
Y Combinator's Original Home For Sale - tzury
http://ycombinator.posterous.com/y-combinators-original-home-for-sale
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daniel-cussen
_Garden Street has a fair amount of traffic, but we solved the noise problem
pretty thoroughly: there are 1600 pounds of glass in the windows, and the
doors drop down into slots as they swing closed.

We also had larger skylights installed. Plus there was already a greenhouse
set into the roof. The result is a place that surprises everyone who walks
into it. In the middle of Cambridge you walk into what seems a fairly
nondescript building, and inside is a huge, quiet, light space._

Liquidity is such a beautiful thing.

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jackowayed
_Sigh_ , it wasn't that long ago that a 17-year-old with no income could have
gotten a mortgage to buy a $1M loft.

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jedberg
Why not rent it out as a coworking space to startups in Cambridge?

You could even extend the YC model a bit and rent it out cheap in exchange for
some equity

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tptacek
It's hard to imagine an hour spent managing the logistics of a coworking space
in Boston that isn't better spent on one of the large number of startups YC is
advising already.

That's in addition to the fact that YC was never really a coworking program
itself; one of the distinctions Graham drew between YC and "incubators"
(remember those?) was that YC companies had to find their own working space.

Also: who gives away equity for office space? Don't do that.

~~~
jedberg
> It's hard to imagine an hour spent managing the logistics of a coworking
> space in Boston that isn't better spent on one of the large number of
> startups YC is advising already.

I was thinking more along the lines of diversifying income while keeping what
is a great piece of real estate. If there is enough demand, it could even
warrant hiring a part time real estate manager, so that precious time is not
diverted.

> That's in addition to the fact that YC was never really a coworking program
> itself;

Exactly. Again, diversification in to a new area.

> Also: who gives away equity for office space? Don't do that.

I would personally never do it, but I was just throwing it out there as
another option.

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istari
For pg, diversification would be to take that $1M and plow it into 30
promising startups.

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jedberg
I don't think you understand what diversification means. :)

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sama
This is one of the cheeriest buildings I've ever been in. I remember an
automatic mood uptake walking in the door for each weekly dinner.

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emmett
This is where we wrote a good deal of the code for Kiko, and where Steve wrote
a lot of Reddit. It makes me nostalgic for our 2005 YC batch, and sad to see
it go on the market. I hope whoever buys it puts it to good use.

~~~
plusbryan
For sure. I still remember scooping out huge gobs of that yummy spagetti sauce
from that stove. This feels a bit like my parents selling my childhood home.
So many good memories.

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NathanKP
There is something wrong with the slideshow widget on the property listing
page:

<http://eplacehomes.com/company/featured-listings/135-garden/>

Whenever I click one of the arrows to move through the pictures of the
property, it reloads the page.

Edit: The code shows that the embedded slideshow object is placed within an
<a> link. You should probably fix that so that the widget is useable.

    
    
        <a href="http://eplacehomes.com/135-garden"><br />
          <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf" width="400" height="280" flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&#038;hl=en_US&#038;feat=flashalbum&#038;RGB=0xFFFFFF&#038;feed=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2Frachaellburger%2Falbumid%2F5527745696588689281%3Falt%3Drss%26kind%3Dphoto%26authkey%3DGv1sRgCPzy6Me54de1gQE%26hl%3Den_US" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>
        </a>

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rachaelb
fixed. thank you.

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akkartik
I never got in to YC, but the pictures made me feel nostalgic. (I'd visited in
the fall of 2008 and seen Bill Warner speak.)

~~~
zach
Me too. The best I did was driving past it when I came out to Cambridge for
the first Startup School, but it was such a unique building even from the
outside that seeing it again sparked a fond memory. Nice listing.

~~~
Symbol
I think I went to the first Startup School (2005?) and I was invited to a
party the night before at the Garden St House. It had such a nice flow for a
party; it encouraged people to circulate rather than congregate in corners.

As a complete aside, the party was fun but I didn't know anybody and I was
alone. I'm a very open person, but I still had trouble getting people to talk
to me. We all wore silly name tags, so I changed mine from "Matt" to "Linus
Torvalds". Suddenly I was popular! Then PG saw me and said "you should
probably use your real name, I think that's lame" or something like that. Ah
good times :)

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ilamont
It's a cool, bright space, in one of the neighborhoods to the west of Harvard
Square (also within walking distance of Mt Auburn hospital vicinity).

It would be a great place for startup with about 10-15 people.

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sammcd
Looks like an amazing place. Since PG said he was open to suggestions. Why not
rent it to y-combinator startups? I don't know much about SF, so I am assuming
it doesn't make sense from a cost perspective.

~~~
jackowayed
The office is in Cambridge, MA. There are few (no?) YC startups left in the
Boston area at this point. I'm sure the idea crossed their mind.

~~~
DrewV
There's some. Embedly, for example, moved back east after YC.

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nck4222
How about turning it in to a startup community gathering place?

YC benefits: Instead of just receiving a lot of apps from the area from people
you never heard of, you'd be able to get to know them for months before they
apply; It'd help your application process, and let you make more accurate
judgments on who would succeed and who wouldn't; You'd be able to tap in to
the Harvard/MIT crowd and get more of them interested (although I'm sure YC
isn't slouching here already).

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baguasquirrel
Architects are usually advised to have light on two sides of every room. It
doesn't seem to happen often. And this place has light on _three_ sides. _Hot
Damn._

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bearwithclaws
Video tour here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31X323N20wU>

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susan25
I think some people saw this coming, but it's good to get another perspective
on the topic. Like the pics as well.

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Luyt
Pictures, please ;-)

