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> Paul learned from his users is that they are looking for The Answer, the formula, the procedure for how to succeed, and there is no such formula I agree, I a

by ProAm 4y ago

> Paul learned from his users is that they are looking for The Answer, the formula, the procedure for how to succeed, and there is no such formula I agree, I also think this is the message that YC sells to founders. You are giving up a lot of equity for access/membership to an organization that will make you successful (Im clearly summarizing a bit). It's a bit of a MLM scheme (not that they are ripping you off) but if you get into the club the other members will help you be successful and, then it will repeat every batch constantly filling the pool with new members and the network continues to grow. And it works for the most part, so do MLMs for the most part. Most companies in the US, if successful are around for about 20 years, extremely successful maybe 40, the few rare last longer. YC is getting to the 20 year mark and maybe some of the rough edges are starting to show, cracks in the foundation as the original people that powered the machine start to move on.

robocat 4y ago
> not that [YC is] ripping you off Indirectly, YC quite possibly are ripping most founders off financially, even though the average company return is high (power-law — few winners and many losers[1]). It is hard to find good figures, because we have reliable dollar estimates for the companies that win, but a paucity of information about the founders that lose, or what individual founders made[2]. When YC only selects the best 1 of ## applicants, it is hard to remove selection bias from any later analyses of returns for founders. Value and opportunity-cost are messy, so measuring the returns for “loser” founders is really difficult. I am unsure if founders’ own self-assessment would be trustworthy information. Here is an analysis from 2014 on YC founder returns: https://80000hours.org/2014/05/how-much-do-y-combinator-founders-earn/ https://80000hours.org/2014/05/how-much-do-y-combinator-foun... I would expect early employees to have worse odds of good payouts. [1] startup valuations tend to fall along a steep power law curve and YC startups fall along one nearly perfectly: https://medium.com/swlh/on-300b-of-y-combinator-startup-success-a1d24200e4c7 https://medium.com/swlh/on-300b-of-y-combinator-startup-succ... [2] company returns are easier to find than individual founder returns.

by ProAm 4y ago

robocat 4y ago

> not that [YC is] ripping you off Indirectly, YC quite possibly are ripping most founders off financially, even though the average company return is high (power-law — few winners and many losers[1]). It is hard to find good figures, because we have reliable dollar estimates for the companies that win, but a paucity of information about the founders that lose, or what individual founders made[2]. When YC only selects the best 1 of ## applicants, it is hard to remove selection bias from any later analyses of returns for founders. Value and opportunity-cost are messy, so measuring the returns for “loser” founders is really difficult. I am unsure if founders’ own self-assessment would be trustworthy information. Here is an analysis from 2014 on YC founder returns: https://80000hours.org/2014/05/how-much-do-y-combinator-founders-earn/ https://80000hours.org/2014/05/how-much-do-y-combinator-foun... I would expect early employees to have worse odds of good payouts. [1] startup valuations tend to fall along a steep power law curve and YC startups fall along one nearly perfectly: https://medium.com/swlh/on-300b-of-y-combinator-startup-success-a1d24200e4c7 https://medium.com/swlh/on-300b-of-y-combinator-startup-succ... [2] company returns are easier to find than individual founder returns.