
Just did the Y Combinator interview: here are my notes - tnolet
https://blog.checklyhq.com/just-did-the-ycombinator-interview-here-are-my-notes/
======
mettamage
> Order your thoughts. Keep it short. Communicate one idea in one sentence.
> etc. etc. etc.

This is true in general. I remember when I did consulting interviews you
needed to talk like that and the feedback I got was that I didn't do enough of
it.

Funnily enough, I could clearly tell that whenever I had a programmer job
interview, everyone was always really impressed with how 'structured my
thinking' was.

Other than being impressed the biggest benefit that you also describe in your
blog post is that it is simply very clear what you are about! And people seem
a lot happier when listening to you feels like a simple thing to do.

Here's an example of how I do it. The following that I wrote down was typed as
quickly as possible.

\---

Interviewer: So tell me about yourself

Me: Alright, there are three perspectives I'd quickly like to touch:

1\. Personal

2\. Educational

3\. Professional

With 1. personal, I'm all about fantasy and curiosity. Understand that and you
understand me.

Educational: I studied to become the bridge between the business world and the
computer world while also trying to become an expert in both. Therefore, I
started of with business informatics. Upon graduation I immediately started
studying psychology - people, and computer science - computers. And I studied
game studies to merge them back into one topic again.

Professional it's rather interesting: the past 8 years I saw my university as
a playground and I just applied to any job that didn't feel like work. This
resulted in me becoming a teaching assistant, a coach for teaching assistants,
a bootcamp instructor and a programmer/web developer. In total I have about
2.5 years of work experience, 1.5 on teaching development and 1 on
development.

\---

It was a huge improvement compared to my standard 15 minute answer. This
answer above is just told under 1 minute.

~~~
Yajirobe
> Interviewer: So tell me about yourself

> Me: Alright, there are three perspectives I'd quickly like to touch:

> 1\. Personal

> 2\. Educational

> 3\. Professional

That seems so forced and unnatural that it makes me cringe. 'Tell me about
yourself' should be a natural conversation starter, not an exam that you did
your homework for.

~~~
short_sells_poo
Same here. If I heard this in an interview I'd feel like I'm being fed a
presentation deck instead of an honest answer.

Now, I do think that one should do a little bit of homework to give a somewhat
structured answer to "Tell me about yourself", but there is such a thing as
too perfect, at which point it becomes jarring.

~~~
mewpmewp
Have you tried Amazon interview questions? They expect you to follow the STAR
method.

~~~
mettamage
Twice, other than that no. In most behavioral programming interviews I haven't
been structured in my answers as being structured came a bit later when I was
also applying for consultancies. I was a lot tougher to follow when I wasn't
structured.

When I was structured I did use a variation the STAR method when they expected
me to. Having a method like that makes things quicker to go through, as long
as you make it your own and own it. I adapted the framework a bit by swapping
the T (Task) for P (Problem) as it sense to me why you'd need to emphasize the
task as opposed to the problem you'd be trying to solve. In rare cases I also
adapted it to the SPARAR method, since the result made the problem smaller but
didn't fully solve it yet.

I prefer to structure things on the fly though without a pre-defined
framework.

------
methodover
I’m sure other commenters here will comment on the substance of what you
wrote.

I’ll, however, just toss a complement: You’re a fantastic writer. Pithy,
funny, informative. Nice work here.

~~~
tnolet
Thanks. I try. Some come out better than others.

------
mmmuhd
Haha, I thought I am the only one who joined the startup school this year
mostly for the AWS credit, honestly the credits helps, being from African
developing country, AWS charges are a bit expensive for us to expirament with
and build a startup. I am glad we are not alone in the AWS credits wagon.

------
dysoncdn
>I have no idea if Checkly is "in" yet — I'll find out within a week or so

Is this delay only for interviews outside the Bay Area?

~~~
tnolet
Honestly, I don’t know. I thought 5 days to a week was pretty good already.

------
ericand
3 interviewers in a single 10 minute interview, correct?

Surprised they don't have 2 for 15 or 1 for 30 min.

~~~
random42
They want to avoid the unconscious bias of a single mind, and non decision due
to conflicting opinions of even number of interviewers.

~~~
richmarr
Presumably there's more to this than comes across in your comment.

After all, you don't avoid the unconscious bias of a single mind by adding
more minds. That just gives you three sets of unconscious bias and _adds_
biases caused by group dynamics.

Do you have a link? I may be googling the wrong terms.

~~~
sokoloff
You can still avoid most of the effects of a worst-case bias by adding two
additional measurements.

Rather than 1 person, 30 minutes (one measurement), given 3 who all had the
same experience, you are less likely to have all three have an impression
unconnected with the substance of the conversation.

~~~
richmarr
> _You can still avoid most of the effects of a worst-case bias by adding two
> additional measurements... given 3 who all had the same experience_

You're right that it's an advantage, but it reduces noise, not bias.

Bias by definition skews systemically in the same direction so the positive
effect of taking multiple measurements is minimal.

~~~
sokoloff
Each bias skews the same direction for each person, but not every bias is in
the same direction for individual people. (Some people are biased in favor of
Harvard/Ivy League graduates. Other people are biased _against_ those exact
same candidates. Bias is _not_ by definition unidirectional for all people.)

The YC partners are _trying to be_ similarly biased against entrepreneurs who
(they believe) will not be successful in the program.

They are much less likely to be similarly biased against irrelevant factors
like accents, mannerisms, backgrounds, etc.

~~~
richmarr
> _They are much less likely to be similarly biased against irrelevant factors
> like accents, mannerisms, backgrounds, etc._

They're not less biased, they just average out their biases over the group.

Your assumption is that three people chosen from a fairly homogenous pool are
going to cancel out each others biases, which is... optimistic.

I don't know from this conversation what they're actually doing, but what they
_should_ be doing is using a diverse set of opinions to create a fixed set of
questions and a fixed marking scheme, and then sticking to it for that round
of interviews. Then looking back over time at every interview question and
analysing how well it predicted later outcomes.

~~~
sokoloff
If you think they're sub-optimizing because of biases and a poor process,
maybe that represents an opportunity for you or someone else to use your
method to outcompete them.

Their track record suggests they're doing pretty well.

~~~
richmarr
So your argument is that they should be above examination of their interview
process because their investments are doing well? Come on, you're just arguing
for the sake of it now.

Multiple independent assessments are great at reducing random noise. Bias is
noise, sure, but it's by definition not random so you need other forms of
intervention to counter it.

------
austincheney
I get the impression from reading stuff like this, there have been several I
have read, that for some people start ups are a fashion or a "thing to do". I
find this very strange as though some people have money and time to burn
without the stresses of daily life of things like a demanding job or children.

To me a startup makes amazing sense when you have an original disruptive idea
and the passion to unload all your time and energy into the spirit of that
idea knowing you will probably fail. That is the anti-thesis of a fashion.

~~~
tnolet
OP here. Fair enough, but I’m 100% all in. I’m as far away from a startup
fashionista as they get: trust me. I just like sharing this stuff for
catharsis reasons and because I genuinely think it’s interesting to read for
some.

On the disruption part, I disagree. There are markets that are just old or
aging. Fairly small improvements and a rethink of the market can already make
a new product viable.

~~~
sillysaurusx
A startup is fundamentally disruptive. That's what a startup is: something
that grows until it can't be ignored.

I just tried to think of a single successful startup that wouldn't be
classified as "disruptive" and couldn't do it.

~~~
HatchedLake721
I think you’re confusing a startup with a startup unicorn. You can start
tomorrow a niche SaaS, e.g. a debt collection CRM for French market, and
become a startup.

Are you successful startup? Yes (e.g. you turnover $20k a month solo). Are you
disruptive? No.

Truly disruptive startups are in two digits range. Successful startups that
“made it”, whether it’s revenue, money raised, or profit, are in the hundreds
of thousands/millions.

~~~
sfjailbird
According to YC (at least Paul Graham's classic definition) a startup is
something that grows very fast.

------
ronilan
_> I was interviewed by three partners _

Who? They are people, right? I have a name, you have a name, the three
partners must also have names. Who were they?

~~~
sushid
He probably doesn’t want to share that level of detail. Why is this important?

~~~
ronilan
Thanks for asking.

The specific names of the three judging partners aren’t important (obviously)
what is important though is that there is a tendency to provide those in
position of power (generally, or in a given situation) with a layer of
protection (by anonymity) that is not afforded to those whom they have power
upon.

The omission caught my eye.

It reminded me that YC has this glaring asymmetry in other parts of the
application process, specifically with the personal video they require people
submit, but do not disclose who watched it.

I thought that if I say something, someone might ask a followup question, and
I can bring that point above in a followup comment.

So again, thanks for asking ;)

P.S - the downvotes on the comment are worth it, obviously.

~~~
com2kid
> The specific names of the three judging partners aren’t important
> (obviously) what is important though is that there is a tendency to provide
> those in position of power (generally, or in a given situation) with a layer
> of protection (by anonymity) that is not afforded to those whom they have
> power upon.

If the author hadn't posted about this experience, no one at YC would've made
a public post saying they interviewed him.

Indeed, that would be a bit on the weird side if YC made a post saying "we
spoke to someone from Checkly, his sense of humor was kinda funny."

