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Would have liked to read why in person is better. I imagine the biggest reason is it raises the sense of commitment for everyone involved.

by mentos 3y ago

steveBK123 3y ago
In person is better because the latent bid for tech workers has gone down, and now they feel comfortable demanding we all come back to the office. It's as simple as that.
- mentos 3y ago
  When you get married are you going to do it over Zoom or have everyone show up in person?
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Wasn't aware I needed to marry my coworkers. Most companies I've worked at have strong HR policies around that.
    - mentos 3y ago
      These aren’t coworkers they’re cofounders.
      - steveBK123 3y ago
        Still wouldn't mix business with pleasure, but that's just me.
        mentos 3y ago
        Didn’t stop the founders of YCombinator ha
        steveBK123 3y ago
        LOL I didn't realize that until you mentioned & I looked it up. Nice.
    - RestlessMind 3y ago
      Since you don't seem to be getting the point, let me break it down to you - you seem to realize that a marriage needs regular in-person interaction to make it work. Also, co-founding a company is another relationship where regular in-person interaction is needed to make it work. YC data seems to indicate that.
bsder 3y ago
The primary (maybe only?) value of YC is the networking. Networking is fundamentally an in-person thing. The remote-only people can whine all they want, but that is simply an immutable fact. Building a startup requires most of your time on non-coding tasks.
- version_five 3y ago
  Right, look at conferences, MBA programs, etc. There are/were "remote" options but they essentially have no value, it was just a placeholder we tried. Some kinds of work can be remote of course. But learning and networking only really works in person.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  They don’t have to be. This is all about setup. It’s harder to do because we aren’t used to it but I attended a really well done Zoom mixer in 2021 that was absolutely amazing and didn’t great job. It almost felt like I was in person honestly. People aren’t used to changing their norms so quickly. This is what the real issue is
nzoschke 3y ago
This is my hypothesis too. I participated in YC S15. We all quit our jobs, and my co-founders moved to from Atlanta to SF for the summer, we rented a big house as a live/work space, and drove together to Mountain View the required few times a week. We went to a lot of optional things together like additional office hours, parties, meetups, together and in person. That level of commitment and pretty much daily face to face working time is powerful. It's not possible for everyone given circumstances, and its not sustainable forever. But that means that the teams that can and do opt into a summer like this are very committed to their idea. So it's not hard to imagine it's "better" to relocate for a stretch of something hard like getting a business off the ground than doing it all fully distributed.
- mdekkers 3y ago
  YC would have me leave my family behind for an extended period of time. The unspoken YC mantra is that startups are for the young, relatively well off, and unattached. The fact that many accelerators globally follow the YC template means that this particular type of route to learning and launching are closed to many people. So yeah, it isn’t possible for many, if not most people. I’m not a fan of the model.
  - jrowen 3y ago
    I mean, we all make choices and sacrifices. Having a family is a serious commitment. There's a limited amount of time in everyone's day, you can't commit yourself to everything, and I think it's reasonable that starting a startup a la YC requires a lot of commitment (that's their model and principles, there's plenty of other opportunities out there). Being an astronaut is closed off to a lot of people because they didn't fully commit themselves to it, that's just how it goes.
    - mdekkers 3y ago
      > Having a family is a serious commitment. There's a limited amount of time in everyone's day, you can't commit yourself to everything Comparing “move to another city (or country) for three months” with “there is a limited amount of time in everyone’s day” is a rather disingenuous way to frame the discussion. You make it sound like it _must_ be a zero-sum game when it doesn’t have to be. The YC (and by extension, all YC-like) model comes across more as a system of selection and control for a specific demographic that has little to do with potential for success.
rtpg 3y ago
I can see in person being "Better" for the novelty factor of people moving out to SF. But if they're doing 4 autonomous groups anyways, having groups spread out in different places would be an interesting experiment. I do wonder what percent of YC companies force moves to SF. If a bunch of those people are moving anyways, running a batch in some other city (hell, Seattle or NY is surely filled with decent stuff) would be interesting. And on the YC-side, moving out somewhere for 3 months might give them their own novelty bonus as well.

Would have liked to read why in person is better. I imagine the biggest reason is it raises the sense of commitment for everyone involved.

by mentos 3y ago

Would have liked to read why in person is better. I imagine the biggest reason is it raises the sense of commitment for everyone involved.

steveBK123 3y ago

In person is better because the latent bid for tech workers has gone down, and now they feel comfortable demanding we all come back to the office. It's as simple as that.

mentos 3y ago
When you get married are you going to do it over Zoom or have everyone show up in person?
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Wasn't aware I needed to marry my coworkers. Most companies I've worked at have strong HR policies around that.
  - mentos 3y ago
    These aren’t coworkers they’re cofounders.
    - steveBK123 3y ago
      Still wouldn't mix business with pleasure, but that's just me.
      - mentos 3y ago
        Didn’t stop the founders of YCombinator ha
        steveBK123 3y ago
        LOL I didn't realize that until you mentioned & I looked it up. Nice.
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    Since you don't seem to be getting the point, let me break it down to you - you seem to realize that a marriage needs regular in-person interaction to make it work. Also, co-founding a company is another relationship where regular in-person interaction is needed to make it work. YC data seems to indicate that.

bsder 3y ago

The primary (maybe only?) value of YC is the networking. Networking is fundamentally an in-person thing. The remote-only people can whine all they want, but that is simply an immutable fact. Building a startup requires most of your time on non-coding tasks.

version_five 3y ago
Right, look at conferences, MBA programs, etc. There are/were "remote" options but they essentially have no value, it was just a placeholder we tried. Some kinds of work can be remote of course. But learning and networking only really works in person.
no_wizard 3y ago
They don’t have to be. This is all about setup. It’s harder to do because we aren’t used to it but I attended a really well done Zoom mixer in 2021 that was absolutely amazing and didn’t great job. It almost felt like I was in person honestly. People aren’t used to changing their norms so quickly. This is what the real issue is

nzoschke 3y ago

This is my hypothesis too. I participated in YC S15. We all quit our jobs, and my co-founders moved to from Atlanta to SF for the summer, we rented a big house as a live/work space, and drove together to Mountain View the required few times a week. We went to a lot of optional things together like additional office hours, parties, meetups, together and in person. That level of commitment and pretty much daily face to face working time is powerful. It's not possible for everyone given circumstances, and its not sustainable forever. But that means that the teams that can and do opt into a summer like this are very committed to their idea. So it's not hard to imagine it's "better" to relocate for a stretch of something hard like getting a business off the ground than doing it all fully distributed.

mdekkers 3y ago
YC would have me leave my family behind for an extended period of time. The unspoken YC mantra is that startups are for the young, relatively well off, and unattached. The fact that many accelerators globally follow the YC template means that this particular type of route to learning and launching are closed to many people. So yeah, it isn’t possible for many, if not most people. I’m not a fan of the model.
- jrowen 3y ago
  I mean, we all make choices and sacrifices. Having a family is a serious commitment. There's a limited amount of time in everyone's day, you can't commit yourself to everything, and I think it's reasonable that starting a startup a la YC requires a lot of commitment (that's their model and principles, there's plenty of other opportunities out there). Being an astronaut is closed off to a lot of people because they didn't fully commit themselves to it, that's just how it goes.
  - mdekkers 3y ago
    > Having a family is a serious commitment. There's a limited amount of time in everyone's day, you can't commit yourself to everything Comparing “move to another city (or country) for three months” with “there is a limited amount of time in everyone’s day” is a rather disingenuous way to frame the discussion. You make it sound like it _must_ be a zero-sum game when it doesn’t have to be. The YC (and by extension, all YC-like) model comes across more as a system of selection and control for a specific demographic that has little to do with potential for success.

rtpg 3y ago

I can see in person being "Better" for the novelty factor of people moving out to SF. But if they're doing 4 autonomous groups anyways, having groups spread out in different places would be an interesting experiment. I do wonder what percent of YC companies force moves to SF. If a bunch of those people are moving anyways, running a batch in some other city (hell, Seattle or NY is surely filled with decent stuff) would be interesting. And on the YC-side, moving out somewhere for 3 months might give them their own novelty bonus as well.