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How do you guys deal with conflicts of interest? For instance, suppose hypothetically someone is building a startup who's goal is to eat the company who's CEO i

How do you guys deal with conflicts of interest? For instance, suppose hypothetically someone is building a startup who's goal is to eat the company who's CEO is in your list of YC partners... How's that going to work?

shin_lao 12y ago
Don't know about YC, but most funds don't invest in competing companies, and sometimes the strategy can even be broader: "don't invest twice in the same area". For example if you already have an investment in email application, you will opt-out from similar investments in the future.
haky_nash 12y ago
From the FAQ: Will you fund multiple startups working on the same idea? Yes. If you fund as many companies as we do it's unavoidable you'll end up with some overlap. Even if you tried not to accept competing companies, you'd still get overlap because startups' ideas morph so much. The way we deal with it is that when two startups are working on related stuff, we don't talk to one about what the other's doing. In practice it has not turned out to be a problem, because most big markets have room for several slightly different solutions, and it's unlikely that two startups would do precisely the same thing.
- aptwebapps 12y ago
  That's a start but the GP wasn't asking about competing entrants in the same batch but about a theoretical entrant that would compete with an established YC partner.
  - haky_nash 12y ago
    Umm I think that was a more general comment. And the reason that makes up the later part of the answer sounds very general and applies to the GP's question.
    - aptwebapps 12y ago
      "The way we deal with it is that when two startups are working on related stuff, we don't talk to one about what the other's doing." This seems easier to do with two startups in the same batch than with a new startup and an existing YC partner, although I suppose they could use the same approach.

shin_lao 12y ago

Don't know about YC, but most funds don't invest in competing companies, and sometimes the strategy can even be broader: "don't invest twice in the same area". For example if you already have an investment in email application, you will opt-out from similar investments in the future.

haky_nash 12y ago

From the FAQ: Will you fund multiple startups working on the same idea? Yes. If you fund as many companies as we do it's unavoidable you'll end up with some overlap. Even if you tried not to accept competing companies, you'd still get overlap because startups' ideas morph so much. The way we deal with it is that when two startups are working on related stuff, we don't talk to one about what the other's doing. In practice it has not turned out to be a problem, because most big markets have room for several slightly different solutions, and it's unlikely that two startups would do precisely the same thing.

aptwebapps 12y ago
That's a start but the GP wasn't asking about competing entrants in the same batch but about a theoretical entrant that would compete with an established YC partner.
- haky_nash 12y ago
  Umm I think that was a more general comment. And the reason that makes up the later part of the answer sounds very general and applies to the GP's question.
  - aptwebapps 12y ago
    "The way we deal with it is that when two startups are working on related stuff, we don't talk to one about what the other's doing." This seems easier to do with two startups in the same batch than with a new startup and an existing YC partner, although I suppose they could use the same approach.