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Is there any chance that there's a small "valley gold rush" effect going on, sort of what happened in the late 90's and early 00's in SV when people saw the val
by tomasien 14y ago
Is there any chance that there's a small "valley gold rush" effect going on, sort of what happened in the late 90's and early 00's in SV when people saw the valley not as an opportunity to build something awesome but rather ONLY to get funding and get rich?
From what PG seems to be saying, it's more of an organizational problem, and I'll take him at his word. However, I just feel like I've seen a lot of (admittedly impressive) people applying to YC because they see it as the path to easy VC funding and lots of press only. And maybe a resume booster. I can see the effects of that being that it becomes harder to identify who is earnest and who is not, especially with such impressive people throwing themselves into the pool.
Either way, I think it's nothing but a positive to see YC continuing to innovate and tweak.
- paul 14y agoI think that there's an element of that. People who are just joining yc for the name are there for the wrong reason.
- jbooth 14y agoConsidering that you guys had the same funding formula (7k for 7%, give or take) in the funding dark ages of 2004-2005 as you have now when it's much easier to raise money, I think everybody who takes a deal from you, as opposed to better terms from someone else, is there at least partially for the name.
- paul 14y agoCertainly the name has value, and smart founders will use that, but if that's all they are after, then they're missing the most valuable bits (and are therefore probably not very effective founders, and a bad investment).
- tomasien 14y agoThat's totally understandable, I can't even look down on doing it for the "wrong" reason if I'm being honest. Sad for me if it diminishes the likelihood that something that will actually change my life (like Codecademy did) will come around.