
Students: yet another summer founders program (due 4/19): Highland Capital Partners - dhouston
http://www.hcp.com/news/newsdetails.php/id/49812
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pg
Good God, another one. At least these guys didn't copy our application form.

The funny thing is, both Highland and Lightspeed are copying an aspect of YC
that we later realized was a mistake: focusing on people currently in school.

People who copy you always end up copying a slightly old version of you. I
noticed that with Viaweb. That's one reason all these imitations don't freak
me out too much. Viaweb must have had at least 10 of them-- many of which
copied stuff nearly verbatim from our site.

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timg
I am guessing though, that choosing to tell students that they are all
worthless may have a chilling effect down the road.

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Alex3917
I don't think the point is that all students are worthless, but rather that
colleges aren't this huge source of untapped potential that they are popularly
imagined to be. This shouldn't really come as a surprise; most brilliant
hackers/entrepreneurs know this, which is why they want to leave.

Think about it. All I want is to be surrounded by brilliant people working on
interesting things, which college can't provide. Which is why I want to leave.
But this same logic shows why funding college students isn't really an
arbitrage opportunity. Even if you could figure out who the brilliant ones
are, which is difficult, there are too many social and systemic forces pulling
in the wrong directions.

(N.B. I'm not claiming to be brilliant myself, only that given the choice I
prefer working with others who are.)

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danw
Spot on. Most of the people taking computer science at my university dont care
about hacking away at interesting problems. They're all here because they know
that they can get a high paying job in The City when they graduate.

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bootload
Highland was one of the VC's that ripped into govWorks (startup.com) in 2000
If I remember correctly ~
<http://www.phfilms.com/index.php/phf/film/startupcom>

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staunch
I'm hoping that YC will be responsible for converting the VC industry from a
hundred $20m deals per year to many thousands of $250k deals a year. The
resulting innovation would be staggering.

~~~
timg
This money doesn't necessarily have to be divided up. The dramatic increase in
productivity from these people creating startups instead of just working for a
large company should cause there to actually be much more money in tech
fields. Right?

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Elfan
"Complete the below application in either a Word document (no more than two
pages in total length) or PowerPoint presentation (no more than five total
slides)."

~sigh~

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yaacovtp
Anyone submitting applications to them seeking funding to copy previously
launched YC sites? That would be funny.

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chandrab
I agree that this is being done for more good marketing than really building a
"farm team" in which to invest in (like CRV is doing).

Thing is be aware of this Higland Capital prefers business and infrastructure
internet plays, I dont think they ever invested in a consumer play ever. Take
a look at their portfolio companies to get a sense of what they are investing
in.

That being said, Highland is a tier-1 firm here in Boston and VC being
followers, maybe Highland will start a trend?

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mukund
People always copy that which is popular. Only difference being that they are
giving space. This is so obvious that they are pushing to attract the crowd.
But there is one thing they missed out, anyone with solid idea and attitude
will get into YC, whoever lost their chance of YC will be gobbled by
immitators. This explicitly means they are always 1 step behind.

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theoutlander
This is turning out to be a nuisance with so many similar programs.... I
wouldn't apply to those unless they offered something much better ... besides
i'm not even in school...

