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Y Combinator's First Batch: Where Are They Now?
- amix 14y agoOne of the missing people that this article does not mention is Simon Carstensen, a danish dude that was a co-founder of Infogami. I met Simon in an university class and I knew him for some time before I knew he was part of Y Combinator's first batch :-) Simon traveled back to Denmark after his round finished.
- juanbyrge 14y agoYes this is called survivorship bias. Only the successful people end up being in these news articles, thus leading people to believe that everyone going through YC ends up successful.
- jedberg 14y agoIt probably has more to do with the fact that Infogami's other founder has said since the beginning that he was a sole founder, and never once mentioned a co-founder.
- allenbrunson 14y agoExcellent idea for an article. I'm surprised I haven't seen such a thing before now.
- Mystalic 14y agoThis is a fantastic article with a lot of in-depth interviews and analysis. This is an example of what tech journalism should be. Another note: the beauty of YC isn't that Paul & co. pick home runs every time -- they don't -- it's that they pick teams that eventually hit home runs. Justin.tv is doing okay, but YC's investment in Justin in 2005 has netted it Socialcam (acquired for $60M) and Exec. YC's investment in Reddit also netted them Hipmunk. And I'm only scratching the surface here -- YC founders always recruit great people into the YC program.
- espadagroup 14y agoI've been curious about this, is it definitive that YC investments pass through like this, i.e. from Justin.tv to Socialcam and Exec?
- Mystalic 14y ago#1 way to get an interview: recommendations from other YC founders. Not just tepid "I know this person" but "I'm putting $100k down on this team."
- tomasien 14y agoExec and Socialcam ARE YC companies, the investments didn't pass through. Those teams actually did YC, which they maybe wouldn't have (who knows) without Justin Kans first startup.
- codex 14y agoIsn't this how all VC deals work?
- sama 14y agoOne thing that struck me reading this is that many of us from the first batch are still in the YC orbit. Exec (JKan) and Hipmunk (Steve, Alexis, and Chris) went through YC, and Justin, Emmett, and I are part-time YC partners.
- tomasien 14y agoSam why is your posterous password protected now?
- stcredzero 14y agoWhat I like best about this news is the long term orientation of it. The more thinking about long value, virtuous cycles, and underlying principles and values, the better for the SF bay tech community.
- KMBredt 14y agoWould it hurt TNW to link to the mentioned projects?