
The Toddler at Y Combinator - jkurnia
http://www.fastcompany.com/3049622/how-i-get-it-done/the-toddler-at-y-combinator
======
xenadu02
I was my son's primary caregiver for several months while my wife recovered
from surgery (for 1 month she was unable to provide any care, even
'babysitting'). He was around 9-12 months. It was far more exhausting than
anything else I've ever done. I went to the grocery store while he slept,
laundry in the mornings. I wrote code at night or nap time, or sometimes
during the day when he was content to play with toys.

You very quickly learn to drop the stuff that doesn't matter; I'm a more
productive developer today because of it. I was forced to develop a critical
eye and abandon designs that didn't work immediately. I also lost my taste for
TV shows, movies, and most podcasts; now I'd rather build something than
consume content.

Good for Julia; I have a lot of sympathy. Frankly I have a lot of sympathy for
single parents as well... I used to have harsh uninformed opinions on the
subject (that I see often repeated around HN and tech in general, especially
by privileged young guys like myself). Then I had to live it for reasons
entirely outside my control.

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wxs
I remember Adam from our batch! Cool kid: precocious, though he did come _this
close_ to spilling things on my computer a couple times :)

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oxryly1
Seems like a good outcome in the end... but the landlord asking her to clean
bathrooms to stay there? What the hell?

~~~
danielvf
I'm guessing this was cleaning the toddler affected bathroom(s).

Have you seen what young child of the correct age will do to a bathroom in a
single session? It's amazing! There's always number one, and possibly number
two spread around. I still don't know how so much mess can be made without
intentional effort.

Source: I work from home, with children, clean bathrooms.

~~~
Mz
I will suggest that what is true of your children in your home is not
universal truth. My kids were holy terrors on multiple fronts who could not be
trusted for 30 seconds. Pissing all over the bathroom and smearing poop around
was not one of the things they did.

The request for one of the few women in the house to clean the bathrooms in
order to stay reads as straight up sexism to me.

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mrmch
Startups are challenging, but that's definitely an added challenge Julia. I
wish I had known about the housing challenges during yc, maybe we could have
helped somehow :(

Not to distract from this story, I've been impressed with my experience
donating on Zidisha -- repayment has been incredibly quick, and it's rewarding
to reinvest funds.

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Jun8
"I did the right thing, she thought. But I’ll never do it again."

Somebody should change that for incubators and YC, being the most forward
thinking and advanced one, should be the first to try:

IDEABOLT: Apply to next HN with non-profit startup to care for kids (preschool
2-5) of HN batchmates onsite at YC (with its blessing, taking over a large
room or some converted space nearby). Not only this would increase the pool of
applicants greatly (really?) it boosts the coolness of HN close to \infty.

The service will be free (9-5) so how to make money? Investigate innovative
preschool learning methods using the kids (of course, with parents
permission). This target group is perhaps the least served child demographic
(no good solutions for something as mundane as poop/feed tracking,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10075191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10075191)),
except mundane stuff like diapers and bottles).

"He even struck up a bond with Paul Graham. Most people either talk down to
two-year-olds or ignore them. But Graham took the time to figure out that Adam
was fascinated with trains, says Kurnia, and the two of them spent 10 minutes
drawing trains on a white board. Graham treated Adam like a little founder,
interested in his interests."

I would have expected this! OK, Add to the idea to mine kids for ideas, _Big_
fashion.

~~~
Mz
If you are serious, you could research how on-site daycare was handled during
WWII to entice women into the work force and help them succeed. It has been
done before, and very successfully, but only long enough to win WWII and then
send women back home in droves to be full time moms -- which they mostly were
happy to do, in part because prior to WWII everyone was suffering through The
Great Depression and savings rates for a great many de facto _2 income, no
kids_ families during the war was as high as 50%. People were happy to buy a
house in the 'burbs and live the good life after suffering through the
depression and then the war back to back. But lots of interesting things
happened during WWII. As part of your research, you might start by watching
historically based movies, such as _A League of Their Own._

~~~
Jun8
I _was_ serious, however the scope I had in mind was perhaps different than
what you are suggesting in that:

1) The target is not just women, it's founders (men and women), and
specifically founders at incubators where the work effort is intense. That way
the scope of the proposal is limited to manageable proportions.

2) We're not talking about _any_ onsite daycare but a very specific case.

3) The main goal is not to "entice women into the workforce" or to increase
women in tech (although this great benefit may come as a side benefit) but to
disrupt childcare for this particular scenario.

So the important questions are: how would preschool childcare be done
different, how can kids really create something useful, can a company use this
as a sustainable resource, etc.

~~~
DanBC
It's vaguely disturbing to hear suggestions to use children as experimental
subjects. It makes sense across a population (eg, all of UK) to do clustered
RCTs, but the YCombinator nursery group would be tiny and so the evidence
gathered would be weak, which makes (imo, I'd be interested to hear what the
ethicists say) it more problematic.

And I'm even more unsure about this bit:

> how can kids really create something useful, can a company use this as a
> sustainable resource, etc.

Perhaps I'm misreading it? _Better Off Ted_ had a bit where the children in
the nursery were put to work. I don't think that's what you're suggesting?

~~~
Jun8
Exploiting kids as subjects does sound repulsive (although using them as
subjects with parents consent is perfectly ok for scientific purposes, e.g.
see Alison Gopnik's fantastic work and her TED talk:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_think?...](http://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_think?language=en)).
My suggestion was rather to use this group, which would be tiny as you point
out, as a simple "sounding board", e.g. to develop new ways of teaching young
children programming. Another way would be to get their ideas and keep them in
the loop for development of new products targeting kids. Toy companies, such
as Lego, routinely employ kids to test new toys but I think very few involve
them in the _creation_ phase.

------
njloof
Solving these sorts of problems better would do wonders for the persistent
gender gap in high tech.

------
bootload
_" The first time Kurnia showed up with Adam, it may have raised a few
eyebrows. While other founders with children have occasionally managed YC by
having their spouse join them in an apartment in the area, no one had ever
attempted to care for a toddler, alone, through the program."_

Whenever you hear male founders/tech workers bitch & complain about women and
tech and the level playing field, remember this example.

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warfangle
> the landlord [...] threatened to throw Kurnia and Adam out unless she agreed
> to clean the bathrooms

Pardon my french, but how the fuck is that legal? That's seriously messed up
at a fundamental level.

~~~
archimedespi
I have literally no idea. I didn't think that a landlord could throw you out
if you don't do a task for them.

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Jun8
"Moving quickly, she found she could cut the round-trip hike to about an hour.
The only problem was when it rained, which happened several times. In those
cases, she’d pass an umbrella up to Adam. He’d stay mostly dry, but Kurnia
would be fairly wet by the time they arrived."

Wait, so none of her batchmates noticed this and offered her a ride for
subsequent trips?

~~~
jkurnia
Most of the time when I took Adam to YC, it was not for batch events but
rather for one-on-one office hours. When batchmates were present, they would
give us a ride, as did the YC partners when they didn't have other
responsibilities.

~~~
caseysoftware
My hat is off to you. I joke that I have a 7 month old son and a 14 month old
startup but then I also split duties with my wife, so it's a tiny fraction of
what you've dealt with.

"The website is crashing!" as an early phrase would be awesome and horrifying
all at once. :)

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baseballmerpeak
Whatever it takes for success. And pg is a genuinely nice fellow.

~~~
dang
That vignette is classic pg. It makes me happy to see so well-chosen and vivid
a detail in a report like this.

~~~
tomsaffell
me too. i can just see it!

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jkurnia
A lot of this discussion has centered on YC's support for parents / female
founders. Since that wasn't the focus of the Fast Company article, I've shared
my experience and thoughts on that subject more extensively here:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-kurnia/a-female-
founder-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-kurnia/a-female-founder-at-y-
com_b_8010110.html)

------
merrua
Huh they don't have digs for their batches. I would have thought they would.

~~~
Kluny
That'd be an obvious next step for them, for sure.

~~~
dang
I'd be shocked if YC ever did that. The presumption has always been that
founders are adults who make their own decisions. YC partners aren't founders'
bosses or life organizers. They just offer advice about startups.

~~~
Kluny
I wasn't thinking like a kid-style dorm. When I was younger, I worked at a gas
station for the summer in a tourist town (Tofino, BC). Gas station attendants
aren't usually given free housing, but in this case the company did provide
housing because they found it impossible to staff the place otherwise. The
town got stuffed so full of tourists that there were no accommodations for the
temporary summer staff. So hotel, restaurant, and even retail employers would
have some kind of cheap and very rough housing deal for temp staff. Mattresses
on the floor kind of thing, and only on an as-needed basis.

Because of the unique housing tension in SF, I'd guess that some employers do
that there as well.

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efriese
This is an amazing story. Reminds me of my mother. I need to call her...

------
rdl
Nice timing of this article.

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Max_Horstmann
Awesome!

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gyardley
Perhaps I'm naive, but I would've expected the folks at Y Combinator to go a
little above and beyond so a parent with a young child wouldn't have to stay
in a 'flophouse'.

~~~
jkurnia
I think most folks at YC weren't aware I was coming alone with Adam until well
into the batch. They did go above and beyond to put me in touch with a housing
advisor while I was in the area for interviews. The problem was that I was
only staying for three months, too short a period to rent an apartment
cheaply, and there didn't happen to be any women founders' shared houses in my
batch.

In case it didn't come through clearly enough in the article, I should
reiterate that the YC partners and my batchmates were super supportive and
often went out of their way to make it easier for me to participate in YC
events - offering rides, allowing Adam to tag along with me at office hours,
helping to entertain him, and generally being extraordinarily patient and
welcoming.

~~~
gyardley
You don't need me to tell you you're a tremendous bad-ass, and I'm sure
everyone was helpful and meant well, but if Y Combinator is truly trying to be
inclusive they should've been more proactive here. I'm sort of shocked that at
the most prestigious and successful incubator in the country, no one even
seems to have even _asked_ the admitted founders about any additional
responsibilities they might have like child or elder care.

~~~
oxryly1
Agreed. That's one reason (among others) I'd never consider applying to YC. It
appears to be tuned to individuals without any encumbrances -- i.e. the young,
unattached, and fairly well-to-do.

------
Blahah
Impressive that Julia hustled so hard just to be there at YC, but
disappointing that she had to. Why doesn't YC provide some basic support for
its founders to attend the program? At a minimum, room, board and transport
for founders and their families for the duration.

Not doing so will strongly select for people who already have the means to
support themselves in Silicon Valley for 3 months, which is like saying "rich
kids only".

~~~
dang
Of course YC provides "support for its founders to attend the program". It
funds them to do so. Nonprofits get the same funding.

I don't know about this case, but the article mentions "the meager monthly
stipend she allowed herself", which suggests that Julia chose to spend as much
of the funding as possible on the nonprofit itself, despite considerable
inconvenience. If that's so, I admire her for it, and it's a strong signal of
authenticity for Zidisha.

~~~
Blahah
I also admire Julia for the commitment she showed. She made it work, and by
the sound of it, it was damn hard.

Don't get me wrong, YC clearly provides great support in general for its
founders. What I'm suggesting is that I would expect them to go that bit
further to be inclusive - especially with their public commitment to
encouraging female founders.

My impression is that the funding founders get is interpreted as funding for
the company, rather than for the founder to live. Is that wrong?

~~~
dang
> funding for the company, rather than for the founder to live. Is that wrong?

Oh yes, quite wrong. The #1 purpose of the funding has always been to cover
founders' living expenses while in YC. It was more than enough for that when
we went through it in 2009, and of course the startups get a lot more these
days.

I should repeat that I don't know any details, but I bet you the YC partners
had no idea of the lengths Julia was personally taking. (Literally! Commuting
an hour on foot with a two-year-old is quite a length to take.) This is
clearly a strong and determined person. It seems unlikely that she would have
brought such details up or asked for special treatment in any way.

------
cbd1984
Why didn't YC offer a good childcare solution from day one?

~~~
dang
You've been abusive in this thread in several ways, including by posting this
three times. Please stop.

YC is an investor. It provides funding, not "solutions". Founders can spend
the funding on childcare if they deem that best for their startup. Probably
some do. It's entirely their call.

------
Kluny
One question - why was Kurnia the one who had to take Adam? Wouldn't it be a
lot more sensible to leave him home with the dad?

~~~
tomsaffell
I can't speak for anyone else's circumstances, but I can't imagine ever opting
for my two year old son to be away from his mother for three months. Happy to
elaborate, if people are interested.

~~~
Kluny
Please. I have no kids, hope to someday, but it seems to me that being
separated from either parent for three months sucks equally for the parent,
but the kid probably won't notice that much. It's not like he's breastfeeding
or anything. I'm interested to learn how I might be wrong though.

*Yo, I asked a legitimate polite question in the interest of learning more, stating my preexisting assumptions and inviting people to educate me. The parent comment gave a very nice and informative reply which was helpful to me and likely others. I don't think that rates downvotes.

~~~
randlet
At two years old most children will have a stronger bond with the mother than
the father because generally the bulk of care, including breastfeeding, has
been administered by the mother up until this point in their life. There are
likely genetic/chemical/evolutionary forces at play here too.

Even at three years old, my daughter would unquestionably choose to spend
three months with my wife rather than me (I'm not hurt or offended by this!).

edit:

"but the kid probably won't notice that much"

The kid will _definitely_ notice :)

Being separated from a kid for three months would also be much harder
emotionally on my wife than it would for me.

~~~
Kluny
I was thinking that since kids mostly don't remember anything from before age
2-3, it wouldn't matter. But then again, it probably would matter to the
parents, who wouldn't want to distress their kid regardless of whether he
remembers.

~~~
tudorw
Will not remember is not the same as will not affect, core emotional and
psychological growth happens prior to 3, just because a child has poor recall
does not mean they are not the sum of their experiences up to that point in
time.

~~~
rayiner
[citation needed]

The kid will definitely realize mom and dad are gone at two, they're not
vegetables, but whether that has any impact on them later is not something
that's been established by evidence. The idea that kids are the "sum of their
experiences up to that point in time" is an old wives' tale.

~~~
scott_s
I thought there was some evidence related to stress hormones, and the toll of
being in a constant state of arousal due to stress. But that may be on older
children.

~~~
tudorw
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_childhood_stress_and_neu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_childhood_stress_and_neurobiological_effects)

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s73v3r
I honestly do not see why the child had to go with. What was wrong with the
husband taking care of him?

