

Why not make Y Combinator applicants compete by developing the same site/app? - amichail

I suspect that one would learn a great deal about each team by comparing their performances on the same task.<p>Although the task would be given, there would be a lot of freedom in the execution.  And perhaps give applicants one month to do it.
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jpwagner

      "Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work."

<http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html>

This would be an errand.

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abalashov
That would be a very, very pointless waste of time and energy for the teams
that created essentially as-good (or in some ways better, some ways worse)
implementation as the winner, but for some reason didn't get chosen because
there can only be one winner.

They would have been much better off putting that kind of work into a project
that has residual value in that it isn't overly similar to anything else out
there (i.e. the winner), and look into funding from a source that respects
their time and effort rather than imposing arbitrary and onerous busy-work of
this variety.

This is an example of "competition for the sake of competition," the error of
elevating competition (or anything else) to almost _metaphysical_ status.
Competition has many benefits, but is not a good thing _ipso facto_.

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amichail
The task would not be what you would work on if you get in. It would only be
used to help evaluate teams.

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anamax
> It would only be used to help evaluate teams.

We understand that. We don't understand the relevance of what it measures.

Suppose Team A builds a great site and Team B builds a crappy one. What do you
do with that information?

You clearly believe that that result contains a lot of useful information -
how about spelling it out?

Feel free to add characteristics of the sites that help you make your case
that this exercise provides useful information, but don't cheat.

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amichail
_Suppose Team A builds a great site and Team B builds a crappy one. What do
you do with that information?_

Team A is more talented and/or more determined than Team B. Whatever the case
may be, Team A would be taken more seriously than Team B when it comes to
quality execution.

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anamax
How do you get from "great/crappy" to more talented and/or more determined?
Doesn't the kind of site or the skills of the folks matter?

I ask because the initial Google search box page was crappy. We call it sparse
today, but that's just sucking up. Brin admits that it looks like it did
because he didn't know much HTML and apparently didn't care.

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keefe
Agree with the majority of negative comments here. I think this is also a
noisy signal for a couple other reasons. If the random topic is in some
group's area of expertise, they're going to destroy the demo even if they are
not the most fit. If it's wildly outside of a team's interest, say if they are
great 3D rendering C++ guys doing a game and the project is a web app, then
they could look worse than they are. It also irritates those of us who spend
our whole day working on projects we don't have any special interest in.
Finally, most web apps are simple CRUD apps with minor analytics and these are
relatively easy to push out - that gives no information on scalability skills
or marketing ideas or anything, really.

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Travis
Why put a month in on a trial that isn't useful to anyone (esp. not the
stakeholders) when you can put that month into the product itself?

I don't think PG / YC judges feel they can't differentiate between a good
applicant and a bad one.

Also, this would disproportionately assist the startups who are independantly
wealthy / homeless / etc. Other folks have to make money -- YC is supposed to
be a bridge to help them do that. It shouldn't be a requirement before
application.

edit: JP's comment sums it up best.

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amichail
How about if they make it part of the interview? Instead of giving you a month
to do it, how about a weekend?

