3 ms·

I find it interesting that they have essentially migrated to the model that 500 startups pioneered. YC has obviously been more successful and I'd chalk that up

I find it interesting that they have essentially migrated to the model that 500 startups pioneered. YC has obviously been more successful and I'd chalk that up to it's early exclusivity - whereas 500 thought that the right approach was to spread the risk out. With the early YC approach it's more akin to the power law of a venture fund and needs to hit just one or two home runs. I'd be curious to look back in a decade to see if the returns plateau with this new approach.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I'm really interested in that as well. As an outsider looking in, what has been impressed most on me by reading HN is the value of the YC network, e.g. I recall stories from other founders in the AirBnB batch talking about how great the AirBnB founders were at helping people out and sharing their knowledge. With 373 in the current batch, that is obviously well beyond the Dunbar number of a community where humans can get to know everyone. So I'm just curious how the community/network value of YC changes as a result. Of course, Covid threw a million pound wrench in this anyway, so it may kinda be a moot point with everyone remote, but I'm just curious as to how the "gestalt" of the YC community has changed as batch size has grown.
EMM_386 5y ago
They seem to also be going for a more global approach, with technology to help finance in Southeast Asia or to assist with African diaspora manage business affairs. It's still the power law, where you can throw small amounts of money at a large base of targets and hope that just one of them grows to that 1,000x return. It does make YC less inclusive though and seems to dilute the "brand" power more when you see a launch that includes MacOS specific toolbar widgets or something like another "no-code" API builder.

3 ms·

I find it interesting that they have essentially migrated to the model that 500 startups pioneered. YC has obviously been more successful and I'd chalk that up

by AndrewKemendo 5y ago

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I'm really interested in that as well. As an outsider looking in, what has been impressed most on me by reading HN is the value of the YC network, e.g. I recall stories from other founders in the AirBnB batch talking about how great the AirBnB founders were at helping people out and sharing their knowledge. With 373 in the current batch, that is obviously well beyond the Dunbar number of a community where humans can get to know everyone. So I'm just curious how the community/network value of YC changes as a result. Of course, Covid threw a million pound wrench in this anyway, so it may kinda be a moot point with everyone remote, but I'm just curious as to how the "gestalt" of the YC community has changed as batch size has grown.
EMM_386 5y ago
They seem to also be going for a more global approach, with technology to help finance in Southeast Asia or to assist with African diaspora manage business affairs. It's still the power law, where you can throw small amounts of money at a large base of targets and hope that just one of them grows to that 1,000x return. It does make YC less inclusive though and seems to dilute the "brand" power more when you see a launch that includes MacOS specific toolbar widgets or something like another "no-code" API builder.