
The Aha Moments That Made Y Combinator Possible - _halcyon_
https://medium.com/design-startups/3a2bcf496032
======
bfe
This article states that YC is now valued at $13.7 billion. Actually, the
cited source credits pg recently saying that is the current valuation of all
of the YC startups, not of YC itself.

[edited for clarity]

~~~
pg
Yipes, nothing like that. That's the total value of all the companies we've
funded. We assume we end up with 3% on average after dilution.

~~~
argumentum
That would value YC at around $400m, but isn't the mean dilution insufficient,
since YC would be diluted the most for the highest valued startups?

A _very_ interesting question: once it's all said and done (let's say in 30
years), do you think YC will have a greater valuation than any single YC
startup?

~~~
pg
Unlikely given the power law distribution of startup outcomes. But if you set
a _threshold_ defining a big hit and we funded 33 of them we'd end up being
one ourselves. It's conceivable we could fund 33 big hits in 30 years. Depends
how much we grow.

(3% is our estimate for the biggest successes.)

------
Arjuna
_Was Viaweb First?_

[http://www.paulgraham.com/first.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/first.html)

[http://ycombinator.com/viaweb](http://ycombinator.com/viaweb)

~~~
nostrademons
It was first according to PG's knowledge, which is incomplete. Amazon.com was
incorporated in 1994, and sold its first book online in July 1995 [1], a month
before Viaweb. EBay launched in Sept 1995 [2], a month after Viaweb, and so
was probably independently under development. Geocities was active and
allowing user-contributed content by July 1995 [3], a month before. WebCrawler
was the first general-purpose Internet search engine, and launched in April
1994 [4].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay#History)

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoCities#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoCities#History)

[4]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebCrawler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebCrawler)

~~~
jason_wang
Viaweb was the internet's first web application. Its customers used Viaweb to
create and manage their own e-commerce sites. Like Shopify (or rather, Shopify
is like Viaweb).

Viaweb was not an e-commerce site like Amazon or Ebay. Its customers were
merchants rather than consumers.

~~~
nostrademons
I'd define "web application" as "something that lets you perform a task via
the web". All of the companies I linked count under that definition; Amazon
let you buy books; EBay let you buy & sell odds & ends; GeoCities let you
build a website; WebCrawler let you search for things.

If you define it more narrowly as "something that lets you create a site",
Geocities still counts.

I think you'd have to narrow the category to "first online store builder" to
make it accurate, which is still quite an accomplishment, but certainly isn't
the "first web app".

------
adamzerner
I'm not sure exactly how to say it, but the article didn't _really_ take us
through the thought process of pg as he "made yc possible".

Two things I'm interested in hearing more about:

1) What was the thinking behind viaweb? yc? How did pg arrive at the decision?
Was it as simple as the insights that were mentioned? Were alternatives
considered? (Before I started
[http://www.collegeanswerz.com/](http://www.collegeanswerz.com/), I had a list
of hundreds of ideas that I went through before deciding on a website with
better college reviews.) If so, what made viaweb/yc better than the
alternatives? What aspects of viaweb/yc were forseen, and which just happened
because of luck?

2) What was pg thinking he'd do with his life before viaweb? yc? Before
viaweb, it says that he was basically flip flopping between consulting and
art. What did he think he'd do with his life at this point? Any plans? What
was he feeling? Excited? Anxious? Bored? What about the 7 years between viaweb
and yc? Thoughts and plans about what he'd do with his life?

I know this stuff isn't directly related to viaweb and yc, but it's useful to
know thought processes, rather than just touching on the main insights. You
can't really learn from insights. You _can_ learn from thought processes.

------
simonebrunozzi
"Unix, the open-source operating system." \- Really? This mistake speaks very
seriously about the author of the article.

~~~
chollida1
I'd originally thought so to, but you can get the Unix source, so it is open
source for some definition of the term.

------
GuiA
> _" Then, with enough money saved, [pg] would quit the job and devote his
> time to his real love—art and painting—until the money ran out, and then he
> would scramble for another job."_

PG, is that what you do between YC batches? When will we get to see some of
your paintings? :)

~~~
pg
No, what I do between batches is work on YC. In the very beginning we
considered time between batches as time off, but YC is so big now that there's
always something that needs to be done.

~~~
ianstormtaylor
Do you paint or draw anymore? Just curious.

~~~
pg
Only for my kids.

~~~
gbog
Hi. Recently most of your published writings are about startups. I sometime
hope you will write about a wider set of topics. Just saying...

~~~
pg
Me too!

------
robmil
Did pg really invent backend web development?

~~~
redthrowaway
It's impossible to know for sure, but Viaweb is considered to be the first web
app.

~~~
coverband
??? Maybe the first online store builder, but not the first web app...

~~~
redthrowaway
[http://www.paulgraham.com/first.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/first.html)

------
robmcm1982
I am disappointed by this article. It made such a big deal about PG hating to
work with Windows, and reduced the innovation of web applications to a way to
not work in Windows.

Really?

Clearly the whole point was to get away from developing desktop applications,
and realizing the single-source, rapid development nature of web apps.

Please don't tell me that developing client apps on Windows was so much worse
then doing it on Linux. Its bullshit. Overfocusing on this aspect of the story
feels like platform fanboyism, misses the real point, and just overall kind of
cheapens PG's stellar image.

~~~
pg
Actually it was no exaggeration.

~~~
the_watcher
I'm curious, does anyone use Unix for day to day use anymore? Or have Linux,
OS X, and other Unix-like systems taken over the hacker preference?

~~~
binarycrusader
Actually, OS X 10.9 was certified as UNIX by the OpenGroup (as were earlier
versions such as OS X 10.6):

    
    
      http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3602.htm

------
ph0rque
_Over the years, evolving in its own way, Y Combinator has continued to grow
at an astounding rate. It is valued now at $13.7 billion, with the clear
potential for further growth._

Ignoring the mistake of valuing YC at $13.7B instead of its companies, here's
a crazy idea: I wonder when we'll see YC go for an IPO?

~~~
jpau
For me, it wouldn't make sense taking YC itself public. I can't see much of an
upside to the partners for taking the company public. Please, correct me if
you see otherwise.

What would be fantastic though, is for YC to incorporate their holding of each
individual year (older than, say, 3 years) into a fund, and then take those
public (and continue to do so). An annual YC ETF.

PG, has an annual YC ETF crossed your mind?

~~~
nwenzel
WeFunder has something like that. You can invest one lump sum in a group of YC
companies.

------
gwu78
From the comments, it often seems that there are a lot of HN readers who
really like Windows as an OS.

Is it true that "distaste for Windows" was a motivating factor behind Viaweb?

For me, Windows was an enormous itch. I scratched it with UNIX. Thank you,
Redmond, for the motivation.

