

Why YC - mqt
http://paulgraham.com/whyyc.html

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mahmud
My first reaction upon hearing the name "Y Combinator" was dismay; oh god, the
geeks are trying to be bankers now. I had a vision in my head of paul et al.
blowing out their retirement, funding LispOSes and smalltalk-on-chip type
projects.

P.S. RPG, PG and PG. Any other Lispers with "PG" initials out there besides
Gabriel, Greenspun and Paul?

~~~
eru
Around the time I heard about PG's `Y Combinator' I had just rediscovered the
Turing fixed-point combinator while playing around with Scheme.

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nazgulnarsil
the number of imitators that YC quickly spawned seems to indicate that this
won't just tank (even if YC does itself). It solves a real market
inefficiency.

~~~
three14
It does solve a market inefficiency. To me, that highlights a different
inefficiency - imagine what a couple of bright YC founders could do in the
rechargeable battery market, or the solar cell market - if they only had
enough money to enter industries with higher barriers to entry.

I can hold out the hope that successful founders will enter other industries
with their _next_ startup.

~~~
pg
As it says in our FAQ, we're happy to fund companies working on stuff that's
too expensive to build on just our money. The goal of YC is to build a
convincing case for later stage investors. That doesn't have to be a complete,
launched product.

~~~
three14
YC is great. But I would think with all the smart people here, if the market
was efficient in fields with high barriers to entry, Tesla Motors would have a
few more competitors.

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joez
Tesla and the car industry is a whole other beast. I think with software and
internet companies, you can have many more clever hacks for barriers that
competitors have set up.

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l0nwlf
Well, I'm a student and I have some occasional queries which are answered
pretty well here. I respect the opinion of YC community as their average
geekness level is much higher than the crowd. Am not into startup or something
but I still love the opinion of people here. Whenever I need to find a opinion
about i go for searchyc. When I needed to buy a laptop or needed a suggestion
regarding programming .. YC is always there with a wonderful solution. Plus I
get to know the opinion of things happening in current scenario related with
IT field. Thankyou YC :D

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davidw
I would be curious to see diffs of these revisions.

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cwan
Ditto - especially for this one. I'd be curious as well to know how this
compares to implementation. How many YC investees would have pursued their
ideas without YC? Is this a core attribute for YC to invest in an idea?

It's interesting though... of all the potential reasons that could have
motivated the creation of YC (e.g. alternatively, giving promising ideas a
leap forward) the is the one that was chosen. That YC could be the small nudge
that pushes smart people to start new businesses and that "we can spring on
the world a stream of new startups that might otherwise not have existed."

~~~
coffeemug
For a lot of hackers, the biggest benefit they get from YC is confidence. It
happens almost instantaneously. You're no longer working on a project - you're
starting a company. Advice, support network, and introductions are incredibly
helpful, but they're nothing compared to confidence. If you already have it,
you can certainly succeed without YC (although getting in helps).
Theoretically, you can just tell yourself "I will be confident", in which case
you can succeed without YC too. But for most people it doesn't work this way.

YC gives people the determination to persist against all odds - probably the
most useful quality of all. It turns the fear of failure from working against
you, to working for you. It's an incredible energy source. I would be very
surprised if most successful YC companies did half as well without YC. Not
because of the help that YC offers, but because of confidence and
determination.

~~~
mahmud
Slava, you didn't need anybody's endorsement to feel competent my friend.
You're a first rate hacker, Startup or not. Good luck with rethinkdb, get
industry contacts, work on the "suit" image and you should be fine. You're
destined to greatness.

~~~
bkudria
Haha, Slava in a suit. _snort_

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physcab
"We did it because it seems such a great hack."

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nuweborder
Im not a hacker, but I understand. And Im glad that YC is here to support and
develop startups like my own. And I hope to have the opportunity to work with
YC in the future. My startup is just that. A company that is a tweek or "hack"
on various other web ideas that have been developed and maybe even successful,
but that I feel have dropped the ball on various aspects of their site's
service, and business model. And with the right tweek or hack (my startup,
mindUNsigned.com), can capitalize on the competition's turnover, and deliver a
game winning dunk at the other end of the court.

~~~
medianama
What does that mean?

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nuweborder
It means that I've built my startup upon the faults of the competition. My
professional experience and MBA education has allowed me to very easily
identify opportunity costs. My startup has tweeked the competition's "so-
called" attempts, and speaks directly to their opportunities in pricing,
available features, usability, user interaction and activity, fun, and site
purpose.

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Randai
Ha ha, with talk like that it had to be a MBA.

~~~
mroman
(smiling in agreement)

