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I am on a h1b visa and can't really work anywhere outside of my primary employment due to visa restrictions. Has anyone with the similar profile gotten into YC?
by anilmr 2y ago
I am on a h1b visa and can't really work anywhere outside of my primary employment due to visa restrictions. Has anyone with the similar profile gotten into YC? and if so how did you make it work with all the legal blockades of h1b?
- ganeshkrishnan 2y agoit's not their problem. If you have issues or any issues or they smell any issues, you will be rejected. Too many people take VC/YC personally but try to put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself if your startup would be worth it. Your answer will be their answer
- dang 2y agoI couldn't disagree more! If anyone is feeling this way, please re-read my text at the top because the whole point is to convince you that YC might be a lot more interested than you'd assume. Look at it this way: if there's even a small chance that an application could lead to a major startup, would it make any sense for YC to reject it because of visa reasons (or similar)? Absolutely not. That would be how startup investors fail. On the contrary what would make sense is to fund it and then help get the obstacles overcome. This is a no-brainer and is one of the big ways that YC helps founders—not just about visa issues, but lots of other things - legal issues, cap table issues, prior investor issues, cofounder conflicts, god knows what else.
- ganeshkrishnan 2y agoUnfortunately dang we will always be yin and yang (founders and vc/yc). If I have a thousand applications lying on my desk, my first task would be to remove everyone that has even the slightest issue. There is absolutely no way you would know who is going to be successful so your job is not to find the winners but get rid of the losers. Unfortunately VCs have a power over startups. Any startups they touch will have higher chance to succeed. And when the winds are strong even the chickens can fly so it's not that you choose the right startups, its just that the startups YC chooses become right. Not saying you are wrong but let's just agree to disagree ;)
- dang 2y ago> your job is not to find the winners but get rid of the losers As I understand it, that's exactly backwards. The fatal mistake is not funding losers, it's missing winners. Certainly that's true of YC but it's well known among investors generally. That's also consistent with YC's view that founders matter most. If Larry and Sergey cross your path and you decline to fund them because they're on an H1B or some other issue like that, that would be...really bad. > Not saying you are wrong but let's just agree to disagree ;) Ok :) - I read your comment as saying that founders are fungible and we can definitely agree to disagree about that.
- dang 2y agoI'm no expert but I've been hanging around YC for a long time and have the consistent impression that when it comes to visa issues, something can nearly always be done. If I were you I'd just apply and mention in the form that you'll need help with this. If it's the kind of application YC would fund, they're not going to turn you down for this reason.