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Y Combinator managed to convince startups that would have been founded anyway to give up expensive equity to them. I'm not sure they would have failed without Y
by new_realist 5y ago
Y Combinator managed to convince startups that would have been founded anyway to give up expensive equity to them. I'm not sure they would have failed without YC.
Put another way, if you take a piece of every startup on the planet, can you claim influence if some of those startups eventually succeed?
- ford 5y agoThis is similar to the idea that it doesn't matter where you go to college - because the things that get you into top X schools are the same traits that correlate with success afterward. This paper is a study that makes that argument: https://www.nber.org/papers/w7322 https://www.nber.org/papers/w7322 (disclaimer - I only read the abstract) Also - in fairness to YC - there are a staggering number of companies that are started every year. I don't have the stats but I would guess that YC outperforms the totality of the startup market.
- ModernMech 5y agoWait... how was the username "ford" never used on HN until now?
- echelon 5y agoHN is a pretty small community. There are ample dictionary word usernames left. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=generalmotors https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=generalmotors https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=usually https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=usually https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fucking https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fucking https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sucks https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sucks https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=although https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=although https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=their https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=their https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=hummers https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=hummers https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=appear https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=appear https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rugged https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rugged https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tough https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tough None of these are registered yet. Is it remarkable because it's a name? I bet we can find lots of those, too.
- ModernMech 5y agoI was surprised at ford in particular because it's the name one of the main characters of a book that's very popular in this community.
- AussieWog93 5y agoThis character? https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fordprefect https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fordprefect
- frosted-flakes 5y agoHN has polls? Is that an old feature that got removed or something noone uses anymore?
- AussieWog93 5y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll Go nuts
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- usually 5y agoSurprised more of these haven't been snatched up yet, some of them are really pretty. Although tough has been registered for five years.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tough 5y agoUsually, you'd be right, but actually, no it wasn't tough it seems that way now ;-)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- daniel-cussen 5y agoSo you learn the same thing at every college?
- trhway 5y agoIt is more like investing a bit in good college students in exchange for the lifetime share of their earnings.
- tomhoward 5y agoAirbnb was basically dead before they got into YC. They very likely would have quit, as they were heavily in personal debt and couldn’t find anyone to invest in them. Reddit was pretty much PG’s idea, or at least an idea he helped Steve and Alexis come up with. Stripe is hard to imagine getting started if PC hadn’t already had an exit with an earlier YC-funded startup. I could go on and on, but the point is clearly false.