9 ms·
Whatever happened to Y-Combinator funding startups tackling "hard problems", and searching for "the next Microsoft" ?
by dstein 15y ago
Whatever happened to Y-Combinator funding startups tackling "hard problems", and searching for "the next Microsoft" ?
- kalvin 15y agoEven Microsoft started small. What PG likes to say is: YC is looking for startups building the next BASIC interpreter for the Altair (which was almost as obscure then as it is now.) Something minimally useful in or adjacent to a market that's going to explode, and started by determined/smart founders. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=934374 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=934374
- dstein 15y agoExactly my point. YC says that's what they're looking for, but YC startups tend to look more like this little "social calculator" web app then a company that will invent a new operating system, programming language, and personal computing paradigm.
- archangel_one 15y agoPretty sure pg said somewhere that it's a fool's game searching for the next Microsoft, because to get that you need another company to bend over at the right time to be the next IBM. I doubt YC has ever been expecting that.