterthought. I’m sure the con artists have much better decks and web sites.
- new299 5y agoThe statements regarding YC in the article don't make a whole lot of sense to me. Firstly: > Y Combinator has a rigorous vetting process topped off by an exclusive demo day with "selected investors." I don't think anyone whose been through the YC interview process would describe it as rigorous. It's streamlined, and I suspect design it minimize false negative rate while spending a minimal amount of time reviewing companies. They have a huge number of companies to evaluate. Personally can't imagine they spend more than 30mins evaluating each company (including the interview). Then later in the article: > The most serious accusation is that DreamWorld only got its Y Combinator backing through nepotism. According to Upton, a senior employee at Y Combinator claims that Bellack has a friend in the accelerator who helped greenlight DreamWorld without the appropriate due diligence I don't know what "appropriate due diligence" is here. I don't think YC generally check references, or dive into code... maybe a quick look at the demo in the 10m interview? It probably helps knowing people on the panel. > "[DreamWorld] wasn't vetted. They apparently had nothing to show on demo day, and they were still allowed through." Doesn't make sense to me. Do YC ban companies from demo day if they don't have enough to show? It's not part initial DD? Have they raised from demo day investors?
- armchairhacker 5y agoPart of it is luck. Just like job interviews or college applications. Even though I'm sure the people vetting YC startups are smart, they have to pick a few companies from a huge number of applicants without really knowing much about any of them.
- rasz 5y agobut do you have the kind of people skills that let you scam your girlfriend with a fake diamond ring, get caught, and be able to talk your way out of it to string her along for another 6 months? Do you have what it takes to recruit an army of free workforce (child labour) on empty promises alone? Those are some heavy duty CEO skills.
- nmfisher 5y agoThe dirty secret is that, despite what they may claim, venture capitalists aren’t good at picking winners, nor do they need to be. The real skill is in (a) raising funds from LPs, and (b) creating a wide enough deal funnel to service it. The individual investments aren’t that important, just like a single bet doesn’t matter when you’re playing poker. It’s more about spreading the money over as many hands as possible and letting your mathematical advantage do the rest.
- nowherebeen 5y agoThis. It’s always funny how people jumps to the VCs defence when they make obviously bad investments. They simply aren’t good at picking winners.