
Y Combinator: the X Factor of tech - sethbannon
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21677636-tech-talent-spotter-has-come-dominate-silicon-valleys-startup-scene-y-combinator-x?new
======
dataker
>YC’s partners seem surprisingly uninterested in money, or competitive
threats. There are hundreds of other “accelerators” worldwide that have
replicated YC’s investment and training philosophy, but none with its brand or
its record

~~~
vdaniuk
>There are hundreds of other “accelerators” worldwide that have replicated
YC’s ...

Nonsense. The article authors are so very wrong. There will be literally zero
replicators of YC until someone replicates the most influential open tech
community/media that is HN. A competitive advantage that is truly hard to
copy. That's like a basic fact from real world startups 101.

~~~
denniskane
HN is like a realtime electronic marketplace -- or information exchange -- for
young tech companies in that an issue can arise and be resolved, for better or
worse, all in the space of 24 hours. I think the recent case of LiveCoding.tv
is a perfect example of this, because a user was having problems getting her
account deleted and posted a thread about it here.

A whirlwind of activity started up, within which a cofounder responded, as
well as the president of YC. They both were actively looking for the CEO so
that he could resolve the issue, and when he eventually popped up into the
thread, a clusterfuck of absolutely biblical proportions ensued.

What people saw was the obvious mudslinging between parties, but what they
didn't necessarily see was all of the cold, numeric computation going on
behind the scenes whenever posts were being up- and down-voted, and karma
points were being won and lost.

Say whatever you want about the validity of these kinds of
emotionally/psychologically derived numbers, but the point is that they are
realtime data points concerning large numbers of highly speculative
investments, and they could not reasonably be ascertained in any other way.

When I was watching that whole thing play out just like a live sporting event,
I was refreshing the profile page of the CEO in question, and his karma points
seemed to be dropping like some kind of flash crash in the NASDAQ.

Some may say that it isn't in the best interest of YC to have so much
publicity when these kinds of things happen, but I think the point is that it
is always ultimately in everyone's best interest for the truth, no matter what
it is, to be uncovered as quickly as possible, and framed within a language
that is as objective as possible.

I can only imagine what kind of machine learning might be going on behind the
scenes at YC, involving all of these data points that are so intimately
connected to known human beings, many of whom are so intimately involved with
the insanely dynamic economic activity that is starting up a tech company in
Silicon Valley.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _When I was watching that whole thing play out just like a live sporting
> event, I was refreshing the profile page of the CEO in question, and his
> karma points seemed to be dropping like some kind of flash crash in the
> NASDAQ._

Now you gave me an idea for a HN extension - tracking of karma points of
selected users (via HN API) and displaying a sparkline next to their name in
comments. Also a split-screen mode like this:

    
    
       +---------------------------------+------------------------+
       | ^ Tell HN: Something important  | Score: flamebait       |
       | 256 points by flamebait ...     |                        |
       |                                 |            --          |
       |                                 |    --    /-  \---  /--o|
       |                                 |   /  \--/        \/    |
       | ^ SomeHNer 5 minutes ago        |--/                     |
       |  Something something something  +------------------------+
       |                                 | Score: SomeOtherHNer   |
       |  ^ SomeOtherHNer 1 minute ago   |  /---                  |
       |   HN turns into Reddit.         |-/    \ ---             |
       |                                 |           ---          |
       |                                 |              \------\  |
       | ^ LoremIpsum 1 hour ago         |                      -o|
       |  Lorem ipsum dolor sic amet     +------------------------+
       |  start-up cloud computing        | Ticker                 |
       |  Docker Google IoT big data     |                        |
       |  Uber for Kitten Litter         | - comment nuked 5s ago |
       |                                 | - comment nuked 2m ago |
       |  ....                           | - new comment 5m ago   |
       +---------------------------------+------------------------+
    

Now you can read enjoy HN discussions like sports events!

~~~
denniskane
If you really just took the time and effort to make that graphic in reply to
my post... I just feel... honored... thank you :)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Emacs and Artist Mode. It definitely took less time for me to make the graphic
than for you to write your post - so it's me who want to thank you for sharing
some insights and sneaking in a cute idea I could draw ;).

~~~
S4M
I stumbled upon Artist Mode, but wondered what it could be useful for. Guess I
have (some kind of) an answer now...

------
tptacek
_The classroom setting creates a sense of paranoia and competition_

Wat

~~~
soneca
_The programme teaches engineers—some of whose idea of a polished pitch is to
look at your shoes rather than their own while speaking—how to sell their
ideas to investors._

Waat

~~~
tptacek
I mean that part seems right on the money.

------
wattle_park
Well..it was a not a balanced article. What is YC? An accelerators, incubators
or VC? I believe YC has changed since 2005. It started as an incubator, then
gradually becoming an accelerator with Dropbox and AirBnB successes. And to
scale their business fast, it would make sense to accept companies with
traction.

The reason they received huge numbers of applicants because their criteria was
wide and IMHO misleading.

The originals partners were brilliant founders. They were not young (drop out
or out of college) founders. They had 'life' experiences. So they were very
nurturing and compassionate and patient. They helped young smart founders to
build companies and many become successful companies. With the current goals
of scaling fast, and many new partners YC has diluted its success recipe. It's
not about 'making what people want' anymore. It's about making what 20
something year old who live in the valley want.

Jessica Livingstone's book 'Founders at Work' contains many different types of
founders. And not many of them were fresh out of college or college drop outs.

YC has become a big company, and along the way YC has contributed to build
Silicon Valley as the center for technology. However, it needs to have big
companies responsibilities as well.

------
will_pseudonym
I had trouble opening this link on mobile. Here's the Google search link to
get around the paywall that I encountered:
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB0QFjAAahUKEwiO-7ass_rIAhVLdj4KHc7vAqI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.economist.com%2Fnews%2Fbusiness%2F21677636-tech-
talent-spotter-has-come-dominate-silicon-valleys-startup-scene-y-
combinator-x&usg=AFQjCNGKh_NIjVrqObAbVn-dNT9zsTivKQ&sig2=eI_qp1Uu-bYr-
KQOPRfHyw&bvm=bv.106923889,d.eWE)

~~~
biot
This is the purpose of the "web" link you can find at the top of the page; it
works for any paywall that allows traffic from Google searches.

~~~
will_pseudonym
Wow, I have never seen that before. Thank you!!!!

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newsignup
I think the success is a mixture of 3 things, in that order:

No. 1 - Talent pool of 1000s startups to choose from.

No. 2 - Great alumni network.

No. 3 - Experienced partners.

------
_pmf_
> Y Combinator: the X Factor of tech

I don't know. X Factor weeds out folks that are obviously fraudulent shams
with a huge ego, but without any talent. I'm not so sure about YC.

