17 ms·
Today is Y Combinator's 17th birthday
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tus666 5y agoWhen did this comment board start out of interest?
- helsinkiandrew 5y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2007-02-19&p=1 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2007-02-19&p=1
- Semaphor 5y agoNope ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tmvnty 5y ago09 Oct 2006, and you can view the top posts from everyday at https://hnhd.io/ https://hnhd.io/
- noduerme 5y agoJeez, I feel old.
- thatwasunusual 5y agoI _am_ old! :(
- usednet 5y agoAlmost an adult!
- onion2k 5y agoYC has been instrumental in some incredible successes. It's been very cool to see people I know go through the accelerator, scale up, and eventually exit. Long may it continue.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y agoHappy Birthday!
- torotonnato 5y agoHappy 0x11, see you at 0x111
- giovannibonetti 5y ago"See you" doesn't apply here. All of us will be dead in 160 years
- mensetmanusman 5y agoWe are hoping for a YC year that solves that issue :)
- merrvk 5y agoBet you’re fun at parties
- CPLX 5y agoAll but one.
- DonHopkins 5y agoOh, I don't believe dang's the only bot here!
- torotonnato 5y agoI bet a San Junipero-style mind upload startup will happen here well before 256 years have passed
- robfitz 5y agoI got into the fifth batch (s07) and remember my other startup friends staging an intervention to dissuade me from accepting because "the valuation is really bad." Interesting to see how long even the industry insiders failed to take YC seriously. And then once it was working, they flipped immediately to complaining that YC was too powerful and too influential (unbeatable network effect, seed/A valuation inflation, and so on). I also remember the constant naysaying about scalability and batch size. Our batch was ~19 companies. People kept naysaying, "Well this model is fine for now, but it will never work past 20 teams." PG would always reply with something like, "Yeah, they said that when we had fewer than 10 teams also. We aren't thinking too far ahead; each batch, we just find the next bottleneck and solve it, and we'll see how far that gets us." Which evidently got them pretty far. A lovely example of doing things that don't scale.
- codingdave 5y agoYour success and the success of YC doesn't make your friends wrong. YC has improved over time, both in valuations and processes. Even today, it is not perfect, and there is a significant survivorship bias used to describe its success as the unicorns are called out, but I don't hear much talk about how all the founders do - what is the median result of all YC companies, for example? (I honestly don't know that answer... I would love to see it because don't see such overall stats.) YC absolutely has accomplished something, as have some of its companies. I don't want to be dismissive of that. But we should acknowledge that it embraces and encourages the high-risk/high-reward model, which should be entered into with open eyes.
- nxmnxm99 5y agoWhat? The entire industry of venture capital is based on a tiny percentage of companies absolutely exploding. The point is, compared to everyone else, YC does it much better - the gulf between YC (which is on track to have multiple $100b portfolio companies) and second place accelerators like Techstars (who have, at best, a couple of single digit unicorns) is astronomical.
- 5y ago
- whitesilhouette 5y agoHappy birthday
- foxhop 5y ago
- dgellow 5y agoCongrats to everybody contributing to YCombinator and HN success :)
- motohagiography 5y agoHappy birthday, and thank you. Even though I have a bit of an HN addiction, it has helped me sound out a lot of different ideas and put them up for challenge in a way that would not been possible otherwise, and doing startup school in '18 was a significant personal and professional turning point. It's not just startups, users, and customers, you've enriched a lot of lives. 17 years seems like a long time, but looking back, it's not, and it's an example of how much all these things can grow. Cheers to another 17 years of finding and making things people want.
- ArtWomb 5y agoYC SUS Winter 2020 alum (enjoying the current "build sprint"). Discovering new startup wisdom everday. Here's to YC's next 17 years, and what 2040 will bring ;)
- gunapologist99 5y agoI love YC. Even though I'd never apply and thus never get in because of my preconceived notions about YC's preconceived notions (too "old"?, proud Dad of a bunch of homeschooled kids, mostly solo founder (well, I've got kids who code!), building a social/chat app way outside of the Bay area echo chamber, and not toeing any particular political lines (hey, I'm a coder so I'm allowed to recursively nest parens -- don't tread on me), and even if I'm doxing myself a bit with this comment!), YC and PG (through his essays, Hackers and Painters, and his genuinely kind and sincere approach to everything, even with people who are on the opposite side of the political aisle, like me) have taught me so much about how to be a force for good in this strange and weird world. PG seems to truly live out Jesus' wisdom and the Golden Rule. He wisely avoids getting dragged into political discussions, and the HN moderators wisely steer even very wild discussions away from flame wars. For my next act, I'd like to build a social app that scales up the same sort of non-partisan (or multi-partisan!) active, intelligent discourse that occurs here, even if there are, sadly, very few dang's in the world. I would like to say a very, very warm and very sincere thank you to pg, dang, and the rest of the YC team who make it possible to still have a civil, mostly uncensored, and wide-ranging conversation, and has helped so many great startups get off the ground, both inside and outside of YC with things like the SAFE and the startup-school opened to all, proving to VC's how things can and should be done, and just pursuing the most interesting startups, period. If I truly thought I had a chance given my coloring so far outside the SF political lines, I'd apply in a heartbeat! Much love from someone deep in the heart of Texas. Keep up the incredibly awesome work.
- me_me_mu_mu 5y agoGood luck bro
- gunapologist99 5y agoNot sure if you're joking, but I'll take it. ;) Need every bit of luck I can get!
- me_me_mu_mu 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cosmiccatnap 5y ago
- tickerticker 5y agoHappy birthday! When I was 17, I: (a) was immortal (b) knew everything (c) had boundless energy (d) was out to change the world (e) did not know myself. Fifty years later, I am • finite • humble • energetic in spurts • want to teach and encourage • still learning about myself. Y Combinator, my best BD wish is that all your mistakes will be instructive. <3
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lquist 5y agoI was rejected by YC and still point to them (namely, the combo of PG’s essays and HN comment wisdom) as the greatest single source of startup advice as I’ve built a company in the 9-10 figure range. Thank you YC! You have done so much for the startup community!
- makach 5y agoHappy birthyday, YC!
- systemvoltage 5y agoWhat a badass organization. Congrats!
- mybbor 5y agoYC has been an invaluable resource for me. An acquaintance was in the 3rd batch of founders and turned me on to the ecosystem and community here. Around that time, I was a few years out of high school and working for minimum wage at a pizza shop. I was experimenting with web design, making a few extra dollars running google ads on phpBB forums, and learning to code in the process. I never realized my geeky side could translate into something entrepreneurial until I started spending time here. Tracking the progress of my friend and this community planted a seed that turned into a dream of someday being a founder. Today, my two business partners and I have been running a successful software business for almost a decade. We were distributed before it was mainstream. We're in the WordPress space and have a team of 20+ people all over the globe. I've had the opportunity to travel, meet investors, smoke cigars with business heroes, sleep in if I want to, and enjoy an exciting and fulfilling life. I still find myself regularly googling about issues that arise in my company with "hacker news" appended to the end of the query. The stories here helped us navigate a very stressful M&A process and countless other "business stuff" hurdles that we encountered over the years (ie business insurance "hacker news"). YC provided me with direction and inspiration when I was floundering around in my early years. The simple ideas that you don't need an MBA to start a business and being an odd duck is a valuable entrepreneurial trait were life-changing. The community and discussions here are where I come to learn and be inspired. I sincerely hope it continues to be that for myself and others for many more years to come. Thanks YC!
- fuckycombinator 5y ago
- askura 5y agoCongrats to the team. It's proven itself beyond useful time and time again.
- 21723 5y agoIt's almost too old for itself.
- redstarpa 5y ago[dead]
- andygcook 5y agoFor anyone curious, this is the general area PG screenshot for the map: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3815449,-71.1244449,16z https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3815449,-71.1244449,16z This is about a ten minute walk from Harvard Square near an area known as the Radcliffe Quandrangle.
- kobejean 5y agoCongrats!
- stackthatcode 5y agoHappy birthday, Y Combinator. Thank you for existing.
- ykevinator2 5y agoWasnt pg married and wasn't Jessica his employee?
- _iamsr_ 5y agohere is the new UI for hackernews on 17th birthday of Y combinator. hn.devss.io It says I can't post to hackernews so if somebody else can post it for us it will be great. Thanks
- mhartl 5y agoI followed YC from the time it was just a glimmer in pg’s eye (http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html). By the time I went through YC myself, in the Winter 2008, I felt like I was already late to the game. Eventually I realized W08 was still early, early days. (For example, the weekly dinners were generally cooked by pg himself. Also, the benches would see-saw up if someone on the wrong side left their seat—I’m sure some of you fellow old-timers now recall that idiosyncrasy with a strange sense of fondness.) Congratulations to Y Combinator on 17 amazing years. Here’s to many more years to come!
- DonHopkins 5y ago"Yes, yes, repression, anti-gay prejudice, I know all right-thinking people are supposed to be horrified by such things – but...” -Erik S Raymond You owe me $100. Please PayPal it expeditiously to don@donhopkins.com. And if that 10-year-old hateful ESR quote I already provided you with isn't enough for your upwardly mobile goalposts, then here are a couple more recent, even more explicitly vile, hateful, racist, and demeaning ESR quotes. And there are lots more where those came from. https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/816449724127608833 https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/816449724127608833 “Unfortunately, this doesn’t cover the BLM crowd, which would have an average IQ of about 85 if it’s statically representative of American blacks as a whole. I’ve never tried to train anyone that dim and wouldn’t want to.” -Erik S Raymond https://quotepark.com/quotes/1914270-eric-s-raymond-in-the-u-s-blacks-are-12-of-the-population-but/ https://quotepark.com/quotes/1914270-eric-s-raymond-in-the-u... "In the U.S., blacks are 12% of the population but commit 50% of violent crimes; can anyone honestly think this is unconnected to the fact that they average 15 points of IQ lower than the general population? That stupid people are more violent is a fact independent of skin color." -Eric S Raymond Did you really mean to carry Eric S Raymond's water so enthusiastically with such aplomb? You're the one who foolishly decided to publicly bet your own money that he couldn't keep his hateful racist mouth shut, and you spectacularly lost that bet, so please pay up. Thomas Ptacek raised over $30,000 for charity from people who wanted him to stop posting vile ESR quotes to twitter, so consider yourself getting off dirt cheap for only $100 to make me stop posting ESR's own words, after you asked for it.