Does YC ever intend to revisit doing remote batches again?
There's many founders in the country who are just as driven and motivated, but have real-world situations that cannot allow uprooting themselves for several months, two very common ones:
- new parents
- disabled family members, or are themselves physically disabled
The discourse on Hacker News has frequently chastised companies demanding RTO, and some of the companies in your portfolio are remote-first (or remote-only), why does YC make the same kind of RTO demand with batches?
We might, and I'm sure you're right that there are many great founders not applying to do YC because they don't want to move here.
But I think it would be a better analogy to compare YC to a university, rather than to a company. It's true that many companies operate remotely very effectively. But essentially zero universities have stayed remote since the early days of the pandemic.
People in those situations can and should start companies without an accelerator (or at least without this one). The joke around the SF scene is that even a founder with a boy/girlfriend is a sign of a startup doomed to fail, and YC doesn't seem particularly invested in changing that culture.
It’s a form of self selection. YC (and silicon valley at large) isn't interested in founders with pesky things like real life responsibilities or anything else that will prevent them from focusing on their startup 24x7.
YC is so early on some of these deals that the primary gauge is team - which means personality of founders. Very hard to measure remotely.
I'm in a group, not as big or famous, that does early checks. We're 95% remote. IME, it's so hard to make those judgement calls through web-cam.
Agreed that founder focus is a big factor and that life gets in the way (of deals). However, if you don't like YC conditions there are 100s of other places to (attempt a) raise.
This is basically ensuring YC starts to get more absolute top graduates. Entrepreneurship is more and more seen as the default path for top people in the USA. All other career paths are for people that want to take the risk of ending up in a 50 year assembly line. This is probably good for society
If you want to get rich by 30, you basically have to start a startup or get into a top small hedge fund out of undergrad.
How many YC founders end up rich before 30? Or even at all? I think it’s likely a highly valuable experience running a business experiment someone else will fund (not to mention connections you wouldn’t otherwise make), but the odds of actual, liquid wealth from the experience and time spent are very low.
Alot of them do, not only that, they build skills that help them start their next company. Many of which are bootstrapped and profitable. This whole idea that startups are a complete lottery ticket is not only false, its increasingly less false, more money is being made now in startups than ever
Based on public exit and liquidity event information, startups still remain a lottery ticket for most. 90% of startups fail entirely, for example (CB Insights). YC startups have more longevity, and more get to a Series A then non YC startups, but the best batches based on performance have been between 2009 and 2013. 10% achieve an exit, 4.5% became unicorns. Only 17 companies backed by YC (out of almost 5k) have gone public, and all except Airbnb, Instacart, and Reddit have underperformed post IPO.
Have fun, learn, develop and grow your skills and network, take the investment, but it’s important to be honest with one’s self about odds of success and outcome. If you win, respect and appreciate the lottery ticket for what it was. Hard work and years of grinding is table stakes, but you can still fail (and most do).
Let me make this simple for you: you will not get rich by 30.
I know, I know...there are examples! And yes, there are, but statistically, they won't be you. You're playing the lottery, only it's a lottery that steals your youth and gives you psychological problems.
If your only goal is to get rich, then don't do a startup. You have to have some more fundamental reason, or the agony will beat you.
I live in NYC, I have met alot of very rich startup founders. But not only that, lots of people making 50k a month from a startup they built post YC, raised no VC, and have no boss.
Its an outdated take to think people arent doing this
Sure. Google "selection bias". You aren't meeting the 10,000 who failed.
I also live in NYC. I lived in SF, during possibly the all-time greatest period of wealth creation in the last 50 years. I knew billionaires when they couldn't afford bar tabs. I ate leftover boxes of Obama-Os (again, Google it) that nobody wanted.
I'm still telling you the truth. Every one of those people who succeeded went through hell and back, and even then there was no guarantee that there was a reward at the end of the hell. Doing a startup is like getting punched in the face repeatedly for many, many years, with only your faith -- in something -- to carry you forward. You have to have more than just a desire to be rich.
You dont have to create a billion dollar company. Especially after raising VC and failing, its much clearer how to build a business. Very reasonable to think a smart hard working person can build a company making 1M a year. Life owning a company that makes even a moderate amount is 1000x better than a career. I think your analysis is outdated
Entrepreneurship isn’t getting showered with millions for doing nothing other than being accepted as a part of the blessed elite and access to an infinite spigot of free money when all other sources have been dammed off and diverted to the ever shrinking minority of ever increasing ultra-wealth.
For people who took a second to get this (like me), @fijiaarone means it is.
And I concur - in this AI hypecycle more than ever it seems to be about how can peacock the best. Its neck and neck with the crypto hypecycle a few years ago for the incidence rate of vaporware and snake oil. Sure there are some legit founders building meaningful product but they seem to be a small minority.
This would be a better comment if it asserted what the poster believed entrepreneurship IS rather than what it is not.
FWIW, to me entrepreneurship is an amazing path, but starting a company right out of college?? There’s a LOT of skills to develop. Have someone to copy. Make sure you draw enough salary. Keep an identity outside of your company (networking!) so you can pick yourself up if (when) it crashes.
To what extent is YC's current strategy a form of "cookie-licking"? I.e. capture a small fraction of every plausible startup created by the next generation of students?
I loved YC and can't recommend it enough. But if you're going to start a company, please consider working at another company first, even if briefly. (And make it a company you respect and want to emulate.)
The amount of wheels you won't have to reinvent if you work at another company are astronomical. From engineering practices to sales to management, there's a lot you don't want to innovate on. Starting a company is really hard, and it's even harder if you've never seen first-hand how a functional company works. Your future employees will thank you.
> You can go an entire career without seeing how a functional company works.
having worked at a few dysfunctional companies, there's value in it. you learn to spot red flag decisions and the kinds of people that tend to cause organizations to explode from within. a Lot of the success at my current company can be attributed to decisions I've made that came from experience at failed startups where we did the opposite.
Great, then at least you can see what you don't like! (But really, I intentionally said a company you want to emulate, because I do agree – no point in taking this advice if you go to a bad company)
Cannot +1 this enough! Joining a team you respect and seeing how they operate gives you a really good baseline to work off of and take what you like and modify what you disagreed with.
You'd be surprised how many times you can "iterate and fail quickly" only to end up at an established practice some other shop has been doing for years. It is important however to understand the why behind the decisions as otherwise you're no better than just figuring it out yourself
I made this mistake. I love where I've wound up, but I would have gotten there much more quickly and with a lot less heartache if I'd worked as part of an existing company before starting my own.
Does YC ever intend to revisit doing remote batches again?
There's many founders in the country who are just as driven and motivated, but have real-world situations that cannot allow uprooting themselves for several months, two very common ones:
- new parents
- disabled family members, or are themselves physically disabled
The discourse on Hacker News has frequently chastised companies demanding RTO, and some of the companies in your portfolio are remote-first (or remote-only), why does YC make the same kind of RTO demand with batches?
We might, and I'm sure you're right that there are many great founders not applying to do YC because they don't want to move here.
But I think it would be a better analogy to compare YC to a university, rather than to a company. It's true that many companies operate remotely very effectively. But essentially zero universities have stayed remote since the early days of the pandemic.
People in those situations can and should start companies without an accelerator (or at least without this one). The joke around the SF scene is that even a founder with a boy/girlfriend is a sign of a startup doomed to fail, and YC doesn't seem particularly invested in changing that culture.
Check out https://tinyseed.com/
It’s a form of self selection. YC (and silicon valley at large) isn't interested in founders with pesky things like real life responsibilities or anything else that will prevent them from focusing on their startup 24x7.
This is too flippant.
YC is so early on some of these deals that the primary gauge is team - which means personality of founders. Very hard to measure remotely.
I'm in a group, not as big or famous, that does early checks. We're 95% remote. IME, it's so hard to make those judgement calls through web-cam.
Agreed that founder focus is a big factor and that life gets in the way (of deals). However, if you don't like YC conditions there are 100s of other places to (attempt a) raise.
From "Ask HN: How to Price a Product" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41180492#41220971 :
> Asset Value = Equities + Liabilities
> /? startupschool pricing: https://www.google.com/search?q=startupschool+pricing
/? site:startupschool.org pricing: https://www.google.com/search?q=site:startupschool.org+prici...
> Startup School > Curriculum > Ctrl-F pricing: https://www.startupschool.org/curriculum
YC Library: https://www.ycombinator.com/library
/? YC Library : pricing: https://www.ycombinator.com/library/search?query=Pricing
This is basically ensuring YC starts to get more absolute top graduates. Entrepreneurship is more and more seen as the default path for top people in the USA. All other career paths are for people that want to take the risk of ending up in a 50 year assembly line. This is probably good for society
If you want to get rich by 30, you basically have to start a startup or get into a top small hedge fund out of undergrad.
How many YC founders end up rich before 30? Or even at all? I think it’s likely a highly valuable experience running a business experiment someone else will fund (not to mention connections you wouldn’t otherwise make), but the odds of actual, liquid wealth from the experience and time spent are very low.
Alot of them do, not only that, they build skills that help them start their next company. Many of which are bootstrapped and profitable. This whole idea that startups are a complete lottery ticket is not only false, its increasingly less false, more money is being made now in startups than ever
Based on public exit and liquidity event information, startups still remain a lottery ticket for most. 90% of startups fail entirely, for example (CB Insights). YC startups have more longevity, and more get to a Series A then non YC startups, but the best batches based on performance have been between 2009 and 2013. 10% achieve an exit, 4.5% became unicorns. Only 17 companies backed by YC (out of almost 5k) have gone public, and all except Airbnb, Instacart, and Reddit have underperformed post IPO.
Have fun, learn, develop and grow your skills and network, take the investment, but it’s important to be honest with one’s self about odds of success and outcome. If you win, respect and appreciate the lottery ticket for what it was. Hard work and years of grinding is table stakes, but you can still fail (and most do).
https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/pulling-back-the-curtain-...
https://www.marketsentiment.co/p/the-yc-report
10% chance at millions fresh out school sounds great!
Let me make this simple for you: you will not get rich by 30.
I know, I know...there are examples! And yes, there are, but statistically, they won't be you. You're playing the lottery, only it's a lottery that steals your youth and gives you psychological problems.
If your only goal is to get rich, then don't do a startup. You have to have some more fundamental reason, or the agony will beat you.
I live in NYC, I have met alot of very rich startup founders. But not only that, lots of people making 50k a month from a startup they built post YC, raised no VC, and have no boss.
Its an outdated take to think people arent doing this
Sure. Google "selection bias". You aren't meeting the 10,000 who failed.
I also live in NYC. I lived in SF, during possibly the all-time greatest period of wealth creation in the last 50 years. I knew billionaires when they couldn't afford bar tabs. I ate leftover boxes of Obama-Os (again, Google it) that nobody wanted.
I'm still telling you the truth. Every one of those people who succeeded went through hell and back, and even then there was no guarantee that there was a reward at the end of the hell. Doing a startup is like getting punched in the face repeatedly for many, many years, with only your faith -- in something -- to carry you forward. You have to have more than just a desire to be rich.
You dont have to create a billion dollar company. Especially after raising VC and failing, its much clearer how to build a business. Very reasonable to think a smart hard working person can build a company making 1M a year. Life owning a company that makes even a moderate amount is 1000x better than a career. I think your analysis is outdated
Entrepreneurship isn’t getting showered with millions for doing nothing other than being accepted as a part of the blessed elite and access to an infinite spigot of free money when all other sources have been dammed off and diverted to the ever shrinking minority of ever increasing ultra-wealth.
For people who took a second to get this (like me), @fijiaarone means it is.
And I concur - in this AI hypecycle more than ever it seems to be about how can peacock the best. Its neck and neck with the crypto hypecycle a few years ago for the incidence rate of vaporware and snake oil. Sure there are some legit founders building meaningful product but they seem to be a small minority.
This would be a better comment if it asserted what the poster believed entrepreneurship IS rather than what it is not.
FWIW, to me entrepreneurship is an amazing path, but starting a company right out of college?? There’s a LOT of skills to develop. Have someone to copy. Make sure you draw enough salary. Keep an identity outside of your company (networking!) so you can pick yourself up if (when) it crashes.
its still better than these people fighting over promotions in finance
To what extent is YC's current strategy a form of "cookie-licking"? I.e. capture a small fraction of every plausible startup created by the next generation of students?
I loved YC and can't recommend it enough. But if you're going to start a company, please consider working at another company first, even if briefly. (And make it a company you respect and want to emulate.)
The amount of wheels you won't have to reinvent if you work at another company are astronomical. From engineering practices to sales to management, there's a lot you don't want to innovate on. Starting a company is really hard, and it's even harder if you've never seen first-hand how a functional company works. Your future employees will thank you.
> if you've never seen first-hand how a functional company works.
You can go an entire career without seeing how a functional company works.
> You can go an entire career without seeing how a functional company works.
having worked at a few dysfunctional companies, there's value in it. you learn to spot red flag decisions and the kinds of people that tend to cause organizations to explode from within. a Lot of the success at my current company can be attributed to decisions I've made that came from experience at failed startups where we did the opposite.
Great, then at least you can see what you don't like! (But really, I intentionally said a company you want to emulate, because I do agree – no point in taking this advice if you go to a bad company)
also helpful to see a dysfunctional company (or four) to cover your bases on shitty management practices
Cannot +1 this enough! Joining a team you respect and seeing how they operate gives you a really good baseline to work off of and take what you like and modify what you disagreed with.
You'd be surprised how many times you can "iterate and fail quickly" only to end up at an established practice some other shop has been doing for years. It is important however to understand the why behind the decisions as otherwise you're no better than just figuring it out yourself
I made this mistake. I love where I've wound up, but I would have gotten there much more quickly and with a lot less heartache if I'd worked as part of an existing company before starting my own.