

Ask HN: What will Y Combinator look like in 3 years? - twidlit

I am curious to know what people think Ycombinator will look like in the next 3 to 5 years. I think its interesting since Ycombinator is in a number of ways pioneering new ways to scale startups.
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patio11
I'm thinking the single biggest change is that YC is going to land a Zynga or
Groupon: a company whose meteoric rise to hundreds of millions in revenue and
profit makes headlines, shakes industries, and will include "funded by YC" in
every one of the numerous news pieces about it.

Who knows, it might have already happened, and we just don't know about it
because they're still on the flat part of the hockey stick.

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zbruhnke
great thought here, they have definitely made some good bets and Heroku was
probably just the tip of the iceberg, IMHO Dropbox is the one to watch of the
older companies right now, I think there are several others that have large
exit potential, Indinero, Carwoo, notifo, hipmunk and so on and so forth.

There are a few glimpses of what the future holds for YC but I think most of
us can agree, it's pretty damn bright

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statictype
Airbnb is a potential industry changer

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grinich
Probably much the same. (Why change a recipe that works?) I imagine the
largest changes would be:

1\. More startups funded. Funding likely from a VC like Sequoia, but the
bottleneck here is mentorship time. Which leads to...

2\. More staff. Likely successful founders from previous YC rounds. (It's
already begun with Harj, Alexis, and Gary.) This would mostly be moving part-
time mentors to full-time partners. Something like around 20 "YC fellows.".

3\. An office in SF, probably around SoMa. I wouldn't be surprised if YC
started holding some office hours there, with the additional staff from (2).
(Maybe it's already happening informally.)

And a bunch of other things: Startup School 2x a year, Startup job fairs. PG
could have time to write a book about YC.

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albahk
YC will attract an even larger following and the signal/noise ratio of
applicants will become a problem in itself. The benefits of YC are clear so
people will start to make it their goal to get into YC rather than build a
great company.

This is outside the control of YC. Its a side-effect of becoming too
successful.

I don't think we are too far off seeing "How to get into YC" ebooks or even
discrete coaching on how to do well in YC-interviews.

Please forgive the pessimism but its my honest feeling.

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jasonlynes
im wondering what the signal/noise ratio is like now, the first batch after
the start fund. will be interesting to see how big and how awesome this next
batch is.

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JonathanWCurd
I think unfortunately for YC the noise level will rise significantly. Before
the start fund YC wasn't about money but rather building great products around
strong individuals / teams. The funded believed in what they were doing and YC
believed in them and together they walked a path toward success. While that
won't change going forward, I think there will be a lot more people who apply
and aren't as passionate or haven't thought about their ideas in as much depth
but see money at the start of the rainbow as a way to figure it out.

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peteforde
I don't think that it's silly to ask whether the law of diminishing returns
has to kick in at some point. Not for the investors, but the founders. PG and
co cannot be cloned or replicated. PG can pick winners but he cannot create
more time. If you consider the primary value of YC to be PG, and accept that a
YC startup founder will get a progressively smaller slice of the pie that is
PG's time... then you have a function for decreasing founder value for the
equity they give up for YC.

Now, given that the recent $150k situation is in effect, it means that in
three years the typical YC startup will have more money and less individual
attention from PG. He can continue to hire amazing folks like Harj and Paul to
spread the love, but at some point there has to be a point on the graph where
time and value peak.

I speculate that the peak will occur in 2011. I am hugely grateful to Paul for
his contributions to my world, so I will only say that I sincerely hope he and
Jessica take a really awesome vacation at some point in the near future. I'd
chip in $100 for that, because I've received more value from his essays and HN
than any other single source of information and networking.

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travisglines
I wonder what the Y Combinator competition will look like in 3 years ...

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scottmagdalein
YC sounds amazing from the outside. I'm not a part, nor will I ever be. (I'm
an entrepreneur in the software space, but I'm not a technical founder and
have no plans to pick up any books on code, which means I'm out of the running
immediately...and understandably.)

However, also from the outside, it seems like YC is creating entrepreneurs
that experience their first business startup in a dreamworld that doesn't
exist anywhere else; a bubble if you will, but not the kind of bubble that
pops and brings down an industry...more like the bubble that private school
kids experience during high school that sends them into a tizzy when they
breathe the free air of college.

What happens to these founders when their first startup fails and they try
again in the real world without the thick black book of strategic contacts in
PG's back pocket and the guaranteed $150k from Yuri and Co? Starting companies
out here in the "ghetto" (where money is earned, not given) is hard.

There is a story that's sitting near the top of HN right now that says YC is
like a bootcamp for founders. That's a joke, right? I'm pretty sure it's more
like summer camp for founders...or maybe a gentleman's club for founders where
the sexiest startups dance on stage and investors try to stick money in the
g-strings of the founders.

So, getting more to the point, I'm less concerned about what Y Combinator will
look like in 3 years and more concerned for the founders that fail on round
one and don't have the cushion of YC's couch to sleep on while they dream up
their next big idea. But YC will most likely be exactly what PG wants it to be
in 3 years, just like it always has been.

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HeyLaughingBoy
FallbackPlan == getARegularJob();

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jayzalowitz
This just became my Facebook status.

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stevenj
I think a 10 to 20 year timeframe is even more interesting to think about.

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bfe
I think the new funding deal by Milner and SV Angel may snowball into more
angels and VCs offering blanket investments to all YC acceptees on easy terms
as soon as they're accepted, which will compound the rising applicant pool and
place more burden on the initial review and acceptance process.

At a deeper level, I think YC is at the forefront of motivating lots of people
to consider founding or working at a startup as an alternative to a
traditional job at an established company, and to develop the skills to be
able to do so.

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c2
Considering Y Combinator is already 5 years old and hasn't changed
drastically, I think we can expect the same in another 3-5 years. Iteratively
improving their process, using their data and experience to make better
decisions, and ultimately improving their success rate.

I expect to see some Heroku sized exits for YC companies as well. Maybe in 5
years there will finally be a YC company which goes public. In either case, I
don't see YC drastically changing.

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depoisfalamos
Same principles, evolved way of thinking due to experience. But I think it
wont change to much, because they got it right, now it's just a matter os
polishing

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solipsist
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2073513>

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twidlit
Would YC ever go the Techstars route and make it a city by city 'franchise'?

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ericb
Seems unlikely. They sold their Boston office location and if you were
maintaining a geographically distinct second location, Boston would be where
to do it.

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bconway
Not so sure about that.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/startuphubs.html>

 _And if, as nearly everyone who knows agrees, startups are better off in
Silicon Valley than Boston, then they're better off in Silicon Valley than
everywhere else too._

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mkramlich
The most efficient answer to this will be given in 3 years from now.

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dasil003
Most correct answer; the most efficient was given by depoisfalamos.

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onwardly
It wasn't to efficient.

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pekinb
Navy SEAL BUD/S

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komsi3
3 to 5 years old Y Combinator !!!

