
Intern at a YC Company - katm
http://blog.ycombinator.com/intern-at-a-yc-company
======
namenotrequired
In case anyone still can't access it:

Intern at a YC Company

by Y Combinator

Would you like to intern at a YC company this summer? We're helping place paid
interns at YC-backed companies like Dropbox, Stripe, Optimizely and others.

You'll get:

> A chance to work with one of Silicon Valley's most exciting companies

> An invitation to YC's intern conference

Please fill out our application[1] by March 21, 2014. We'll notify you by
March 31 if you've been accepted.

[1] [https://ycombinatorevents.wufoo.com/forms/intern-at-a-yc-
com...](https://ycombinatorevents.wufoo.com/forms/intern-at-a-yc-company/)

~~~
Xdes
>Please enter the url of a 1 minute unlisted (not private) YouTube video
introducing you.

Does this violate equal opportunity employment or is there some weird legal
exclusion?

~~~
gms7777
As someone with no legal expertise in any area: Well, the companies are
getting age/race/gender information from seeing you and they could use this
information to discriminate against a protected class, but I don't see how its
different from in-person interviewing where they would have access to the same
information.

~~~
mapgrep
>I don't see how its different from in-person interviewing

An in-person interview is a two-way conversation and costly (in time and
energy) for both sides. It is ideally a rich experience with a lot of
infomation.

What we have here is a call for a very short (1 minute) one-way look at the
candidate, who is asked in incredibly vague terms to introduce themselves.

IANAL but it seems like an attorney could make a case that such a short video
with so little non-visual content -- no meaningful prompt, no real chance to
show skill -- is a pretext for discrimination based on age or race or gender.
Not that _I 'm_ saying it is, mind you, but asking for a video "introducing
you" does suggest that the content of what the speaker says is incidental to
who the speaker is. Particularly for a job that does not involve introducing
yourself all the time (are these sales interns? receptionists?).

Why not a prompt like "...introduce yourself and explain why you're interested
in working for $COMPANY..."?

~~~
baddox
> An in-person interview is a two-way conversation and costly (in time and
> energy) for both sides. It is ideally a rich experience with a lot of
> infomation.

That's a valid point, but I don't think that discrimination laws say anything
about the time and effort required by each party.

~~~
jjoonathan
Time and effort are being used here as evidence against wrongdoing, not as
something inherently legal or illegal. Think "security footage confirming an
alibi". Laws about murder say nothing (or very little) about security footage,
but that doesn't mean it can't be used as evidence.

Suppose that it is illegal to discriminate by using information of type A and
that the following media transmit the following types of information:

In-person interview (IPI): A,B,C,D,E,F,G

Vague video upload (VVU): A,B

Cover letter + resume (CLR): B,H,I

In this slightly oversimplified example, it would be illegal to request
VVU+CLR because the only possible motive for requesting VVU+CLR instead of CLR
would be to obtain information that was illegal to use.

------
gautamnarula
> Please submit your application by March 21. We'll notify you by March 31 if
> you've been accepted.

That's it? There's no interview or coding test? I'm all for a quick process,
but I've never seen a tech company accept interns like this. Or does accepted
mean you've been accepted for an interview at a YC company?

~~~
jonalmeida
It looks more like a higher-level or job searching for startups. If YC thinks
you're a good fit, they add you to a job pool for the start-ups to pick and
choose people to actually interview the candidates. Some companies function
like that, where the "startups" are the company teams.

This is all perception of whether YC will actually follow this method of
course..

------
throwaway7808
A bit of advice. Do check that you are not doing an internship with immature
first time CEOs/CTOs.

I've seen an intern lied to, abused and dismissed without recommendation
letter and promised salary by a CEO/primary founder of a YC company that I was
with. This was no fault of that intern and AFAIK was done primarily because
that [recently immigrated from India] CEO wanted to save about $3k of moneys.
One of the reasons I've left that company and dropped from YC BTW...

edit: a clarification. this _is_ anecdotal evidence and probably doesn't
reflect statistics of YC companies in general.

~~~
CaptainBuggy
Interesting how you consider "[recently immigrated from India]" to be relevant
here.

~~~
throwaway7808
I don't know. Maybe I'm very wrong here. But I think there is a correlation
between 'fighting for scraps' behaviour and 'recent immigrant'. I do not have
statistics to confirm that.

------
krrishd
Any prospect of accepting high schoolers who have the necessary skills? Would
it help if I am concurrently enrolled in college as well?

~~~
zachlatta
Go for it and apply. I'm sure you're qualified :-)

~~~
krrishd
Thanks, I'm filling out my application at the moment :) Hopefully being in HS
doesn't affect my prospects too adversely.

~~~
mbesto
Might have an opportunity for you. If you don't get an internship at a YC, let
me know! (details in profile)

------
mrtron
I suggest looking at interns all year long and not just during the summer
months. University of Waterloo has a co-op program for students where they
have work terms throughout the year.

Interns can be very high value if the environment is setup for them to
contribute.

~~~
brownBananas
Agreed. Especially since University of Waterloo seems to be churning out more
talent than ever.

A little more info for those interested:

University of Waterloo has the generic Computer Science program as part of the
Math faculty, as well as an another Software Engineering program as a joint
program between the Math and Engineering faculties. Both programs offer co-op
all year around. For more information, check out:
[https://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/employers](https://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/employers)

------
bcaine
Any chance this will be an ongoing program not limited just to summers?

I ask this because there are a growing number of schools (including mine) that
have full time Intern/Co-op programs in during the Fall and Spring semesters
that I know would have interested and talented students.

~~~
katm
This is Kat, YC's Director of Outreach. We're beta testing this program on a
small scale for Summer 2014. It may evolve based on how things go this summer,
but I can see it becoming an ongoing program.

~~~
bcaine
Awesome,thanks for the reply. I'll keep an eye on it going into my last Co-op
next Winter/Spring.

------
DRAGONERO
What if I graduate in march (this year)? Can I still apply? (I would require a
J-1 visa, but recent grads can get it, it seems)

------
kyro
Is this just for technical internships?

------
Tyrant505
This is a great idea which I thought YC should have been doing for some time
now. It also translates well to hires because of culture, experience, and
passion for the team/product.

------
derekchiang
I think most US undergrads start applying for internships during the fall
semester and many of them will have already accepted an offer by now. I
strongly suggest YC to open up this application earlier, ideally in October or
November.

~~~
dave5104
In my experience at Stanford, this usually wasn't the case. Most people
started looking for internships around February-April. Obviously not the case
everywhere... but it's the case at arguably one of the closest talent pools to
YC.

~~~
Derander
I'm a current Stanford junior. In my experience most people feel stressed if
they haven't committed to an offer by early February. The major career fairs
for internships take place mid-January, with a more full-time oriented fair
occurring in October.

The majority of CS majors I know were locked in before mid-February.

------
bestkao
I'm curious if YC itself is looking for interns.. it looks like they might
need help fixing the blank screens people have been getting, haha.
Nonetheless, this is awesome!

------
ngoldbaum
Can grad students who are interested in leaving academia apply?

~~~
pseut
Yes :)

------
deft
This is sweet news, I don't have any actual job experience so getting an
internship this way would be amazing. Good luck to everyone applying!

------
venturebros
Do we get a choice of what we do? I am interested in testing and security only
not so much feature building and front-end work.

Also, do grad students qualify?

------
lmartel
>An invitation to YC's intern conference

That sounds neat. Will interns working at YC companies but not placed through
this program be invited?

~~~
HeavenFox
Incoming Dropbox intern here. Interested in that as well. Could someone from
YC answer that? Many thanks!

~~~
WorksOnRobots
Another YC intern here. I want to know this too.

------
jawerty
This is intriguing but the application website isn't working for me. The blog
post is working fine though.

------
4globey
Do you think applying for this as well would negatively effect one's summer YC
application?

------
wz3chen
Wish this was posted earlier, already landed a job. Will this only be
available for summers?

------
johannh
What if I'm not from the US and require a work permission? Any chance of
applying?

~~~
redthrowaway
I have no inside info, but my guess is probably not. Unless we're talking
about AirBnB or Dropbox, most YC companies aren't going to want to take the
time out to deal with the regulator¥ hassles of H1B sponsorship.

That said, for the perfect candidate, exceptions will be made.

~~~
psuter
Internships would fall under J1, which isn't all that hard to get.

~~~
mrtron
North American interns with a technical background should be eligible for TN
visas as well.

~~~
fnbr
Are you speaking from experience? I've found the TN process really confusing
for an intern, and if you have any experience with the application process,
I'd love to hear about it.

~~~
mrtron
Yes. Get the company's lawyer can fill out the paperwork for you and you show
up at the airport with the paperwork and receive a visa. You can't apply in
general for a TN, it is company specific.

------
charlie_vill
Does anyone know what are the dates for this internship? Is it May-August?

------
ddorian43
Are there remote interns ?

~~~
louisremi
Yep, would it be possible to work from a different continent and a different
time zone?

------
crixlet
I get a blank screen....

~~~
polymatter
maybe this is part of the test?

/jk

------
wyclif
Nothing but a blank screen in the latest version of Chrome.

~~~
gregchapple
I've noticed a strange bug with the latest version of Chrome where pages
sometimes don't render. Try opening the developer tools, this usually causes
the page to render for me.

~~~
redthrowaway
I've noticed the same bug, but dev tools doesn't seem to do anything and view-
source is blank. This one though seems to be a site issue:

    
    
        $ traceroute blog.ycombinator.com
        traceroute to posthaven.com (50.63.202.48), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
         1  10.142.83.65 (10.142.83.65)  0.892 ms  0.719 ms  0.769 ms
         2  216-13-232-1.dedicated.allstream.net (216.13.232.1)  1.213 ms  3.646 ms  1.234 ms
         3  216-23-136-13.dedicated.allstream.net (216.23.136.13)  2.256 ms  8.470 ms  1.299 ms
         4  66-46-123-225.dedicated.allstream.net (66.46.123.225)  18.638 ms  12.393 ms  13.011 ms
         5  eqix-ch.godaddy.com (206.223.119.141)  58.324 ms  61.302 ms  60.216 ms
         6  * * *
         7  * * *
         8  * * *
         9  * * *
        10  * * *
    

etc

------
crixlet
Is this the first year that they are doing this?

------
dexkiki
Do you have to be a current student to intern?

------
tosinaf
Can international students apply?

------
pedelman
Crossing my fingers!

