_sentient

14 ms·

61.
by _sentient 10y ago
Keep at it. The best thing you can do is make as much progress as possible between now and W17. Anecdotally, I'd say >50% of our batch applied more than once. The one thing we all had in common was traction/progress between app
62.
by _sentient 10y ago
YC has said this a few times, but their software doesn't play well with view counters. Every application gets looked at by multiple reviewers. I honestly wouldn't worry about it.
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by _sentient 11y ago
Not sure that's entirely accurate: http://www.citylab.com/tech/2016/01/the-rise-of-global-start... While SF and SJ lead the pack, it's far from a power law distribution. To be fair, much of the vent
64.
by _sentient 11y ago
+1. We're a 15-person YC company operating in San Diego. Primary benefits: - Strong pipeline of new engineering talent from schools like UCSD. - Lots of talented senior engineers working in the chip fab, defense, and life science indus
65.
by _sentient 11y ago
I wouldn't by default assume some sort of sinister ulterior motive here. There's a fairly good chance this is exactly how it appears: A CEO taking the rather exemplary step of donating an entire year's worth of comp to his em
66.
by _sentient 11y ago
To be fair, this letter was targeted at companies in the current YC batch. They've already explicitly opted-in to going the venture route, at least in some capacity. Bootstrapped businesses can be awesome; I've built a couple myse
67.
by _sentient 11y ago
Probably a blend of growth metrics, capital raised, and some qualitative stuff.
68.
by _sentient 11y ago
I think it's clear that's not the intention here. The message is basically "the clock starts ticking with funding, so expect to meet a higher bar". This is similar to the notion that a startup can "sell the dream&qu
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by _sentient 11y ago
Ah, thanks for clarifying what round that was, and kudos to David! Like I said, you guys have been doing a better job distinguishing between your accelerator and venture portfolio, although that hasn't always been the case. In a simila
70.
by _sentient 11y ago
Also a shot at Techstars, who have been known to lump in late-stage fund investments with their accelerator returns. Writing a tiny check into Uber's B-round has nothing to do with their accelerator program, for example, and it's
71.
by _sentient 11y ago
That's interesting. I'm guessing the investor complement to this would be the option to get your money back if a company chooses to go in a wildly different direction? I've seen that sentiment around more of late, possibly as
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by _sentient 11y ago
Good accelerators don't make exploding offers. People who make exploding offers are not just bad, they're also acutely aware of that fact, thus the manufactured scarcity.
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by _sentient 11y ago
YC's IRR outstrips that of all but a tiny handful of venture funds. (Sequoia, maybe?) There's always room to improve, but it's likely they are making fewer mistakes than you think.
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by _sentient 11y ago
The framing here is: "What are the implications of doing nothing if you are right (about the inevitability of a malicious strong AI, in this case), compared to the implications about being wrong and still doing nothing?"
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by _sentient 11y ago
You have the poles reversed.
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by _sentient 11y ago
$1B in committed funding. Just, wow. Side note: I wonder if the Strong AI argument can benefit from something akin to Pascal's Wager, in that the upside of being right is ~infinite with only a finite downside in the opposing case.
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by _sentient 11y ago
Imagine a world where crony-capitalist incumbents legislate with the explicit purpose of stifling competition and protecting their monopolies. That is the world we live in. Given that fact, as Uber your potential choices are to either: 1) i
78.
by _sentient 11y ago
Seconded. Zenefits has been great for on-boarding new hires, but they made mistakes in our health insurance coverage that ended up costing us ~$20k/year. I'm sure Parker and Co. are aware of these issues and working hard to improv
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by _sentient 11y ago
I'd take it a step further: Progress is any work that is enterprise value accretive. Prioritized to the degree to which it is.
80.
by _sentient 11y ago
Well, the brand is a byproduct of all the excellent work YC partners have been doing over the last 10 years. That being said, YC now has a strong positive selection advantage, the benefit of which is self-perpetuating.
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The Economics of Watering Your Lawn(lawnlove.com)
2 points by _sentient 11y ago|0 comments
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by _sentient 11y ago
Most startups begin life in total obscurity and only transcend that nameless wasteland through sheer cheerleading force. I get that it can feel a little rah-rah, but as a founder that function is firmly on your list of jobs. It would be str
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by _sentient 11y ago
Big +1 to this. Thrilled to see the great work Jared will be doing at YC.
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by _sentient 11y ago
Probably somewhat less liquid with far greater alpha.
85.
I Have Read Prop F(medium.com)
238 points by _sentient 11y ago|170 comments
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by _sentient 11y ago
I agree with the last premise, but we already have a way to get people to pay for products they are used to getting for free. It's advertising. And while I would personally avoid the model, it has spawned/supported many of the gre
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by _sentient 11y ago
If you have negative contribution margins, scale only accelerates your demise. Driving toward scale with those economics is exactly what it means to "lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume". Is selling something at a u
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by _sentient 11y ago
Uber is profitable in many of its mature markets. This is while charging less than half what you would pay a legacy taxi service, while paying drivers more than they would make at the same. This is the direct byproduct of strong network eff
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Unit Economics(blog.samaltman.com)
372 points by _sentient 11y ago|164 comments
90.
by _sentient 11y ago
The median age of YC founders is 30. These aren't the pliable, simple-minded children of your caricature. Many of them are accomplished entrepreneurs who understand power law dynamics perfectly. Further, I think nearly every founder wh

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