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Sam is obviously not a disinterested party here. Don't join a big company- start a new investment for him to participate in or join one of his existing investm

Sam is obviously not a disinterested party here. Don't join a big company- start a new investment for him to participate in or join one of his existing investments and help to make it a success. But in my experience nothing opens doors for you like having solid experience at a well known and well respected company. If you put in 5 years at Google, Apple, etc. you will find it to be much easier to start (or to get hired at) a start-up than if you had joined a start-up right away.

themartorana 12y ago
Yup - also, the business experience I gained at a multi-national was invaluable when it came to running my own company - both for some "how the world works" basic understanding (IANAL but can grok B2B contracts like a champ) and a solid grasp of what bad practices don't really hurt a giant corporation with mass and momentum, but could sink a young company very quickly.
brudgers 12y ago
I don't disagree about self interest playing a role, consciously or unconsciously. But there is some of the tent revialist's 'true belief' in the sermonizer and most likely many of the audience are 'already saved.' The be startup entrepreneur meme is so prevalent that there could easily have been people in the audience who planned on applying to YC while filling out their MIT application. In other words, I suspect the audience was largely self selected. And in fairness to Altman he wasn't pitching the rainbows and unicorns to people in the middle of the bell curve. MIT students are a cohort statistically more likely to succeed in Silcon Valley tech culture than Alabama bumpkins at cow colleges. But again, I agree there's self interest involved. That's also true for Apple, Google, IBM and Microsoft recruitment.
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  > "Alabama bumpkins at cow colleges" I'm not sure what you're suggesting here, exactly, but I am sure that I don't like it. We have enough problems with ageism and sexism in this industry, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at regionalism.
  - brudgers 12y ago
    It gives me faith in humanity that someone can be offended by a phrase that they admittedly don't understand the meaning of or point of reference. The surface text is that MIT students are better positioned to succeed at YC than people from more pedestrian socio-economic backgrounds. Altman isn't directly recruiting at community college students for reasonable reasons [by which I am not saying that there aren't potential founders among community college students, but that it is easier to optimize on eliminating false positives among MIT students than among students at less selective institutions]. You're on your own for the hermeneutics.
    - bdcravens 12y ago
      The same would be true of someone attending a state school in California, no?
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      MIT students are objectively better than those graduating from other institutions. The institution is prestigious in the field, highly selective in its admissions, and maintains a diverse and challenging curriculum. If you are trying to recruit the best of the best, it makes sense to recruit there. But you will have stiff competition from everyone else seeking the same. You're probably also looking at CalTech, Stanford, Berkeley, and Princeton with the same eyeball. And sama is saying that some of those companies that set out to recruit the very best and most prestigious graduates are not always the very best companies to work for. That's it. If you graduate from MIT, you don't have to work for Apple, Google, Facebook, or any other company that anyone has actually heard of. I came from the middle of the bell curve, and my first job was working for a start-up. I didn't need sama's advice, because I was just looking for the first thing I could find, rather than the first thing that would not spoil the purity of my perfect, pre-planned resume. That's why he was aiming at those busy beavers in Boston. He's just saying that people might be happier if they chased after the rainbow unicorn farts rather than prestige. I have worked closely with graduates of Alabama, Auburn, and Alabama A&M, including the smaller satellite campuses. Those are not "cow colleges". Their graduates are not bumpkins. They are overly religious and entirely too enthusiastic about football, in my opinion, but they still know how to do the work. They also know how to chase their dreams, even when afforded fewer opportunities to do so. Recognize that "bumpkin" and "cow college" are derogatory or dismissive terms, you may have used them without thinking about why you shouldn't, and that you may need to reflect on that a bit.
silverbax88 12y ago
I agree with this, and the fact that I feel there is an under-valuing of the experience working for large companies - whether that experience is good or bad (in general). Working for larger companies will make you dislike bureaucracy but also understand how it mitigates risk (and hopefully allow you to find a happy medium). It also will push you to compete under pressures that you won't normally just put on yourself, it will teach you how to take customers seriously, how to build systems and applications seriously. This is not to say big companies get all this right; far from it. But working for them will make you much more bulletproof than working on your startup by yourself. This is why most successful startups are NOT started by 20-something kids, but actually 40-something former corporate employees.
pen2l 12y ago
Don't join big company, join small company. So that when small company gets acquired later on by the big company, Sam makes a lot of money. YC companies acquired by google: BufferBox, Flutter, TalkBin, the Fridge, Bump, reMail, Omnisio, Appjet, Zenter YC companies acquired by facebook: Carsabi, Midnox, Parse,Sendoid, GazeHawk, Divvyshot, Parakey etc. edit: upon reflection, my comment probably reads somewhat flippant. That's a pity, but it's a pity too the crass manner in which Sam says the things he says in his YC campaign tours.
throwawaytime 12y ago
If you put in 5 years at Google, Apple, etc. you will find it to be much easier to start (or to get hired at) a start-up than if you had joined a start-up right away. Like Zuck? Drew Houston? It's easy to rattle off a dozen names who wouldn't have started their company if they'd worked at a big company for 5 years. The correct answer is "figure out what works for you." And stop being cynical. It's really crummy to see Sam Altman, one of the nicest and most genuine people, dumped on here just because nobody here knows him. I know him. Or I did, once. He's not the type of person you describe. Just the opposite: what sets Sam apart is how much he believes in you. You generally don't find it elsewhere in the world. It's rare for your own parents to believe in you in the way Sam does. So why go to a big company where they definitely won't believe in you or let you forge your own opportunities? And yes, you're right, you can spend years climbing the modern equivalent of the corporate ladder in order to get people to believe in you and let you take a risk. But: in my experience nothing opens doors for you like having solid experience at a well known and well respected company. Empirically, you're wrong about that. There are now over a thousand YC alums who prove you don't need it. Sam is saying, "If you want to do a startup, here's what works on average." Nothing more.
- pen2l 12y ago
  > what sets Sam apart is how much he believes in you. You generally don't find it elsewhere in the world. It's rare for your own parents to really believe in you in the way Sam does. What does this mean? And why are you emphasizing it so much? Sam is an investor, he believes in people who he thinks will succeed. By definition, he's not going to believe in a very large set of people. But he will believe in people who seem promising... it really is very useless to point out that he 'believes' in people. > Why go to a big company where they definitely won't believe in you or let you forge your own opportunities? Because there's greater security in working for a big company, generally speaking, than starting a startup. Though as others have mentioned, the audience here were a self-selected group of MIT students... it's not as outrageous for Sam to have said what he has said there. I do have a problem with him abusing his platform when he starts generalizing this kind of advice (previously he's said it's better to start a startup than work for a company to a more general audience -- it's just a bad thing for him to say, but that's a topic for another day).
_pius 12y ago
If you put in 5 years at Google, Apple, etc. you will find it to be much easier to start (or to get hired at) a start-up than if you had joined a start-up right away. I'm sorry, but this is really bad advice for engineers graduating from MIT in 2015 and predisposed to starting a new company. You have your whole career to settle into a big corporate job for a long stretch; why do that right out of college? An entrepreneurial software engineer graduating from anywhere, let alone MIT, should almost certainly move to San Francisco after college and start or join a startup. If it doesn't work out, they'll find themselves looking for a job in an extremely favorable market. Letting assumptions about what's "easier" cow you into taking some job for five years is no way to live, certainly not for a recent MIT grad with the most highly sought after skill set in the world.

themartorana 12y ago

Yup - also, the business experience I gained at a multi-national was invaluable when it came to running my own company - both for some "how the world works" basic understanding (IANAL but can grok B2B contracts like a champ) and a solid grasp of what bad practices don't really hurt a giant corporation with mass and momentum, but could sink a young company very quickly.

brudgers 12y ago

I don't disagree about self interest playing a role, consciously or unconsciously. But there is some of the tent revialist's 'true belief' in the sermonizer and most likely many of the audience are 'already saved.' The be startup entrepreneur meme is so prevalent that there could easily have been people in the audience who planned on applying to YC while filling out their MIT application. In other words, I suspect the audience was largely self selected. And in fairness to Altman he wasn't pitching the rainbows and unicorns to people in the middle of the bell curve. MIT students are a cohort statistically more likely to succeed in Silcon Valley tech culture than Alabama bumpkins at cow colleges. But again, I agree there's self interest involved. That's also true for Apple, Google, IBM and Microsoft recruitment.

logfromblammo 12y ago
> "Alabama bumpkins at cow colleges" I'm not sure what you're suggesting here, exactly, but I am sure that I don't like it. We have enough problems with ageism and sexism in this industry, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at regionalism.
- brudgers 12y ago
  It gives me faith in humanity that someone can be offended by a phrase that they admittedly don't understand the meaning of or point of reference. The surface text is that MIT students are better positioned to succeed at YC than people from more pedestrian socio-economic backgrounds. Altman isn't directly recruiting at community college students for reasonable reasons [by which I am not saying that there aren't potential founders among community college students, but that it is easier to optimize on eliminating false positives among MIT students than among students at less selective institutions]. You're on your own for the hermeneutics.
  - bdcravens 12y ago
    The same would be true of someone attending a state school in California, no?
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    MIT students are objectively better than those graduating from other institutions. The institution is prestigious in the field, highly selective in its admissions, and maintains a diverse and challenging curriculum. If you are trying to recruit the best of the best, it makes sense to recruit there. But you will have stiff competition from everyone else seeking the same. You're probably also looking at CalTech, Stanford, Berkeley, and Princeton with the same eyeball. And sama is saying that some of those companies that set out to recruit the very best and most prestigious graduates are not always the very best companies to work for. That's it. If you graduate from MIT, you don't have to work for Apple, Google, Facebook, or any other company that anyone has actually heard of. I came from the middle of the bell curve, and my first job was working for a start-up. I didn't need sama's advice, because I was just looking for the first thing I could find, rather than the first thing that would not spoil the purity of my perfect, pre-planned resume. That's why he was aiming at those busy beavers in Boston. He's just saying that people might be happier if they chased after the rainbow unicorn farts rather than prestige. I have worked closely with graduates of Alabama, Auburn, and Alabama A&M, including the smaller satellite campuses. Those are not "cow colleges". Their graduates are not bumpkins. They are overly religious and entirely too enthusiastic about football, in my opinion, but they still know how to do the work. They also know how to chase their dreams, even when afforded fewer opportunities to do so. Recognize that "bumpkin" and "cow college" are derogatory or dismissive terms, you may have used them without thinking about why you shouldn't, and that you may need to reflect on that a bit.

silverbax88 12y ago

I agree with this, and the fact that I feel there is an under-valuing of the experience working for large companies - whether that experience is good or bad (in general). Working for larger companies will make you dislike bureaucracy but also understand how it mitigates risk (and hopefully allow you to find a happy medium). It also will push you to compete under pressures that you won't normally just put on yourself, it will teach you how to take customers seriously, how to build systems and applications seriously. This is not to say big companies get all this right; far from it. But working for them will make you much more bulletproof than working on your startup by yourself. This is why most successful startups are NOT started by 20-something kids, but actually 40-something former corporate employees.

pen2l 12y ago

Don't join big company, join small company. So that when small company gets acquired later on by the big company, Sam makes a lot of money. YC companies acquired by google: BufferBox, Flutter, TalkBin, the Fridge, Bump, reMail, Omnisio, Appjet, Zenter YC companies acquired by facebook: Carsabi, Midnox, Parse,Sendoid, GazeHawk, Divvyshot, Parakey etc. edit: upon reflection, my comment probably reads somewhat flippant. That's a pity, but it's a pity too the crass manner in which Sam says the things he says in his YC campaign tours.

throwawaytime 12y ago

If you put in 5 years at Google, Apple, etc. you will find it to be much easier to start (or to get hired at) a start-up than if you had joined a start-up right away. Like Zuck? Drew Houston? It's easy to rattle off a dozen names who wouldn't have started their company if they'd worked at a big company for 5 years. The correct answer is "figure out what works for you." And stop being cynical. It's really crummy to see Sam Altman, one of the nicest and most genuine people, dumped on here just because nobody here knows him. I know him. Or I did, once. He's not the type of person you describe. Just the opposite: what sets Sam apart is how much he believes in you. You generally don't find it elsewhere in the world. It's rare for your own parents to believe in you in the way Sam does. So why go to a big company where they definitely won't believe in you or let you forge your own opportunities? And yes, you're right, you can spend years climbing the modern equivalent of the corporate ladder in order to get people to believe in you and let you take a risk. But: in my experience nothing opens doors for you like having solid experience at a well known and well respected company. Empirically, you're wrong about that. There are now over a thousand YC alums who prove you don't need it. Sam is saying, "If you want to do a startup, here's what works on average." Nothing more.

pen2l 12y ago
> what sets Sam apart is how much he believes in you. You generally don't find it elsewhere in the world. It's rare for your own parents to really believe in you in the way Sam does. What does this mean? And why are you emphasizing it so much? Sam is an investor, he believes in people who he thinks will succeed. By definition, he's not going to believe in a very large set of people. But he will believe in people who seem promising... it really is very useless to point out that he 'believes' in people. > Why go to a big company where they definitely won't believe in you or let you forge your own opportunities? Because there's greater security in working for a big company, generally speaking, than starting a startup. Though as others have mentioned, the audience here were a self-selected group of MIT students... it's not as outrageous for Sam to have said what he has said there. I do have a problem with him abusing his platform when he starts generalizing this kind of advice (previously he's said it's better to start a startup than work for a company to a more general audience -- it's just a bad thing for him to say, but that's a topic for another day).

_pius 12y ago

If you put in 5 years at Google, Apple, etc. you will find it to be much easier to start (or to get hired at) a start-up than if you had joined a start-up right away. I'm sorry, but this is really bad advice for engineers graduating from MIT in 2015 and predisposed to starting a new company. You have your whole career to settle into a big corporate job for a long stretch; why do that right out of college? An entrepreneurial software engineer graduating from anywhere, let alone MIT, should almost certainly move to San Francisco after college and start or join a startup. If it doesn't work out, they'll find themselves looking for a job in an extremely favorable market. Letting assumptions about what's "easier" cow you into taking some job for five years is no way to live, certainly not for a recent MIT grad with the most highly sought after skill set in the world.