sama

19 ms·

211.
by sama 11y ago
Not that important. I didn't finish college.
212.
by sama 11y ago
If the idea seems good, and the DAU number is growing fast, we'd be excited to consider it.
213.
by sama 11y ago
Honestly, it doesn't seem to be super different yet, except for the late stage which has gotten much harder. It still could change a lot--I'm not sure.
214.
by sama 11y ago
Personally, I never read an applicant's HN comments, nor do I note the names associated with comments with I read HN.
215.
by sama 11y ago
Some of the most important startups start out looking incredibly ambitious. Others start out looking incredibly trivial, but with users that are in love with their product. We like funding both.
216.
by sama 11y ago
Let's see how the next 10 years go before we call it an awesome job.
217.
by sama 11y ago
Biotech
218.
by sama 11y ago
We don't. We think it's much better if cofounders have some sort of shared history together.
219.
by sama 11y ago
I think YC helps your startup. I've never been through Techstars, though maybe they do too.
220.
by sama 11y ago
1. Some partners may read the earlier version of your application. The advantage to submitting earlier is not so big, it just means you might get more reads. I'd for sure wait to submit until you have your demo. 2. We have an interna
221.
by sama 11y ago
We're still working through this--it turns out to be a research problem in itself. We talk about it a lot, and I'm working on a post about it (for example, we may not share intermediate breakthrough that we think pose major safety
222.
by sama 11y ago
Don't over-optimize. At some point you have to stop reading advice blogs and go build a company, and figure it out as you go. Take care of yourself, take some time to enjoy your life, and work the rest of the time.
223.
by sama 11y ago
A common failure mode for companies like these is to talk a lot about how hard their problems are and never get anything at all done. Even a huge project starts with a first step. We look for founders that get that one done, and then the s
224.
by sama 11y ago
No--we try a lot of things but they don't all work. When they don't, we move on to new ones.
225.
by sama 11y ago
AAPL, AMZN, TSLA, GOOGL, INTC, FB, YELP, BOX. I like tech.
226.
by sama 11y ago
Most of us are technical. We can probably understand it, at least a very high level. And we certainly can understand 200% monthly growth.
227.
by sama 11y ago
Often they sort of happen together--you start going back and forth on an idea with the people that become your cofounders.
228.
by sama 11y ago
Honestly, we are so busy, there are so many companies, and ideas are worth so little, that most of us don't think twice about a specific company once we move on to the next applications. The very best ideas usually don't seem wort
229.
by sama 11y ago
We do talk about that every once in awhile, but the average company that applies to YC is not very good and thus the experiment would hurt the network (and be painful for us to work with). What we've more seriously considered is random
230.
by sama 11y ago
From dang, who runs HN: "about 310k daily uniques and about 10x that in page views"
231.
by sama 11y ago
None of us live very long. May as well try to contribute to the future and try to feel fulfilled in the little time you have.
232.
by sama 11y ago
The main thing is that we shard YC into small internal groups. I know all the startups in my group in the batch well, and very little about the startups in other groups.
233.
by sama 11y ago
No.
234.
by sama 11y ago
We don't require many things--founders are not are employees. However, we do offer cofounder communication workshops to the batch. Innerspace puts them on, and they always get incredible reviews--in fact, some of the most positive rev
235.
by sama 11y ago
It would depend on the specifics in each case, but probably the potentially huge idea.
236.
by sama 11y ago
To be clear, it has nothing to do with all the shit he talks about YC. Though that's annoying, it's fine. We collect feedback from YC founders on investors (we have a giant database of this). If you mistreat founders, we don&#x2
237.
by sama 11y ago
I don't run that much. I do walk a lot, but mostly I just think running shoes are comfortable.
238.
by sama 11y ago
Most companies we fund don't have a referral.
239.
by sama 11y ago
Most days I take Uber or Caltrain.
240.
by sama 11y ago
Bezos did it, I believe.

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