
YC Interviews in NYC - katm
https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-interviews-in-nyc/
======
OoTheNigerian
Great first steps.

Any plans to have one in a "no visa required" location for people from other
parts?

The struggle and stress attending YC interviews puts on Nigerian founders is -
to put it mildly, very unfair.

Rwanda, Ethiopia and Kenya are 2 countries with visa on arrival for everyone
and a great air network.[1]

[1]
[https://www.passportindex.org/byWelcomingRank.php](https://www.passportindex.org/byWelcomingRank.php)

~~~
jedberg
I'm curious, what's the next step after the interview? If they do an interview
in a no visa location and you get in, wouldn't you still need to get a visa to
join the program?

Or are you saying that once you get in then getting the visa is worth the
time, but it isn't worth it just for the interview?

~~~
OoTheNigerian
There is a shorter period to prepare for a YC interview than to get into the
program after passing the YC interview.

Once you get into YC, you can take your time and it is easier to make a case
at the embassy.

First of all, the US visa spaces are fully booked. The next open interview
slots are somewhere in April so instead of founders trying to prepare for
their YC interview, they are spending an enormous amount of time trying to get
an earlier slot for a US visa interview.

After managing to get a slot it is another many days of preparing and hoping
not to be rejected.

It costs at least $200 per interview in a country where the minimum wage is
hoping to be increased to $80/month later this year.

All this is happening as their contemporaries from US and Europe only have to
book a flight in 5 mins and return back to preparing for their YC interview
and building their startup.

The world is flat indeed!

~~~
jedberg
Ah, I didn't realize the process was quite that bad. I can see how that makes
it more worthwhile to do only if you get in.

Thanks for the explanation!

------
m0th87
I remember going to YCNYC nearly 10 years ago, and pg made the argument that
anyone starting a company should just move to the Bay Area because it was that
much better. I guess NYC has come a long way, or YC has, or both :)

~~~
wenc
pg wrote an article called "Cities and Ambition"[1] which greatly influenced
my thinking on the importance of being around a critical mass of like-minded
people, not just for the 1st-order effects of having the right networks and
opportunities, but also for the 2nd-order effects of being subtly influenced
by the intellectual energy around you.

(Side note: Eric Weiner wrote a Malcolm-Gladwell-like book "The Geography of
Genius" on a similar topic; for a funny but insightful review see this review
[2] where the reviewer terms this genre "American-Folksy")

These effects do shift, e.g. as mentioned in the article, Florence was the
place to be for art during the Renaissance, but not so much today. NY is a big
city that's constantly reinventing itself, and the gravity of tech importance
has been moving toward NYC for a while now.

But as of right now, SV is still dominant.

[1]
[http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-
reviews/R3KMN29SZX9ZKS/re...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-
reviews/R3KMN29SZX9ZKS/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=145169167X)

~~~
sudosteph
Wow, good links, thanks. It's interesting to read that PG essay and realize
just how drastically things must have changed in the past decade for SV
people.

Like this snippet:

> How many times have you read about startup founders who continued to live
> inexpensively as their companies took off? Who continued to dress in jeans
> and t-shirts, to drive the old car they had in grad school, and so on?

Maybe it was doable in 2008, but the idea living "inexpensively" anywhere near
SV just is laughable. Nobody is going to save more on clothing and cars than
you will lose on rent. Even living in Brooklyn would get you significant
savings over most places equally close to SFO.

Another interesting factoid he called out also has me wondering about the
long-term implications of SV becoming the main magnet for startups:

> The power of an important new technology does eventually convert to money.
> So by caring more about money and less about power than Silicon Valley, New
> York is recognizing the same thing, but slower. And in fact it has been
> losing to Silicon Valley at its own game: the ratio of New York to
> California residents in the Forbes 400 has decreased from 1.45 (81:56) when
> the list was first published in 1982 to .83 (73:88) in 2007.

Seems to me like the trend of the extremely wealthy concentrating in
California may not necessarily be a positive thing for creating an environment
that can sustain ambitious people who need a place they can live cheaply while
building things. Though I would be very curious to see what those numbers are
looking at today.

All that said, his analysis of why he liked SV seems like it made sense at the
time. It just clearly couldn't scale.

This does make me more confident about my decision to move back to Raleigh
though. The "eavesdropping" thing he mentions is actually pretty great there,
Durham and Raleigh have a very diverse and well-educated populace. People who
don't think there are ambitious people around those parts must not run in the
same circles as I do. I know more people building their own companies or side
projects or just learning and building things for fun there than I could find
in Seattle. It's hard to get funding there for sure - not so many super rich
people around to hit up and perhaps outsiders misinterpret the more practical
aims of local ambition as lack of ambition altogether. But while SV and NY and
LA may send the strongest messages about power, money, and fame, I feel better
than ever about being in the "Esse Quam Videri"[1] corner of the world
instead.

[1] State motto of NC, translates to "To be, rather than to seem".

~~~
mav3rick
Seattle has many many people working on their own thing and side projects. It
has an excellent talent pool of varying skills. Raleigh is nowhere near in
scale right now

~~~
sudosteph
Everyone I know with talent here is too overworked at their main job to
sustain side projects. That, rampant seasonal depression and a pervasive weed
and drinking culture to deal with it all make it incredibly to hard to connect
with people who actually want to collaborate on things on the side. It's the
seattle freeze culture - it just isn't conducive to organic networking and
small scale innovation. At least the Bay has nice weather to lift moods a bit.

Raleigh has plenty enough talent, from far more diverse backgrounds than
Seattle, and just keeps growing. I don't need 10,000 engineers for a startup -
I just need 10 really good ones and a pipeline for more. I've already got that
network and I know the culture is better for me to find more, so I'm ready to
go for it. It's a risk in some ways, but I gave Seattle a real try - it just
isn't as uniquely conducive to building new things as people would like to
believe.

~~~
wenc
I visited RDU for a week to figure out if it was a place that I would want to
settle down in. I was told the American Tobacco Campus was a hotbed for new
startups, and of course SAS in Cary has a big presence. There's definitely
talent in the area (State, UNC and Duke) and there's definitely potential.

One thing I noticed though was the relative lack of cultural diversity and
city feel (the entire RDU area feels suburban and comfortable, and lacks
"struggle" as it were), but I don't know if this adversely affects startup
viability, so it probably doesn't matter. I decided it wasn't a place where I
would feel comfortable settling in, being a city-person, but for many people
who are turned off big cities, I could see RDU being a good middle ground.

------
e1ven
It's an interesting reflection of changing dynamics for startups - When YC
started, it was in Boston, before later moving to SF.

Now that they're expanding to do some interviews on the East Coast again,
they're doing them in NYC, rather than Boston.

~~~
Eduardo3rd
Boston based founder here - I think it makes perfect sense.

\- NY is far easier to get to Boston from anywhere else on the east coast -
flights, busses, trains, etc. Much less Europe.

\- While the amount of total VC dollars invested in each city is similar[0],
I've always gotten the impression that figure is skewed by a small number of
mega-rounds going into the biotechnology companies in Kendall Square vs. the
number of companies in the wider ecosystems.

\- NY is just a better city to visit. More public transit options, hotel
rooms, things to see while you are in town for the interview, etc.

I love Boston, but I'd make the same decision.

[0] [https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/04/boston-area-startups-
are-o...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/04/boston-area-startups-are-on-pace-
to-overtake-nyc-venture-totals/)

~~~
avinium
Out of curiosity, if you were a foreign (but remote) startup looking to set up
an office in the USA - would you recommend Boston? From the perspective of
sales/finance, rather than technical, if that's important.

~~~
baobrain
I'm not familiar with the specifics of setting up an office, but from just a
talent perspective, Boston has the benefit of having a large concentration of
universities: Harvard, MIT, Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern,
UMass...

That's a lot of new unemployed talent that (potentially) is looking for a
career start in Boston. It is also more affordable and public transit is
decent.

~~~
jseliger
Anecdotally, it seems fairly common for people to move between Boston and NYC.

------
lifeisstillgood
A couple of thoughts come to mind - are you doing this because there is a dip
in the number / quality of applicants being SF-only, or are you hoping to grow
YC on top of the SF-base with these new "hubs". (i.e. have we reached peak
"good ideas" in the US?)

Second thought - I need to get my butt into gear ...

~~~
srsimon
Neither! We travel all over the world doing outreach and we figured we might
as well interview people while we're out there.

~~~
ondiekijunior
Do you by any chance think you can make it to Nairobi, Kenya in your outreach?
I have applied as many times as I have been rejected but it would be fantastic
if YC came closer. Visa Free for all Africans (and most other nations),
fantastic weather, and I volunteer to get you a prime location for the
interviews(or just meetup) at the oldest most established tech open space in
Africa/Silicon Savanna. Plus you can all adopt and name orphaned elephants :)

------
lettergram
Hmm I understand YC is growing and needs to expand to meet the growth (I mean
physically expand). At the same time interviewing is a huge boon to everyone
doing it.

I’ve interviewed twice, failed both times, but continue to grow my business.
Those connections I’ve made - during the interview day - has actually helped
me and opened new opportunities.

I’ll be interested to know if this changes the dynamics at all.

------
nailer
> Announcement: February 11, 2019

> The deadline to apply to meet us in NYC is Friday, February 15 at 8pm PST.

Damn. I'm applying for YC Summer 2019 (with a new company based on feedback
from my previous in-person interview) for March 25.

I'd much rather interview in NY, but having the deadline pushed forward to 4
days from now is faster than I'd expect.

------
Alex3917
Great way to cut down on YC's carbon footprint, while also saving everyone
some travel time.

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scmaina
Just wondering if anyone who applied for the YC NYC interviews heard back?

~~~
kcolon23
I didn't. But in all likelihood I'm guessing it means I didn't get one

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andreygrehov
Are accepted companies expected to move to the Bay Area?

~~~
snowmaker
Yes, for the three months of the YC program.

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ph0rque
Quick question: I don't see any field in the interview to indicate NYC as the
interview city. Do all applicants who make the February 15 deadline
automatically get considered for an NYC interview?

~~~
srsimon
Yep!

~~~
gault8121
If orgs apply before the deadline but are not accepted for NYC interviews, are
they still considered for SF interviews?

~~~
scmaina
Yes, you can even update your application I believe

------
xiaolingxiao
If I apply for the NY interview, can I apply again for the March deadline
again? Or is it one application only for the summer 2019 cycle.

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YeahSureWhyNot
anybody sees a specific link for Feb NYC event when they login? Do I not see
anything because my application is pending?

------
johnxie
Great news for startups in New York! Hope this will continue for years to
come.

------
jotto
might YC be using geoIP to track location trends of, presumably programmer-
types, visiting news.ycombinator.com since ~2005?

------
yeukhon
Wow this is so sudden. Sigh. One of my cofounders can't move to the U.S. due
to personal responsibility. I guess YC ain't for us! Good luck everyone.

~~~
snowmaker
That's not necessarily a deal-breaker. We often work within constraints like
that - it depends on the details of your team.

~~~
yeukhon
Thanks for the reply! It's good to know it's still a possibility.

------
ejz
This is less interesting than the upcoming expansions to Tel Aviv and
Bangalore.

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/yc-is-hosting-
interviews-i...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/yc-is-hosting-interviews-
in-new-york-in-a-couple-of-weeks-heres-what-you-need-to-know-ahead-of-time/)

