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> Graham said that, after thousands of founder presentations and pitches, he and the YC partners are now able to tell “within minutes” whether a startup will pa

> Graham said that, after thousands of founder presentations and pitches, he and the YC partners are now able to tell “within minutes” whether a startup will pass muster or not. This I find slightly worrying. It's amazing if it still works (and I've been wondering how YC was still able to scale), but is the minimum amount of information that needs to be exchanged between startup and YC in order to get a good assessment really that small? Or is the quality of selection (due to scaling issues / less time per applicant) nowdays compensated by the effect of YC's reputation?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
syntern 13y ago
It is very likely that they are not focusing on the information being told, but instead they are picking up non-verbal communication clues.
feifan 13y ago
As a founder of a prospective startup, I know that so much can change in a matter of days or weeks — not just about the people/market/concept, but also with the founders themselves as we "grow up". I wonder how many founders came into their pitches throwing red flags, but who would have outgrown them during, or even before, the YC program began.
- nswanberg 13y ago
  Probably quite a few, especially those like Drew Houston who didn't get in on their first try. Presumably on that first application Drew had some of the same good credentials (MIT grad, perfect SAT score).
  - feifan 13y ago
    It's a shame YC doesn't provide feedback on applications…I'm sure they make notes as they go through the apps (at least for the ones they're not sure about) — would be great for them to have a system to include those notes with their decision notifications!
- rk17 13y ago
  In my honest opinion, they should just re-apply afterwards. It's impossible for investors to see if those red flags will or will not disappear during development. They are quite explicit that the pitch is paramount and why it so.
awwstn 13y ago
PG points out regularly that there is no way of predicting whether a startup will succeed. So, I'd guess that much of what they do is try to filter out companies that are likely to not succeed. If YC has nailed down the process, then only formidable teams would make it to the interview, and then the interview would serve to simply make sure the dynamic and attitude of the team is not such that they'd be likely to not succeed (sorry for the double negative, but I think the inverse would have a different meaning). It seems reasonable that after hundreds of these interviews, YC partners would be able to spot those dynamics in minutes.
- yohanatan 13y ago
  You could say 'fail' instead of 'not succeed'.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    Well, they're really trying to filter out companies which won't sell for millions. I don't think that everything below that is failure. Perhaps he should have gone with "won't wildly succeed"?
oskarth 13y ago
If you are the Richard Feynman of your field, don't you think you could pick up if someone is a good physicist or not in 10 minutes of talking about physics? Not just physics per say, but the mental models you have, the experiments you are going to perform, what kind of theories you have, what you've worked on before, etc. I certainly do, especially if you get to ask the questions.
- GuiA 13y ago
  There are Richard Feynmans in math, biology, physics, computer science, etc. I'm not sure there are Richard Feynmans in startups or similarly "soft" fields.
  - oskarth 13y ago
    That's true. What about people like da Vinci or Michelangelo? I am not comparing pg to either of these three people, at least not directly. I'm just claiming that it's not unlikely there's some kind of taste, knowledge or whatever have you which he (and the other partners) possesses to a much higher degree than Random Joe Investor.
  - nl 13y ago
    I'm not sure there are Richard Feynmans in startups or similarly "soft" fields. There are. Game recognize Game[1] is a thing for a reason. [1] If you need this footnote then it doesn't apply to you.
    - count 13y ago
      Game recognize game, and you looking might unfamiliar!
      - nl 13y ago
        ;) Wasn't quite expecting the violent downvoting though. Humour never goes well on HN.
      - theorique 13y ago
Ologn 13y ago
Having interviewed many people over the years (not for an accelerator though), you can easily tell within ten minutes if someone can not pass muster. I have never had anyone who stumbled over the first three questions I asked them, recover on subsequent questions. Nowadays, the only reason I keep interviewing people who stumble over the first three questions is out of politeness. As I am usually interviewing people for one position, which they need to perform well in, it would take more than ten minutes to get to a yes. But since YC gives sixty or more yeses a batch, and they still win if only a few of them pan out to be a Dropbox or Reddit, than they can probably afford to give a yes in the first ten minutes as well. Because who is a superstar is obvious in the first ten minutes as well. The only question for a superstar beyond the first ten minutes is if they are a fit or not (for example, would the obviously motivated and skilled author of Temple OS, who is marked dead here on HN, be a fit).
- rjzzleep 13y ago
  except you completely disregard cultural backgrounds, but meh. to each their own. interviewing just like any other skill can be practiced. edit: not saying i disagree per se. I can tell really quickly if someone knows their shit by working with them for a day... or so i'd like to think. the truth is i've been completely misjudged based on interviews before. i've seen people on top of their fields do the same mistakes with other people because they "seemed to know" based on talk. in the end talk is just that, talk.
  - PakG1 13y ago
    You know, I know that PG has been beaten to death over the speaking English with an accent thing, which is unfortunate, because it got away from what he was trying to say. But this is an interesting point. Culture, language, and other similar factors that could lead to poor interview performance is something that I hope we can somehow figure a way around. Now given that, let me say that I completely understand what PG was trying to say there, and I hope that I haven't hijacked the conversation.
    - btilly 13y ago
run4_too 13y ago
I would imagine that there is always the chance of 'false negatives' (people you call as failures that eventually succeed), but they are probably pretty bang on with identifying positives. As an investment first that pretty much the only statistic that matters.
rk17 13y ago
One could make the argument that amount of information to be exchanged in order to get a good assessment really is that small. If they mostly look at how you behave under pressure and whether or not you can still tell a consistent story (pitch your start-up), then you only need a couple of minutes. From what I've read, they judge team dynamic and character for the most part, only checking if you're able to think of a good idea because it would most likely change anyway.
pg 13y ago
I didn't say we can always tell within minutes, just that we sometimes can. Also, the interview is not the only information we get. We've also read the application.
pitchups 13y ago
This may well be an example of our ability to find patterns based only on "thin slices," or narrow windows, of experience. [0] Called "thin-slicing", first read about it in "Blink" by Gladwell, which is based entirely on this concept, and has plenty of great examples of this phenomenon (The Wikipedia link below has some of them). I think the human brain is the ultimate pattern-matching and learning machine, and when trained long enough develops an ability to discern patterns from the faintest and narrowest of signals. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-slicing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-slicing

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

syntern 13y ago

It is very likely that they are not focusing on the information being told, but instead they are picking up non-verbal communication clues.

feifan 13y ago

As a founder of a prospective startup, I know that so much can change in a matter of days or weeks — not just about the people/market/concept, but also with the founders themselves as we "grow up". I wonder how many founders came into their pitches throwing red flags, but who would have outgrown them during, or even before, the YC program began.

nswanberg 13y ago
Probably quite a few, especially those like Drew Houston who didn't get in on their first try. Presumably on that first application Drew had some of the same good credentials (MIT grad, perfect SAT score).
- feifan 13y ago
  It's a shame YC doesn't provide feedback on applications…I'm sure they make notes as they go through the apps (at least for the ones they're not sure about) — would be great for them to have a system to include those notes with their decision notifications!
rk17 13y ago
In my honest opinion, they should just re-apply afterwards. It's impossible for investors to see if those red flags will or will not disappear during development. They are quite explicit that the pitch is paramount and why it so.

awwstn 13y ago

PG points out regularly that there is no way of predicting whether a startup will succeed. So, I'd guess that much of what they do is try to filter out companies that are likely to not succeed. If YC has nailed down the process, then only formidable teams would make it to the interview, and then the interview would serve to simply make sure the dynamic and attitude of the team is not such that they'd be likely to not succeed (sorry for the double negative, but I think the inverse would have a different meaning). It seems reasonable that after hundreds of these interviews, YC partners would be able to spot those dynamics in minutes.

yohanatan 13y ago
You could say 'fail' instead of 'not succeed'.
- jacalata 13y ago
  Well, they're really trying to filter out companies which won't sell for millions. I don't think that everything below that is failure. Perhaps he should have gone with "won't wildly succeed"?

oskarth 13y ago

If you are the Richard Feynman of your field, don't you think you could pick up if someone is a good physicist or not in 10 minutes of talking about physics? Not just physics per say, but the mental models you have, the experiments you are going to perform, what kind of theories you have, what you've worked on before, etc. I certainly do, especially if you get to ask the questions.

GuiA 13y ago
There are Richard Feynmans in math, biology, physics, computer science, etc. I'm not sure there are Richard Feynmans in startups or similarly "soft" fields.
- oskarth 13y ago
  That's true. What about people like da Vinci or Michelangelo? I am not comparing pg to either of these three people, at least not directly. I'm just claiming that it's not unlikely there's some kind of taste, knowledge or whatever have you which he (and the other partners) possesses to a much higher degree than Random Joe Investor.
- nl 13y ago
  I'm not sure there are Richard Feynmans in startups or similarly "soft" fields. There are. Game recognize Game[1] is a thing for a reason. [1] If you need this footnote then it doesn't apply to you.
  - count 13y ago
    Game recognize game, and you looking might unfamiliar!
    - nl 13y ago
      ;) Wasn't quite expecting the violent downvoting though. Humour never goes well on HN.
    - theorique 13y ago

Ologn 13y ago

Having interviewed many people over the years (not for an accelerator though), you can easily tell within ten minutes if someone can not pass muster. I have never had anyone who stumbled over the first three questions I asked them, recover on subsequent questions. Nowadays, the only reason I keep interviewing people who stumble over the first three questions is out of politeness. As I am usually interviewing people for one position, which they need to perform well in, it would take more than ten minutes to get to a yes. But since YC gives sixty or more yeses a batch, and they still win if only a few of them pan out to be a Dropbox or Reddit, than they can probably afford to give a yes in the first ten minutes as well. Because who is a superstar is obvious in the first ten minutes as well. The only question for a superstar beyond the first ten minutes is if they are a fit or not (for example, would the obviously motivated and skilled author of Temple OS, who is marked dead here on HN, be a fit).

rjzzleep 13y ago
except you completely disregard cultural backgrounds, but meh. to each their own. interviewing just like any other skill can be practiced. edit: not saying i disagree per se. I can tell really quickly if someone knows their shit by working with them for a day... or so i'd like to think. the truth is i've been completely misjudged based on interviews before. i've seen people on top of their fields do the same mistakes with other people because they "seemed to know" based on talk. in the end talk is just that, talk.
- PakG1 13y ago
  You know, I know that PG has been beaten to death over the speaking English with an accent thing, which is unfortunate, because it got away from what he was trying to say. But this is an interesting point. Culture, language, and other similar factors that could lead to poor interview performance is something that I hope we can somehow figure a way around. Now given that, let me say that I completely understand what PG was trying to say there, and I hope that I haven't hijacked the conversation.
  - btilly 13y ago

run4_too 13y ago

I would imagine that there is always the chance of 'false negatives' (people you call as failures that eventually succeed), but they are probably pretty bang on with identifying positives. As an investment first that pretty much the only statistic that matters.

rk17 13y ago

One could make the argument that amount of information to be exchanged in order to get a good assessment really is that small. If they mostly look at how you behave under pressure and whether or not you can still tell a consistent story (pitch your start-up), then you only need a couple of minutes. From what I've read, they judge team dynamic and character for the most part, only checking if you're able to think of a good idea because it would most likely change anyway.

pg 13y ago

I didn't say we can always tell within minutes, just that we sometimes can. Also, the interview is not the only information we get. We've also read the application.

pitchups 13y ago

This may well be an example of our ability to find patterns based only on "thin slices," or narrow windows, of experience. [0] Called "thin-slicing", first read about it in "Blink" by Gladwell, which is based entirely on this concept, and has plenty of great examples of this phenomenon (The Wikipedia link below has some of them). I think the human brain is the ultimate pattern-matching and learning machine, and when trained long enough develops an ability to discern patterns from the faintest and narrowest of signals. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-slicing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-slicing