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Two New YC Partners: Kirsty Nathoo and Carolynn Levy
- rokhayakebe 14y agoMore women (qualified) in tech. Kudos.
- mattmaroon 14y agoCongrats. Carolynn had been our lawyer for almost 5 years and was excellent.
- lsb 14y agoIn addition to the 7 on http://ycombinator.com/people.html http://ycombinator.com/people.html who are the other two?
- alagu 14y agoGarry and Aaron (http://ycombinator.posterous.com/welcome-garry-and-aaron http://ycombinator.posterous.com/welcome-garry-and-aaron)
- ericfrenkiel 14y agocongrats Kirsty and Carolynn!
- rdl 14y agoI didn't realize Kirsty wasn't a partner before.
- renownedmedia 14y agoDitto; I always saw her around and accidentally assumed the same. She was always doing a lot to help.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jermaink 14y agoKirsty is a very nice person who always had an open ear and fast feedback for yc applicants. Thank you for that and congratulations!
- Cushman 14y agoBased on this and the biannual stories of how many great teams there wasn't room for, I wonder: how long until the YC partners aren't advisors so much as the deans and department heads of YC University? I realize that's a hugely loaded question, just curious what people's thoughts are.
- aaronblohowiak 14y agoThese are SMEs not GMs, so I would suggest quite some time. Further, these are promotions of existing contributors, not 'true' staff expansions.
- opminion 14y agoAgreed, no need to GTTM of IIP, which would diminish the FAB of JUT.
- aaronblohowiak 14y agoI couldn't follow your comment, so I tried to google what those acronyms meant. I couldn't find a reasonable answer, so in case you had a similar difficulty with my post, here are the expanded forms of SME and GM: * Subject Matter Experts * General Managers.
- prawn 14y agoThought SME was more often Small and Medium Enterprise? Is that not true where you are? (AU here.)
- aaronblohowiak 14y agoWhen talking about businesses, not when talking about people.
- prawn 14y agoReading about people advising businesses threw me off when skim-reading. Sorry!
- guynamedloren 14y agoCan somebody please explain what it means to be a YC partner?
- tptacek 14y agoTraditionally, the difference between a "partner" and an "employee" is that partners share a formally-defined portion of the earnings of the business. A partnership is a business in which all the profits of the business which aren't simply invested back into the business flow to the partners. I have no idea if that's exactly what it means at YC; partnership at YC might have as much to do with how portfolio-company-facing or visible a team member is.
- larrys 14y ago"share a formally-defined portion of the earnings" Which typically vary according to the particular partner by various items including seniority, equity invested, as only two factors.
- asdf333 14y agoCongratulations Kirsty!!!
- ddt 14y agoWoo! We would be about three months behind where we are now if it weren't for Kirsty and Carolynn's help.
- zbruhnke 14y agoCongrats Kirsty! You deserve it for all the hardwork and time you put in dealing with all of our questions and accounting issues. thanks for all you do!
- samstokes 14y agoCongratulations Kirsty, much deserved!
- vaksel 14y agois this partners where you just give them the title. or is this like what you have with law firms, where they have to buy their way in as well?
- larrys 14y agoI don't know Carolynn but I would assume she has some significant business skills in addition to legal skills. From my experience it typically wouldn't make sense to make a partner out of a legal adviser for this type of business (as opposed to a business where you may be regularly fighting legal battles) and certainly not in the same percentage as a non-legal skills partner. Once again I don't know this particular situation. But a mistake I have often seen entrepreneurs in IRL make is becoming partners with their attorney or teaming up with an attorney in a business dealings. Attorneys tend to frame everything in legal risk which can often get in the way of certain risks you inevitably need to take in business. One example might be the tendency that I have seen for a company to present a sales prospect with a multi page legal document to sign for even the smallest of dealings. This creates friction and isn't always necessary for small transactions and it gets in the way of closing deals. Every situation is different of course.
- opminion 14y agohttp://paulgraham.com/julian.html http://paulgraham.com/julian.html
- itsprofitbaron 14y agoCongratulations Kirsty & Carolynn
- lowglow 14y agoCongratulations, Kirsty and Carolynn!
- felixchan 14y agoCongrats Kirsty and Carolynn!
- Vaismania 14y agoCongrats Kirsty - she's a major force behind YCs success.
- leeb 14y agoEven with these new additions, Paul Graham is still the only YC partner without a set of double letters in his name :) Congrats to Kirsty and Carolynn!
- modarts 14y agoGreat work you guys, keep it up
- eoghan 14y agoCongrats Kirsty. Very cool news. :-)
- anandkulkarni 14y agoCongratulations, Kirsty and Carolynn!