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If we have to choose between helping failures become small successes and helping successes become big successes, we'd prefer to work on the latter. I have a lo
by abstractbill 15y ago
If we have to choose between helping failures become small successes and helping successes become big successes, we'd prefer to work on the latter.
I have a lot of respect for this viewpoint, and the clarity with which you state it, though it is almost exactly the opposite of what I would say myself. You should write an essay on this if you can find time. It would be incredibly interesting, at least to me.
- angersock 15y agoI'd wager that this is pretty much just business mentality. YC isn't a charity, after all, beyond the public forum for discussion they provide in HN--and even that is arguably a chance to promote their own startups and scout talent. :)
- pg 15y agoThe big successes do make more money, but if you knew us you'd know that's not our top priority. The reason we want to fund the most successful founders is that they're the most fun to work with. It's exhausting trying to pep up founders who aren't really cut out for startups, whereas talking to the best founders is net energizing.
- angersock 15y agoAh, fair enough. That additional insight (along with, say, anecdotes about cases on both ends of the motivational spectrum you've encountered running YC) would be a very interesting read. I was under the--obviously mistaken--impression that pure profit motive was involved here, and thus was curious if a blog entry would be stating the obvious. Now that you've given some more info there, I agree with my parent poster--please do a writeup!
- barrkel 15y agoIt's a concise description of the difference in incentives between investors and founders. But I'm not sure if it isn't a false dichotomy. Larry and Sergey are asserted to have been better off in their garage; how do we know that they wouldn't have been even bigger starting in a shared space? Maybe they could have attracted some other very bright sparks that reduced the size of their engineering-oriented blind spots.
- pg 15y agoI know because before I was an investor, I was a founder. We'd never have wanted to work out of an investor's space. It would have been distracting and demoralizing.
- leeskye 15y agoI agree...you would end up spending most of your productive time trying to appease investors when you should be off on your own trying to make customers happy.
- barrkel 15y agoWhen people are having to move to the Bay Area just to be in YC, finding a place to stay etc. is distracting, not to mention stressful. I think framing matters. If it's presented as "when you take my money, you must live on my land, be overseen by me" etc., it's almost feudal, and of course no-one with free choice would choose that kind of environment. But if it's "if you want to be mentored by me, I can host you for a short while along with a bunch of other ambitious folks", it seems different.
- davidw 15y ago> When people are having to move to the Bay Area just to be in YC, finding a place to stay etc. is distracting, not to mention stressful. Sounds like the thing to do would be to eliminate that friction by helping people quickly and easily locate places of their own, then.
- dmor 15y agoI totally agree with this. At Twilio we worked out of the Founders Fund offices for about 5 minutes after our angel round, but it wasn't a good idea. We ended up happier texting each other with a coffee shop choice for the day. We did it for 6 months (and they did it for a YEAR before I joined). Its okay to be alone.
- zupa 15y agoDisagree. What makes it investor's place? If the investors are always around. It would help in connecting with each other. It does not need to be free..