
Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator? - yanis
http://slidetocode.com/2012/05/18/ycombinator-ambition/
======
startupfounder
You mean would Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator? (Oh
yeah, that other Steve...)

No! They were too busy hacking phones and building things people wanted to
waste time to go through the application process of YC. Money was chasing
them.

This is true for most runaway successes, they were all true hackers that broke
things: Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Not the "hackers" who are asking for
$125k salary...

They didn't care about the money, they didn't care about the allure, they
didn't care about the status. They just wanted to break things and make them
work better, legality aside.

But the landscape has changed, and Steve & Steve are not just starting Apple
and YC would not be around if Apple wasn't started when it was, so it's a
silly question be it a fun thought experiment.

I think YC supports the companies that shoot for the moon, but people aren't
willing to take the risk and say no to acquisitions of $20-$100m because that
is the short term business model of today and people just want to take their
$5m and show off.

"The approach of remaining independent, and investing profits back into to the
company followed by technology zealots such as Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs is
unattractive to an investor."

They only way to counter this is to build a great product with little to no
money and have it grow like a weed, then negotiate like a mob boss to keep the
majority of the voting rights of the company.

That's enough for now, time for focus...

~~~
larrys
"They didn't care about the money"

While your statement is true about Wozniak from what I know it's not true
about Jobs. He was a business person and he knew how to make a buck in
addition to wanting to "change the world". Same with Gates for that matter.

~~~
startupfounder
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me” - Jobs “Going to
bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful . . . that’s what matters
to me.” - Jobs

~~~
davidw
You could argue that he was smart enough to say things like that. Who wants to
hear a rich guy say how much he loves having such a shitload of money that
most people could not even imagine it?

~~~
ThomPete
He proved through is way of living that he wasn't about the money. He lived by
all metrics a fairly simple and humble private live far from the Ellifsons out
there.

~~~
afterburner
He may not have cared about money as much as other rich people, but it seems
like he loved to _make_ money, or, in another sense, sell a lot of something.

~~~
ThomPete
Of course but that isn't the same IMHO

------
MehdiEG
I admit that I'm not intimately familiar with YC's and pg's preaching but my
impression of what I've read and seen from pg is that he is very insistent on
startups having a solid business model and on them focusing on customer
acquisition. And I don't remember having ever heard pg advocate quick exits.
This is at odds with the assumptions you've based your post on. I might be
wrong though - happy to get corrected by YC alumni.

As for "changing the world", this is an expression that's as meaningless as it
gets. Of course everybody wants to change the world, why wouldn't you? And
since everybody lives in their own world anyway, in a way, everybody changes
the world. For example, I personally find Facebook to be one of the most
useless product I've ever used. I genuinely wouldn't notice if Facebook
disappeared tomorrow. On the other side, for my deaf teenage cousin, Facebook
literally changed his world. He went from being the weirdo disabled boy in the
corner of the room that nobody would talk to to being a perfectly normal
teenager communicating on Facebook like any other teenager.

So the YC startups you're talking about might not have changed your world but
you can be sure that they've changed quite a few other people's world.
Arguably, Steve Jobs, who you cite in example, has hardly changed the world
for most people. Had he not be there, computers and smartphone would have been
there anyway and would have more or less done what they do today (and I'm
saying this as a big admirer of Apple who has discovered computing on a Mac SE
and is typing this post on a MacBook Pro).

When it comes to bigger goals like ending wars or poverty, fixing the global
warming problem or space exploration, it would be incredibly naive to believe
that you can tackle the problem as a nobody (i.e. as a young, first time
entrepreneur with no cash and no network).

Elon Musk didn't start with a crazy-big-truly-change-the-world project. He,
you know, did Paypal first. Just like what the Stripe guys (a YC startup) are
doing. Bill Gates didn't start by tackling the issue of poverty, illnesses and
illiteracy in Africa. He started by writing an interpreter. You have to start
somewhere and this somewhere is generally relatively small but gives you what
yo need (knowledge, experience, network, cash) to follow up with something
bigger afterwards. That's my understanding of what YC is all about.

~~~
imd23
This topic is so difficult to analize that I just follow one rule: do what you
love and fuck the rest.

If you're doing what you love, you'd feel right. Passions take play here, but
there is a catch here: everyone have passion, or have discovered them. So, if
you are from the part who have, just follow them.

------
JVIDEL
Both Apple and Microsoft started at a time when personal computers barely
existed and thus a couple of guys with very little capital could build a
computer kit or code a blackjack game in a day.

One key difference its revenue: Allen often mentions how any piece of code
brought money to the company, simple apps that are 100% free today would have
been sold for tens of millions back then. Same with hardware, which is why
Apple could get roughly 1 million (in today's dollars) to leave the garage.

Basically both companies were in the right place at the right time: right
before the PC revolution began. A YC-equivalent at that time would've appeared
around 1982, after IBM launched the "official" PC with DOS and the ball was
already rolling.

That was the time when a lot of other startups appeared, like Amiga, Adobe,
Lotus, Silicon Graphics, etc...

Note that none of those companies were as successful as Apple and Microsoft
were, in fact some went chapter 11 and disappeared.

~~~
danieldk
Were in they right place at the right time, or did they mold the future to
such an extreme, that in hindsight it seems as if they were in the right place
at the right time?

~~~
larrys
Timing matters. Later example - many things had to come together for the ipod
to be a success as well as the iphone and for that matter the ipad. While
there is no question that Jobs did much to mold this, there were many other
factors such as the price of components and technology the products relied on.
So you can't "mold" anything without the proper materials.

Much of what we have today wouldn't be possible w/o broadband. Instagram
wouldn't exist unless digital camera technology was developed to the point it
had. Facebook became immensely popular because of digital photos. Wouldn't
happen if people had to scan photos to get them on Facebook.

------
kunle
> I think the problem is rooted in the business model that seems to be
> preached by Y Combinator: build a great product, choose investment over
> income, and exit as quickly as possible.

This isn't the model preached by YCombinator at all. It actually literally
runs counter to the model preached by YCombinator. YC is 7 years old, and has
approached building companies with pragmatism; it's definitely the case that
many startups will fail, a some will exit quickly, and a select few will last
long enough and be strong enough to be IPOs, and then even fewer will last
long enough as public, independent companies (Google is 13, Microsoft and
Apple are both older than 20 years) to try doing things in house like building
autonomous, self driving cars, or space rockets.YC is well aware of this
dynamic, but the key thing this post misses is: creating a company that lasts,
or being a founder well resourced enough to fight again, is a crucial part of
being able to build space rockets. You have to be there. So with that in mind
the model YC ACTUALLY preaches is more like:

"Talk to users, write code, build a great product, that makes money, and you
wont need investors. If you do this, you just might last long enough and be
strong enough to build space rockets."

------
brandonb
>I think the problem is rooted in the business model that seems to be preached
by Y Combinator: build a great product, choose investment over income, and
exit as quickly as possible.

YCombinator never tells founders to "exit as quickly as possible". In fact,
they and most other technology investors get 90+% of their returns from the
home runs and encourage founders to go big if things are working. You can do
the math yourself: how many talent acquisitions would it take to add up to one
Dropbox ($4B valuation)?

While a lot of companies coming out of YCombinator (and Silicon Valley in
general) are focused on the internet, there are exceptions. For example, there
was a 3D scanning company in the most recent batch:
<http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/27/matterport-3d-scanner/>

~~~
bobsil1
Their application used to ask the lowest price you'd be willing to sell for.
Seemed really focused on quick flips.

    
    
      If one wanted to buy you three months in (August 2007), what's the lowest offer you'd take?
    

<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27532820/app.html>

~~~
brandonb
What makes you think that a low answer is what they're looking for?

~~~
presty
exactly. seems to me they want to understand how much you value your idea. you
know what's cool? a billion dollars

------
architgupta
Empirically, the way to do really big things seems to be to start with
deceptively small things. Want to dominate microcomputer software? Start by
writing a Basic interpreter for a machine with a few thousand users. Want to
make the universal web site? Start by building a site for Harvard undergrads
to stalk one another.

<http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html>

~~~
davidw
> Empirically, the way to do really big things seems to be to start with
> deceptively small things.

Well, to really pursue that argument, you'd also want to look at how many
"deceptively small things" stayed small and never amounted to much of
anything.

~~~
facorreia
Apparently the key is in being a "deceptively" small thing, not plain small...

~~~
davidw
And the best way to tell is to look back from 20 years hence and see...

------
asparagui
The more dangerous question...would he have gotten in?

After all, you're dealing with a college dropout who didn't study anything
related to computer science and had personality issues. I suspect that the HR
guys at Apple would drop Steve's resume in the waste bin if he applied today.

------
cdeonier
The article states: "I think the problem is rooted in the business model that
seems to be preached by Y Combinator: build a great product, choose investment
over income, and exit as quickly as possible."

I'm pretty sure I've heard the first point mentioned before by the partners of
YC, but I'm not sure I've seen evidence of the others. Is there actually
evidence of YC telling its classes to exit as quickly as possible? My guess is
any quick exits are more likely as a result of founders being offered a chance
at a payout rather than YC pushing them to exit.

~~~
amirmc
To add to your last point pg stated more than once that the best outcomes for
YC will occur if companies can make it to IPO. That's not a short-term play.

edit: here's a link where he says as much
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=265623>

~~~
onlyup
Out of curiosity, is there a list of the fastest companies to IPO? (Non-YC
companies included)

~~~
Aethaeryn
I think that the overall list of 'fastest companies to IPO' might be skewed by
the dot-com bubble companies that were fast to IPO but failed soon afterwards
thanks to having no real business model or income.

------
kenjackson
With all due respect this article seems naive. Sure Google is building self-
driving cars now (not exactly innovative, since virtually every 3rd grader
lists that as one of the things they imagine in the future), but they did that
after acquiring a hugely profitable core business which was "just another
search engine".

Everything is "just another xyz" until its not.

What YC gets is that it asks it's founders to solve a problem. Maybe a real
pain point, or a problem you don't know even exists until someone points it
out to you, but whatever it is -- solve it well. At that points your minor
pivots are leveraged until, before you know it, you're moving a mountain, when
you started just intending to move a pebble.

And BTW, didn't Dropbox pass on an acquisition from Apple near $1B?

------
brudgers
_"Is the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates filling in Y Combinator's application
form right now, or are they taking the independent route?"_

YC can reproduce the career arc of Steve Jobs, but not Bill Gates. Until the
IPO Microsoft didn't sell stock to outside investors in significant
quantities. By essentially bootstrapping, Gates and Allen were able to bring
Ballmer on board with 8% equity at a point when outside investors would be
eyeing exit in a VC backed company.

This is in contrast with Jobs, who lost control of Apple by accepting outside
money. On the other hand, having grown up in Silicon Valley, Jobs would not
have needed the sort of guidance through the startup landscape that YC
provides relative to a hacker from Topeka - i.e. Jobs was sophisticated enough
to raise money for Apple based upon his social connections within Silicon
Valley.

~~~
wissler
But Jobs had to be lucky enough for Apple to nearly go bankrupt so they would
entertain having him return and turn them around. This cosmically lucky event
is not very reproducible.

~~~
kalininalex
After Apple, Jobs didn't sit on his hands, but went on to found two companies
- Pixar and NEXT. Pixar alone would have made him famous, again. And, NEXT
assured his return to Apple, because of Apple's failure to innovate in early
90s and the need of something, anything to restart its OS line. NEXT and Jobs
were their best bets.

Even without Apple Jobs would have accomplished many things. That's just the
kind of person he was. So, luck has nothing to do with this.

~~~
brudgers
Luck has everything to do with it.

If Jobs and Woz had been born in Jackson, Mississippi, they would not have
known much about phreaking, attended Home Brew Computer club meetings, or
known HP employees with disposable income to spend on the Apple I.

~~~
scott_s
This recent submission is quite relevant:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4065233>

------
mattmaroon
"none of the copycat incubators have an alumni list or investment portfolio
containing names such as Dropbox, Reddit, Clickpass, Posterous or Codecademy.
I can't think of a better list."

Clickpass? Really? I could think of a better list containing just YC
companies.

And how do Dropbox, AirBnB, Heroku, Weebly, Justin.tv, etc. lack vision?

------
ezl
> _I think the problem is rooted in the business model that seems to be
> preached by Y Combinator: build a great product, choose investment over
> income, and exit as quickly as possible._

This seems like a misinterpretation of what YCs investment/mentorship
philosophy.

------
jorleif
An important factor between Web 2.0 startups and "change the world" startups
is the size of investment required. Web 2.0 startups are very cheap. Starting
Tesla Motors on Y Combinator funding would be impossible. Apple was also
started on a very small budget at a time when electronics was in a similar
position cost-wise as the web is now.

What is different between most web 2.0 startups and Apple, though, is that
Apple expanded an existing enterprise market to the general public. Cloud
computing is having similar effects, but otherwise I don't see many
similarities.

~~~
saddino
While Apple as Jobs and Woz hocking Apple I kits was started on almost no
budget is true, Apple as an actual company was started with a $250K loan from
Mike Markkula. Hardly a small budget when you consider those were 1976
dollars. Steve wanted to do big things, and he understood it took big dollars
to do so.

I think the point of the OP boils down to: Steve (like Zuck now) wanted to
build a company that changed the world, not build a company that he could
flip.

------
smoyer
I don't spend all day reading HN but I'm here quite a bit ... can someone
explain the "and deluded database CEOs" reference?

------
craigyk
Is there a chance that YC might one day think of funding more capital
intensive ventures, like biotech?

------
stewie2
I think he would get rejected.

------
sparknlaunch
Difficult hypothetical but Jobs was a control freak. Hard to see him going
though the motions of an incubator or accelerator.

~~~
yesimahuman
I don't want to be nit picky, but YC is not an incubator or accelerator. In
fact, I think this is the #1 thing that copy cats get dead wrong.

To me it's a practical replacement for college, with a similar atmosphere.
Steve dropped out, so maybe this would have appealed to him more.

