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181.
by pg 13y ago
The YC FAQ answers the first three: http://ycombinator.com/faq.html As for the fourth, of course not.
182.
by pg 13y ago
No African countries have applied or been accepted, but we've accepted several people from them. IIRC none were making things for specifically African markets though. We're certainly willing to fund companies building stuff for t
183.
Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch(ycombinator.com)
172 points by pg 13y ago|89 comments
184.
by pg 13y ago
No. We didn't manipulate the scores of these (or any other) posts. Presumably the reason Sam started writing a lot in 2012 was the same reason I started trying to recruit him then: he was finished working for Green Dot.
185.
by pg 13y ago
It's not the only motivation. It really will be better for YC to have someone running it who is actually interested in running an organization. I have a whole bunch of ideas for essays I'd like to write, but I almost never pick a
186.
by pg 13y ago
Probably not. But though it's an impressive feat of standing, the stuff that comes up then is so basic (slow down, look at the audience, etc) that any YC partner could make those sorts of comments. I'll still talk about pitches i
187.
by pg 13y ago
http://paulgraham.com/essay.html
188.
by pg 13y ago
I'm going to continue doing office hours with startups in future batches. And since office hours are the main way founders interact with me, YC should feel the same to companies we fund. It will feel a lot different to me though. Not
189.
by pg 13y ago
We've been using Gobble lately and I would recommend it to any family with small children. This is one of those things you don't realize till you have kids, but 4 year olds don't want to eat the same things you do. Eventual
190.
by pg 13y ago
That is hilarious. That one will be hard to resist.
191.
by pg 13y ago
It wasn't straight downtime. For a while we were up but you couldn't submit stories or comments.
192.
Source of the recent outagelet
68 points by pg 13y ago|47 comments
193.
by pg 13y ago
I haven't heard of early hires being fired because their performance didn't match the amount of equity they got. All Sam's really saying is that if someone turns out to be so bad that you have to fire them, vesting means the
194.
by pg 13y ago
Depends on the situation. If you're a single founder and you've only been working on the company for a couple months and the person you're hiring is as competent and dedicated as you are, 50% could be reasonable.
195.
by pg 13y ago
"I have never seen a startup regret being generous with equity for their early employees." Same here. I always advise startups to err on the side of generosity with equity.
196.
by pg 13y ago
Off the top of my head, what you can learn about YC's general attitude to things. We don't often get interviewed about YC itself.
197.
Jessica Livingston (Y Combinator) at Startup Grind 2014(youtube.com)
124 points by pg 13y ago|15 comments
198.
Moths and sloths: Slow food movement(economist.com)
3 points by pg 13y ago|0 comments
199.
by pg 13y ago
Is there a valuation cap on the convertible note?
200.
by pg 13y ago
How carefully the startups watch this sort of thing varies a lot, but it's always the beginning of any conversation I have when I check in with them.
201.
by pg 13y ago
This is a very important point. It's remarkable how often startups run out of money as if by accident. The fundamental reason is that although a startup is nimble in many respects, financially it's like driving something very bi
202.
by pg 13y ago
Using the term "lynch mob" metaphorically is a long established usage. But in case you weren't just pretending to misunderstand me, I didn't mean that HN users are literally planning to kill Tim Armstrong. I meant the f
203.
by pg 13y ago
What did he say? http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/02/8539961/... He shouldn't have mentioned specific cases. If he felt the company had to cut elsewhere to compensate for hig
204.
by pg 13y ago
Depends what you mean by "about." Do you mean 1. People often attack you for some belief they mistakenly attribute to you. or 2. What you actually say or believe doesn't matter. If people want to make up some belief to attr
205.
by pg 13y ago
"I'm utterly appalled at Tim Armstrong's attitudes towards the lives of his employee's children. Apparently it's possible to pay a programmer $100K/year, but spending ten times that to save the life of one of
206.
by pg 13y ago
"these behaviors enhance the fitness of the genes which make one predisposed to religiosity. This has been hypothesized many times, and is the only rational explanation for the vast and fervent religious behaviors we witness today.&qu
207.
by pg 13y ago
I've only rarely seen evidence of this. One guy tried it on the most recent "Who's Hiring" thread though.
208.
by pg 13y ago
This is one of the startups we funded that we personally use the most. They're easy, reliable, and the flowers are great.
209.
by pg 13y ago
if Y Combinator is backing both of these, why are they competitors? We talk about this in the YC FAQ: http://ycombinator.com/faq.html Companies we fund often end up competing. It's inevitable when you fund companies
210.
by pg 13y ago
As you know, I didn't kill those posts because they're about a YC company. I killed them because HN is a news site, not a support forum for YC companies. And the reason we don't want that sort of post is not to conceal prob

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