
I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator.  AMA - sama
Applications for YC for Summer 2016 are due next Thursday 3&#x2F;24.<p>People often have questions about YC, and I&#x27;m happy to answer those (or questions about anything else).<p>EDIT: Ok, I have to run.  Thanks for the questions!
======
krstck
Has YC ever considered having a control group by randomly pre-accepting
certain applicants into the program automatically? I'd be curious to see the
stats on how successful that group would be versus the group that's actually
picked by the committee.

~~~
sama
We do talk about that every once in awhile, but the average company that
applies to YC is not very good and thus the experiment would hurt the network
(and be painful for us to work with).

What we've more seriously considered is randomly funding some companies just
below the threshold.

Also, we do look at our ranking to see how companies at the top vs companies
near the cutoff do. It's rare (but not unheard of) for a company very near the
cutoff to be one of our most successful companies.

~~~
gogopuppygogo
Can you elaborate on what makes a company "not very good"?

Would you ever consider releasing anonymized data on companies that apply and
are accepted along with those who apply but aren't accepted into a batch?
That'd give future applicants much more insight into the process.

~~~
beachstartup
EDIT: i should emphasize this is only my experience as a startup hiring
manager. maybe YC attracts nothing but geniuses, i dunno. i'm just a guy on
the internet.

since yc is obviously not going to talk shit on their own applicants, i'm
going to go out on a limb here and guess that it's just like every other job
application process when six figures (or more) of money is on the line. big
paychecks attract plenty of, shall we say, 'aspirational' applicants.

1\. apps where spelling and grammar is clearly not a priority (sure, i'll give
you 5 figures a month to spell shit wrong) 2\. the wrong kind of company will
apply, i.e. a restaurant 3\. bullshit artists gonna bullshit, even when they
stink 4\. people simply not smart enough to do the job. just plain dumb is a
real thing, folks. 5\. people with too little real world experience 6\. really
stupid ideas (who's to judge? well, the people with the money get to judge,
that's sort of how applications work)

the fact that you can use the term 'anonymized data' in a sentence that
actually makes sense is going to put you in the top 10% automatically - yes,
the bar is _that low_ when you're dealing with the general public. the trick
is getting into the top 1% though. it's a power law distribution of
difficulty.

every job advertisement attracts applications like these, and yc is basically
just a really, really fancy and structured super-duper college/job application
process combined, but for crazed entrepreneurs (like me). you are going to get
a lot, maybe even mostly people on the left hand side of the normal
distribution of iq, talent, and work ethic/experience. the easy thing is the
dipshits and fakers are easy to spot-and-drop almost immediately. i can
basically glance at a resume and disqualify it in 10-15 seconds if it's not
good enough. you just can't bullshit someone far smarter, more experienced,
and better at bullshitting than you. CAVEAT: there are extremely smart and
experienced bullshitters out there though -- that's the real danger area.
that's what you're really worried about.

basically the only thing you can count on is that they want your money!!

~~~
newjersey
Oh wow. I wish they said that the bar was so low. I would like to apply as
well if that's the case.

Edit: I still think the idea of Dropbox is pretty stupid and I wouldn't have
given Drew Houston a penny if I was an investor. But I never thought the
average application would be so far worse if Dropbox got funded and succeeded.

~~~
argonaut
You're making the mistake of judging the idea too much and forgetting that
Drew Houston went to MIT, and had worked as a tech lead at a company. That
already puts him in the top 10% of applicants, regardless of his idea.

~~~
newjersey
I guess so. I, on the other hand went to a state school and my work experience
is working on fairly straightforward line of business applications. I am not
so much criticizing Dropbox as much as I'm making fun of my own lack of
vision.

~~~
beachstartup
when in doubt, ask for what you want. that's what all the unqualified people
are doing, so you might as well do it too.

the most uncommon and valuable skill in the world is for a smart person to
willingly put themselves in a position where they could easily fail, or be
ridiculed. dumb people do this all the time. this is an advantage to being
dumb. you have no ego to lose. nor much of anything else.

 _that_ is the cross-section of intelligence and success. just look in the
mirror for an example.

and for what it's worth, if you think dropbox is a tepid idea, just consider
slack. enterprise irc with history and attachments. worth billions. there's
more to it than just a cool idea. the example i always use is: i've got a
great idea. let's build a time machine. it'll be great!

------
eranation
Hi Sam. Will you consider a batch in other US locations? (For example in
Atlanta). It can increase the applicant base due to lower cost of living and
will allow a different flavor of founders to apply in my opinion.

I think the next billion $ enterprise startup will be more likely to come from
such a batch. People who face enterprise software problems are not always in a
stage in life that allows them to move to SF for a few months. YC might be
missing out a large cohort of founders who work in enterprise software,
outside of the Bay Area, and would disrupt their industry given the chance but
are less flexible in moving to SF.

There are many "old tech" hubs outside SF that can generate great new
startups. medical IT, medical devices, mechanical and aviation industry,
enterprise software etc. Are Enterprise software ideas and founders with years
of enterprise software experience adequately represented at YC?

~~~
sama
The YC Fellowship funds companies anywhere! Kevin does remote office hours.

And yes, I think they're well-represented.

~~~
eranation
This is great news, I didn't know, thank you!

------
errantspark
Hey Sam, where do I apply for YC basic income? : ) Many people have no
problems in life except those related to not having enough dough.

I know a number of really creative/talented individuals who would be a lot
better off if they didn't struggle to feed/house themselves. People who
contribute to open source, build art projects and love to share knowledge.
Definite contributors to society and the betterment of their fellow man.

Have you ever considered just letting people to apply for YC for a few years
of basic income. The individuals that I'm thinking of would contribute more to
society if given basic income than in any other situation I can imagine. (Many
of them bay area locals, if you want to interview a few in person). Driven to
create but stifled by various real and/or self imposed restrictions.

~~~
Xeoncross
Even more than basic income in the west. Basic income in developing countries
could go farther for less.

It's pretty easy to work a job and still have time to develop if you want to
here in the states. It's really hard to starve doing what you love here.

~~~
elliotec
Assuming doing what you love is software development.

~~~
jdminhbg
There's a lot of "what you love" that pays above starvation and isn't
programming.

~~~
elliotec
Of course, but the OP was specifically talking about the context of
development.

------
jimrandomh
What is your plan for AI safety, and how does OpenAI fit into it?

In [http://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-
part-2](http://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-part-2) you laid out
sensible requirements and safeguards we should demand of late-stage AI
development when it gets further along. But OpenAI's founding statement seems
to have baked in a mission and vision that's incompatible with those
safeguards, requiring immediate sharing of breakthroughs even if the
technologies required to use them safely aren't ready yet. That founding
statement used to have the word "safely" in it, but this was edited out
without any sort of announcement or comment, and, to the best of my thirdhand-
rumor knowledge, OpenAI is not currently doing any safety-related research.

(I wrote a blog post on this back in December, and no one has given any
plausible answer: [http://conceptspacecartography.com/openai-should-hold-off-
on...](http://conceptspacecartography.com/openai-should-hold-off-on-choosing-
tactics/) )

~~~
sama
We're still working through this--it turns out to be a research problem in
itself.

We talk about it a lot, and I'm working on a post about it (for example, we
may not share intermediate breakthrough that we think pose major safety
risks), but I've been much busier than expected the last few months and
haven't gotten to it yet.

Definitely expect us to do safety research.

~~~
darnton
What can a run-of-the-mill technical person do to help?

We know that super-AI is more likely than not to be existentially dangerous.
It would be remiss to foresee the apocalypse and assume someone else will fix
it.

------
cybin
Hey Sam:

So I've been working diligently for the last few weeks putting the final edits
on my application to YC. I'm 68 years old an the only founder. On the positive
side I've got almost 50 years of work in the project that defines the state of
the art.

Am I wasting my time in applying considering my age and singleness?

~~~
lbotos
Holy wow! I'm not Sam but kudos, keep at it no matter what. Inspired right
now.

~~~
cybin
Thanks! That's a very nice thing to say.

------
Fede_V
Hey Sam, semi technical question here. NIPS, ran an experiments a few years
ago where for 10% of the papers they had two completely independent teams of
reviewers assess papers and score them - the agreement between the teams was
very low: [http://blog.mrtz.org/2014/12/15/the-nips-
experiment.html](http://blog.mrtz.org/2014/12/15/the-nips-experiment.html)
(barely better than chance, actually).

Would you consider doing something similar for YC? Obviously, you already have
multiple people looking at websites/applications, but I'd be really curious to
see what the agreement is like - and you have some absolutely exception
AI/data scientists people at openAI who could crunch all the numbers.

~~~
sama
We have multiple people review each application (except the very good/very bad
ones) and we look at the cases where the assessments are very different.

Some of the best companies have the most disagreement, which is why we have
implemented our "strong yes" policy--if any single partner wants to fund a
company, we fund it. It's much more important to our returns that we fund the
next Airbnb than if we mistakenly fund one more bad company.

~~~
jackpirate
This is a really uninformative answer. Every peer reviewed conference/journal
also does this. The NIPS study was special because they did more. They ran a
controlled experiment to determine the exact variance in acceptance rates and
then published the results. The GP was asking you to repeat the NIPS
experiment.

~~~
andkon
If any partner can unilaterally say yes to any application, it makes the NIPS
study irrelevant to their problem.

------
11thEarlOfMar
Allegations are circling the web that a side effect of the (also alleged)
startup bubble is that there are more good founders than good ideas. The
purported effect is to water down the societal value of the products and
services that are produced by companies exiting accelerators and incubators.

A few obvious counter arguments come to mind right away, such as YC's startups
in fusion energy and non-profits like Watsi. If I could, I'd Google up a
histogram of funded startup business models as granular as 'restaurant food
delivery' or 'pre-packaged home cooked meals' and see where the ideas are
concentrated.

What is your opinion on the aggregate? Does YC have any formal or informal
policies aimed at balancing the mix of weighty vs. frivolous businesses?

~~~
sama
Some of the most important startups start out looking incredibly ambitious.
Others start out looking incredibly trivial, but with users that are in love
with their product.

We like funding both.

------
jonstokes
I'm working on a piece about universal basic income, and I have the following
summary of the how I think that many tech people like yourself believe UBI is
going to work:

1\. Companies innovate by doing things more cheaply with automation than human
workers can do them.

2\. As a result of automation, the more efficient companies reap all the
profits in a market as they drive the less efficient companies out of business
(and the humans out of jobs).

3\. This bonanza of profits that automation yields is taxed.

4\. The taxes from the accumulated wealth of the winners -- wealth that,
again, exists because the winning companies' machines were able to do things
more efficiently than the losing companies' human laborers -- go toward paying
the laid-off laborers a basic income.

Any I missing anything?

~~~
roymurdock
> This bonanza of profits that automation yields is taxed.

Optimizing companies will do everything possible to avoid the corporate taxes
(>60%) required to make universal basic income a reality. If you are assuming
that winning companies are the best at implementing automation and reducing
cost, it is a fatal mistake to assume that they will suddenly become
charitable when it comes to wealth redistribution - no, they will "win"
because they optimize every single aspect of their balance sheets. They'll
move their capital offshore where it will be taxed at a fraction of the US
rate. They'll pay lobbyists to make sure tax loopholes stay open, and that the
wealth accretes to the few at the top of the company who run the business.
This is simply the nature of capitalism. If you allow a few companies to gain
too much power, they will abuse that power. That is why we have a government
that does an OK job of breaking up monopolies, creating anti-trust laws,
regulating risk-taking, etc.

> taxes from the accumulated wealth of the winners...go toward paying the
> laid-off laborers a basic income

What about the people who never had a job? Those born into a society where
they are not needed for labor? UBI for everyone creates a large misdirection
of resources that perpetuates the problem of too many people, too few jobs,
social unrest. We have solved this problem in the past through war, which
stimulates the economy through government spending, reduces excess labor
(especially young, angry, dangerous men), reignites nationalism and social
cohesion (against a common and clearly evil enemy such as Hitler), and
realigns national incentives towards R&D and infrastructure investment. I am
not advocating for war, merely making an observation. Does UBI get distributed
to everyone who is unemployed, or only those who are laid off from jobs?

I encourage you to examine the concept of "helicopter money" and study the
incentive structures it creates and why we haven't truly implemented it before
during tough economic times.

~~~
dvainsencher
It is a job of the government to counteract destabilizing influences such as
the wealth concentrating effects of technology and under-competition. As a
foreigner living in the US, the US government honestly sucks eggs at it.
Healthcare, banks, cable, broadband, cell phone service, Google, Apple,
Microsoft... all classic antitrust cases across the board, waiting for an un-
captured regulator.

If world governments continue to fail also at corporate tax, the current
dystopic situation of regressive effective corporate tax rates through profit
export will persist, and risks everything we have gained through capitalism
and democracy.

I encourage you to read the definition of UBI. Universal means you give to
everyone, from the homeless guy on the street, to Bill Gates. Not just laid
off people. Also, your top-of-head speculations are not the best evidence
available for its effects.

~~~
endophage
A Universal Basic Income is not necessarily paid to everyone, at least not
directly. A UBI means a certain income level is guaranteed, if you are earning
more than the guaranteed level, you may not be given anything in addition.
This is most clearly demonstrated by one proposed implementation of UBI,
namely, a negative income tax. A negative income tax would entail those
earning below the guaranteed level being paid enough to raise their income to
the guaranteed level. Those earning more than the guaranteed level are taxed.

Negative Income Tax is pretty much the only implementation of UBI I personally
could get behind. I just wouldn't be able to support an implementation of a
UBI that pays Bill Gates the same amount as a person born with a severe
disability (which obviously they had no choice about being born with).

~~~
MawNicker
It wasn't Bill Gates' choice to be born without a disability. Honestly, I
despise your opinion. Bill Gates pays so much more in taxes that a basic
income would hardly matter to him. It's just part of his tax calculation: X% -
UBI. It's nothing to us either. There aren't many Bill Gates out there. Also,
in this way nothing needs to be measured. It's simply: Are you human? Here's
your UBI. Do you have income? Here's how much you owe in taxes.

The system for everyone should be the same. It's simpler and _more_ fair. Bill
Gates deserves to know that if he lost it all tomorrow we would take care of
him. We can make _one_ system that ensures everyone is cared for. The sickly
and the ambitious. I don't think we have the proficiency necessary to keep
people from falling through the cracks otherwise. Maybe in very specific cases
(like Bill Gates) but not at scale. There are disabilities that exist that we
don't even know about yet.

------
dilippkumar
I'd love to apply, but I'm on a H1-b visa and I'm basically in prison. How did
the other international founders you worked with get around the immigration
mess to start a company?

~~~
aakashnigam
Hi DilipKumar,

Some unsolicited advice. Starting company = solving lots of problems (product,
market, tech, hiring etc etc.) See Immigration as just one of these.

Canada, with much easier immigration policies (Toronto/Vancouver) can be your
base to build and validate your prototype and later move to valley.

In the age of Internet, geographical boundaries cannot prevent good
ideas/products from happening.

~~~
TheSixCents
Umm Why are you acting like Canada is just Toronto and Vancouver? Montreal is
a better place for startups than Vancouver.

~~~
aakashnigam
Sorry, my bad for missing it out. Montreal/Waterloo are equally great.

------
rsp1984
Obviously YC can't enter into NDAs with applicants but can you shed a little
bit of light on what YC does to protect the applicants' business ideas?

Some might be discouraged from applying because they fear if the idea is
interesting (but not the team or there's another reason it's not accepted)
that someone from within YC or a related ecosystem might just take the idea
and look at the product so far and decide to just do it themselves (but
obviously with more resources, connections, etc and obviously holding more
equity).

~~~
sama
Honestly, we are so busy, there are so many companies, and ideas are worth so
little, that most of us don't think twice about a specific company once we
move on to the next applications.

The very best ideas usually don't seem worth stealing.

~~~
miracle_code
The concept of ideas being worth near to nothing is new to me, can you explain
that thinking? Without monetary arguments this seems not right.

~~~
harrychenca
If ideas worth something, then an idea would be a commodity being traded among
people in markets. Since there isn't a market where people trade ideas with
something else, like money, there simply isn't a market for ideas. Hence,
ideas are worth nothing.

~~~
eldavido
I don't buy this; I think starting off in the right market is a huge
determinant of success.

The reason there's no market is because it takes an idea _and_ a person who
can execute -- knowledge, skills, connections, experience, etc. Ideas aren't
separable from people in a way that would make a market possible.

~~~
Mandatum
Inventions are worth money, ideas are not.

------
spike021
Education-wise, are you able to describe the percentages of applicants with
backgrounds coming from top schools versus lower-tier schools?

Being in the Bay Area, I know that Stanford and UC Berkeley tend to have a
decent amount of relatively successful launches/founders, but on the other
hand I can't say I hear nearly as much about people who went to San Francisco
State or San Jose State (or any other lower-tier schools that are not just
located in SF Bay Area).

If there is a large enough discrepancy, do you have any ideas of ways to
jumpstart or spark other educational communities to have a greater focus on
trying out ideas, especially with YC (or other programs)?

Personally, I'm finishing studying at San Jose State and while there is an
Entrepreneurship Club, the focus for that side of things (at least from what
I've seen) tends to stay purely on the Business college end, rather than other
potential high-impact areas (aside from the occasional mobile app here and
there).

~~~
sama
We looked at our data here last year--we fund founders from a very wide
variety of schools, and no school at all, but many of our most successful
founders went to 'top schools' and thus it's easy to get the mistaken
impression we select for that.

~~~
w1ntermute
If your most successful founders did go to top schools, why don't you select
for that?

~~~
sama
In a way we do, in that it's one (of many) examples for someone doing
something impressive in the past. We definitely look for founders who have
shown some evidence of doing something impressive (and we try to adjust for
whatever life circumstances people were born into).

But the main reason we don't is that there are important counterexamples in
our portfolio, and if we said "we're only going to fund founders from top
schools" we'd miss out on some big successes.

~~~
w1ntermute
What are some counterexamples?

I wasn't suggesting that you should _only_ fund founders from top schools, but
that you should select for it (which it sounds like you already do).

The pedigrees of some of YC's most successful founders, for anyone who's
curious:

* Twitch: Yale, MIT

* Cruise: MIT, Claremont McKenna

* OMGPOP: Princeton

* Heroku: UCSD

* Airbnb: RISD, Harvard

* Dropbox: MIT

* Zenefits: Harvard

It's interesting that Stanford and Berkeley are not represented here, probably
because good companies founded by students there can easily get funded without
going through YC. It seems like YC's strength lies in drawing elites from the
rest of the country to SV.

~~~
nostrademons
Reddit was UVA, which is a pretty good school but not really what people think
of as "elite".

Instacart was Waterloo, also a very good school but not a huge name outside of
tech.

RethinkDB was Stony Brook University.

Mixpanel was an Arizona State dropout.

~~~
w1ntermute
Thanks for the additions. Don't know much about RethinkDB, but as for the
others:

Reddit is a great example of founders without pedigree. Although it hasn't
been too successful as a company, it's created phenomenal value for its users.
I definitely spend more time on Reddit than
Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat/Twitter combined.

I'd say Waterloo is elite in the tech sense, and Apoorva worked at Amazon in
fulfillment, so it made a lot of sense in the specific case of Instacart.

Mixpanel was being advised by Max Levchin from before they applied to YC. He
became their first big customer and helped them with every funding round, and
probably put in a good word with YC when they applied[0]. Another YC alum,
Amplitude, which is founded by MIT grads, is now giving Mixpanel a run for
their money[1,2]. I don't know Suhail or Tim, but I can't imagine the average
ASU dropout's experience would be anything like theirs.

0: [http://www.businessinsider.com/mixpanel-ceo-suhail-doshi-
and...](http://www.businessinsider.com/mixpanel-ceo-suhail-doshi-and-max-
levchin-2015-3)

1: [https://amplitude.com/blog/2016/01/07/mixpanel-power-user-
am...](https://amplitude.com/blog/2016/01/07/mixpanel-power-user-amplitude/)

2:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10869419](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10869419)

~~~
spoinkaroo
Reddit hasn't been too successful as a company? I'd imagine their estimated
value is at least 100 million.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Welcome to HN where $10 million in the bank may feel like a failure.

------
d--b
Hi Sam, when I applied to YC a while back (2014 I think), I noticed that the
video I posted was looked at once after 12am, and the landing page on my
website was opened at something like 1am for 10 seconds. With the amount of
applications you guys receive that seems inevitable, but it also seems that
you would miss a lot of stuff if the reviewers are checking things well into
the night. Have you made some progress on that front since?

~~~
sama
Many of us (myself included) go to a nice hideaway somewhere far from the bay
area to read applications so we can concentrate. So I wouldn't pay much
attention to the timestamp. That said, given the volume of applications we
receive and the relatively small size of our partnership, we do have to spend
a regrettably short amount of time on each application.

------
d0m
When YC started, it was so small that PG and Jessica knew everyone's names and
could invest a lot of time and effort into making the startups successful. One
complaint as YC gets bigger is that there is more "Fast food advice", i.e.
there are so many startups that a partner can't hardly remember all of them
and we both know that most often than not the devil is in the details. What's
YC plan to make sure this doesn't happen as it continues to grow stronger? I
assume getting more partners on board is definitely one, and having special
group for certain verticals (i.e. biotech or hardware). Any other plans?
Thanks for the AMA

~~~
sama
The main thing is that we shard YC into small internal groups. I know all the
startups in my group in the batch well, and very little about the startups in
other groups.

------
betadreamer
One of the problem about the bay area is housing. If YC continues to make
successful companies this problem is going to get worse. Does YC have plan to
do something about this problem?

------
baron816
My company Krewe ([https://www.gokrewe.com](https://www.gokrewe.com)) is aimed
at helping people make a new group of close friends in their neighborhood that
they can see every day and build a strong local community. I only have a
couple hundred sign ups (after about three weeks) so I don't know for sure
that the concept will work. I also don't have a cofounder. Should I apply to
YC now, or potentially wait for the next batch when I would (hopefully) have
more traction?

~~~
throw420
Just stop working on this idea.

The main problem, imho, with the current model of startup creation, is that it
heavily selects for young technical people with little in the way of other
commitments to take chances on new ideas. Many young technical people are
hard-working and driven and that's wonderful, but (1) they form a narrow
demographic [if you hang out at too many hacker cons you'll wildly
overestimate the popularity of crummy cable sci-fi shows, for instance] (2)
they have very little exposure to meaningful problems, so we end up with
hundreds of meal delivery and laundry startup, because what else troubles a
recent college engineering grad?

I have seen hundreds of apps like yours. It's a terrible space. First of all,
literally every social app in the world is designed to help people make
friends. That's how friends are generally made: people have something in
common like "takes the same bus to school", "works at the same company", or
"comments on the same warhammer 40k miniatures painting advice forum", they
get to know each other, things grow from there.

I posit that "Make a New Group of Close Friends in Your Neighborhood" is not
actually a value proposition that you can deliver on, even with perfect
execution and infinite engineering resources. I just don't believe it. But
clearly you do, so let's put that aside and I'll grant you that this
technology could exist and you implement it perfectly.

How many times in someone's life could you imagine them using this? How many
close friends in their neighborhood can anyone really maintain? Once? Twice?
Maybe three times if they move a lot? Let's say it's six total times. And
let's also posit that, against all odds, it always works, there's always the
right mix of people in a given neighborhood to make this always work.

What are you going to do? Charge for the six uses? Show ads six times? GEICO
has ads on TV all the time because even though you basically never change car
insurance, they need to be top-of-mind when you think of who to google. I
think your cost of customer acquisition, _given the idea that your technology
works indistinguishably from magic_ , will be ludicrous. Remember, there's no
reason for people to even tell their friends about this: its an app for people
with no friends. I think you will have to spend a fortune continually
acquiring users.

Then, what's your arpu over the customer's lifetime? I can't imagine how you
can charge for this. Ads? Some sort of affiliate marketing? I would think, if
your product worked, the total user engagement with the site over the entire
lifetime of the customer would be on the order of what, an hour? There's just
no place to make money here.

Personally, I also think this is not a real problem, customers do not exist
for this service, etc. but you know, I'll spot you that, along with the idea
that if it was a problem, you could fix it. _Even if those things are true_,
you are going to end up with a horrendous business. See also: every "helps
friends figure out who's down to hang out" startup, every "helps organize your
travel plans" startup, every "uber for X" where X is something you buy like
four times in your life startup.

There is something about the founder mindset that is drawn to this bad idea,
just like founders are drawn to build "like making apps, but easier!" startups
over and over again that essentially never work (maybe Hypercard?).

I read an autobiography once by a former Navy SEAL. He said the first thing he
does when any young kid tells him he wants to join the SEALs is spend an hour
or so telling the kid why being a SEAL sucks and why he'll never make it. He
said 99% of the time, the kids give up on the idea. He said it's nothing
personal, he usually barely knows the kids, it's just that if someone you
barely know can talk you out of even trying to join the SEALs in an hour,
there's no fucking chance you'll survive BUD/S and all that stuff, so he's
really just saving them a bunch of time. He's doing his own "pre-BUD/S"
screening that's a lot cheaper and easier for everyone, and that involves a
lot less heartache. I always felt like that was a pretty good idea.

~~~
baron816
Thanks for trying to talk me out of this. No one has done that before despite
me trying to get them to, so I really appreciate the feedback.

None of your points causes any concern for me though. I have lot of ideas on
how to retain users--it's not simply a single use product. Krewe is not a
"Tinder for friends," it's completely different and actually tries to mimic
the way people naturally form and maintain friendships.

I am very certain that there is huge demand for a way to comfortably and
conveniently make friends. Anyone who's ever moved to a new city, or had
friends move away, knows how hard and how awful it is to not have anyone
you're close with nearby. 20% of Americans say they're lonely, and people
generally have fewer close friends than they used to. Depression, addiction,
and suicide rates have been rising for years as a result. No one has tried to
argue with me that making friends as an adult is hard. Consider yourself very
lucky to not know that is a problem.

Do I have the right solution? I'm not 100% sure, but I know that I'm at least
very near it, and I will find it or die trying.

~~~
pedalpete
Good attitude, and though I agree with some of the points brought up, I will
ask you make a small adjustment to your final statement re:'the right
solution'.

You may not and most likely are not near to the right solution, and your goal
maybe shouldn't be to find the right solution to the stated problem, but can
you keep rephrasing the problem to show you a better solution to a better
problem?

It is very difficult not to get attached to a solution to a problem, but if
you're solving for the wrong problem, you've already lost.

------
BinaryIdiot
Hey Sam,

Any comment regarding Jason Calacanis being banned from YC's upcoming demo
day? Jason tweeted[1] his side but didn't know what the YC side of it was and
was curious.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/Jason/status/710176806184349696](https://twitter.com/Jason/status/710176806184349696)

~~~
sama
To be clear, it has nothing to do with all the shit he talks about YC. Though
that's annoying, it's fine.

We collect feedback from YC founders on investors (we have a giant database of
this). If you mistreat founders, we don't invite you to Demo Day. This isn't
permanent--if you stop mistreating founders we start inviting you again. Also,
it's possible that our founders are wrong in their assessment of how a
particular investor is treating them, but investors have enough advantages in
the system and we unashamedly take the side of our founders.

EDIT: I also never think these things are black and white, and that all of us
have good and bad parts. I've heard from plenty of founders that Jason has
been very helpful to their companies.

~~~
ricfulop
Excluding Jason is perplexing to me. For context I've started 6 companies, one
went public and was a unicorn. I've worked with Jason as an angel in my
companies and I've been on a board with him. Jason has been an awesome
throughout several years of doing business with him. I can't envision a
scenario where he wouldn't be founder friendly and I'd love to have him as an
investor in any future project I pursue. Any first time founder would be lucky
to work with Jason.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
... and I am soooooo excited for your latest startup Ric. You're going to
change the world -- again!

much love, thanks for speaking at the Angel Summit earlier this month!

------
MeherSom
I've been following you and @paulg as well as many other YC members for a long
period and I'm quiet confident that you'll adhere to the vision/idea behind a
project that I'm about to start this year. Do you recommend that I apply for
YC really early, like now, just to present the idea ? Or should I develop it
and apply with a prototype ? Or should I launch it and then apply ? In which
case can YC help the idea to have bigger chances to succeed ? And in which
case you do you most likely accept the application or at least give it a
better chance ?

~~~
stephensonsco
Apply now. Then immediately resume working on it. If you don't get in now,
then apply with your awesome prototype that you've built over 6 months to the
next batch. :)

------
shifte
Hi Sam,

You've mentioned many times, more so recently, that YC is committed to
investing in hard tech problems. When considering companies solving these
problems for the next batch, knowing that often times even getting a prototype
ready is a massive undertaking, how much chance does one have applying with
nothing more than an idea and some research? And the possibility that it won't
generate revenue for 5+ years?

~~~
sama
A common failure mode for companies like these is to talk a lot about how hard
their problems are and never get anything at all done.

Even a huge project starts with a first step. We look for founders that get
that one done, and then the second, and ...

Good founders get stuff done. Bad founders talk about why they aren't getting
stuff done. This is true for web apps and nuclear reactors.

~~~
shifte
Being that this is true of getting anything done in the real world I was
hoping to frame the question without needing to preface it with that, or
listing any qualifications of my own or my team on a pseudonymous account, but
needless to say we get things done.

Thanks for replying nonetheless :)

------
nbadg
Hi Sam. Two questions:

1\. I'm a little in the dark about what happens to applications that have
already been seen (because they were submitted early) that are then edited
pre-deadline. I've been putting off submission because I'm very close to
having an MVP demo video, which I think would be strongly to my advantage to
include, but I also know that early submissions face a strong advantage as
well. Do you have any advice on the balance between the two, specific to the
YC application process? Would it make sense to submit now and edit in the demo
later?

2\. Are you aware of any publicly available resources for founders to do their
due-diligence on investors? I've met a couple of investors by chance (at bars,
amusingly enough) that, after hanging out for a few hours, I knew would be a
bad fit -- but it would be a waste of both the investors' time and my time if
we didn't learn that until the first face-to-face meeting. Do you have any
advice on how to maximize search utility (for both an investor and my company)
when I'm building my list of potential investors?

~~~
sama
1\. Some partners may read the earlier version of your application. The
advantage to submitting earlier is not so big, it just means you might get
more reads. I'd for sure wait to submit until you have your demo.

2\. We have an internal DB for this, but I'm not aware of a good publicly
available one :(

------
henrymercer
Last March, you mentioned on twitter that you are a customer of/financially
support Shanley Kane's organization, Model View Culture. Since since then (and
before then too), she has made a variety of racially and sexually charged
statements, such as, "fire some fuckin white guys to get it done" (
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KtAdEv...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KtAdEv8WXUIJ:https://twitter.com/shanley/status/633773694536429568+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)
). Do you or Y-Combinator still patronize or support Model View Code after
these statements? (A pure yes or no is fine, I don't need a big discussion, I
just want to know where you and YCombinator stand.)

~~~
pw
I'd love to hear what you find so objectionable about the tweets to linked to.
It seems radical but not offensive.

~~~
henrymercer
She wants mass firings of people like me and you for no other reason than our
sex and the color of our skin.

~~~
geofft
This seems reasonable if (and only if!) people who match you on sex and skin
color are unfairly overrepresented, and if the meaning is to fire those who
aren't qualified, not to indiscriminately fire to meet a quota. I read both of
those things as implied by that tweet and its context, but I can see how
they're not obvious. Without that context, I admit the sentence is racist and
sexist, but in context, it seems like a reasonable response to existing racism
and sexism that has given employment to unqualified white men more than to
unqualified people of different race/gender. (It is sort of like "black lives
matter": shorn of context it seems to privilege one race, but in a world where
black lives seem to matter less than other lives, it is a response to that
existing racism.)

I am a man but not white, so perhaps this does not sting as much as it stings
you, in which case I apologize for not being able to fully empathize.
Anecdotally, the vast majority of the underqualified and incompetent people
I've worked with in tech have been men, even taking into account the general
proportion of men and women in tech. Without thinking hard, I can name
underqualified men, qualified men, and qualified women that I have worked
with, but would have to think hard to remember underqualified women. So I'm
okay with focusing any attempts to fire unqualified people on men, or, at
least, making sure that any efforts to fire unqualified people end up firing
at least some men.

~~~
nailer
> This seems reasonable if (and only if!) people who match you on sex and skin
> color are unfairly overrepresented

Asian people are more overrepresented in tech than Europeans. If Shanley said
to "fire some fuckin asian guys to get it done", would you support this
comment? Why / why not?

~~~
geofft
Well, I think the context was management, where IIRC Asians are if anything
underrepresented. And I anecdotally don't think I've seen as many
underqualified Asian people (relative to the number of Asians) as white people
-- but that anecdata feels very iffy to me, so if there's reason to believe
that that's wrong, sure, I'd think that comment was reasonable. (It also gets
more complicated if they're on H1-Bs or something; however disruptive firing a
citizen is, firing someone on a work visa is a hundred times worse. And they
have fewer options for finding a job that fits their skill level than people
not constrained by a work visa.)

I would absolutely stand behind "fire some men to get it done". Or a simple
"fire some people to get it done", if I didn't have strong reason to believe
that tech's performance-evaluation practices are unduly harsh on women. (Which
is, incidentally, why I think I see unqualified women so rarely.)

~~~
nailer
> I would absolutely stand behind "fire some men to get it done"

Sure, but that wasn't the question.

------
kartayyar
You mentioned that you are interested in AI.

Chris Dixon made an interesting post about how some AI ideas are better suited
for bigger companies because of the data and compute needs.

[http://cdixon.org/2015/02/01/the-ai-startup-idea-
maze/amp/](http://cdixon.org/2015/02/01/the-ai-startup-idea-maze/amp/)

What are your thoughts on what classes of AI problems are better for startups
vs. big companies?

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I'm not Sam but I wanted to talk about this anyway. I'm working on a side
project that deals in the AI space (would like for it to become a business;
we'll see how things go when I launch).

Anyway, Chris's article confuses accuracy with capability and is very strictly
talking about synchronous AI agents. But I think there is a ton of space for
AI related start-ups that don't fall into the trap he describes.

I'm working on a side project that doesn't work in most of the ways he
describes (made it at the Launch Hackathon a few weeks ago if you're
interested; website should be launched this weekend but this was my
submission:
[http://devpost.com/software/sim](http://devpost.com/software/sim)).

------
klunger
Would YC consider subsidising child care costs for participating founders? At
present, the infamously high cost of child care in the Bay Area makes YC out
of reach for most founders with young children.

~~~
sama
We used to give founders $20k. Part of the reason we upped it to $120k is so
that founders with higher personal expense structures could do the program.

But we're an investor, not a company. It's important to us founders run their
own companies and make their own decisions, and so we try not to build too
much of our own infrastructure.

~~~
mattmaroon
I've wondered about this for awhile. Obviously it's been a bit since I've been
involved, but you guys have such scale now that solving some obvious problems
for founders might be beneficial. Housing being the big one. It was merely
annoying back in '07, but now I feel like it'd be a significant distraction
and expense for anyone not from the bay area to find a place to live there.
Maybe an official Y-scraper would make economic sense!

YC's done a lot to take the legal headache out of starting a company, raising
funding, granting options, etc. I don't see how other things are
philosophically any different.

~~~
sama
It's definitely true, but anything you to make a startup feel like an
undifferentiated cog in a machine (in the extreme case, throwing everyone into
a coworking space) is really bad. We just want to be super careful not to
break the important parts of what makes YC work.

~~~
mattmaroon
Yeah. That makes sense.

------
fumar
You mentioned previously YC is after bio-tech startups. What traits would a
bio-tech team need for YC consideration? And, what is an ideal stage for a
bio-tech crew (long-term vision) to raise capital?

Thanks! Victor

------
trunx
I'm from a team of first time startup doing a hardware medical device company.
We have computer science, mechanical and electrical engineering background but
very little experience with medical devices. Is this a big red flag for you
guys?

~~~
thecourier
Hope @sama answer this question. IMHO hurry up to get a prototype in the
client's hands. there you will know how good your team is and if you stand a
chance in the industry (afaik your team looks very good)

~~~
trunx
Thanks! Maybe if people upvote the question he will answer. ;)

~~~
zafka
Embedded software at Medical device company here. Would love to talk to you.

~~~
trunx
Sure. Where can I find your contact info? What kind of medical devices do you
work on?

~~~
zafka
contact info is in HN info, or jkasper at username dot com -controllers for
surgical saws

------
hoodoof
If relationship breakdown between cofounders is the reason for so many company
failures, why does YC not proactively solve that by requiring all founders to
attend weekly relationship counselling, for which YC pays?

Could such a thing prevent more breakups and therefore greatly increase
chances of company success? And the cost is pretty small for YC to employ
relationship counsellors.

~~~
sama
We don't require many things--founders are not are employees.

However, we do offer cofounder communication workshops to the batch.
Innerspace puts them on, and they always get incredible reviews--in fact, some
of the most positive reviews of anything we do.

------
BrooklynRage
When doing a hard tech startup, how can you show traction/product-market-fit
to investors before your product is being sold? The cost of going from crude
prototype to sellable product can easily be in the 6-figure range, so how do
you break this Catch 22?

~~~
danieltillett
There is a real gap in the market and it is not limited to just hard tech.
There are an enormous number of great businesses out there that can’t raise
funds until they have a product and they can’t make a product without funds.

The solution is actually pretty obvious - investors have to start investing in
businesses that are nothing more than a good concept, especially those of
outsiders or non-serial founders. This is hard work though.

~~~
pjlegato
The issue is that the risk of investing in a startup is extremely high even if
you _do_ limit investment to serial founders or post-product, post-traction
businesses. It's already very hard to generate a positive return even with
those conditions, and impossible to tell with certainty which will work out.

Investing in random unproven founders with no product or traction (apparently)
makes it practically impossible. Even fewer will work out than in the pre-
screened batch, and the hit rate is already close to zero.

If it were at all possible, there would be no need for VCs at all. You'd just
fill out some forms about your idea and then do an IPO.

~~~
danieltillett
Do you have any evidence that the hit rate would be close to zero if you
invested in founders with just a concept?

~~~
pjlegato
Yes. Y Combinator, which (very unusually) funds people with no track records
and just a concept, has had only two really big successes (AirBnB and DropBox)
in 11+ years and close to a thousand companies in the program.

[http://yclist.com/](http://yclist.com/)

------
echoudhry
Hey Sam, we have attempted to apply a couple times showing steady progression.
Does it hurt to re-apply with same idea. To be fair, I know if I have seen a
resume for the third time, I am conflicted with the applicants passion and my
initial decision. How would say this can differ with your team or is it the
same?

~~~
namenotrequired
They've always said that it's good to reapply, which makes sense to me
personally, because they say they need founders who get things done. Having a
previous application to compare your current application with must be one of
the best ways to judge that.

~~~
echoudhry
Thanks!

------
mlchild
I'm intrigued by your comments that you're interested in funding social
networks—it seems like a new one launches on Product Hunt every day, but few
are able to overcome the chicken-and-egg problem and achieve scale.

What's your take on the best way to make the network useful on day one for a
small number of users? What are you looking for in a YC app for a social
network (with or without traction)?

~~~
sama
The thing we look for the most is a small number of users that are super,
super engaged with the product.

Most new social networks we see point to their top-level growth of new users.
These usually eventually fade.

What you want instead is something that starts with a small number of users
that use it many times every day. Snapchat is a good recent example of this
phenomenon.

~~~
mahyarm
Same with

\- pinterest: some collection of moms in middle america

\- twitter: SF Tech & SXSW

\- facebook: ivy league colleges -> colleges -> high schools -> the world

\- snapchat: so-cal teenagers

------
gmarx
Did you really get scurvy when you were in YC?

~~~
sama
I never got tested but I think so. I had extreme lethargy, sore legs, and
bleeding gums that got a better in a few hours after having a bunch of orange
juice.

~~~
gist
Hah! Enjoy being able to drink orange juice while you are still young!

------
iMuzz
YC has a giant application pool. This makes it very difficult for very early
stage companies with no revenue / users to compete in the application pool.

As a company with no revenue / users, How can we best stand out against those
that do have growth / users?

I understand that companies can apply for the fellowship. But what does a
company lose by getting into the Fellowship over Core?

~~~
sama
We fund companies with no traction/revenue all the time, though the bar is
higher.

A really compelling idea is more important to us than traction or revenue. We
understand how quickly exponential growth happens.

~~~
malz
It is interesting that on this AMA you say both "ideas are worth so little"
and "a really compelling idea is more important to us than traction or
revenue." Can you elaborate?

~~~
firethief
I think the compatibility of those statements hinges on the difference between
an idea in the sense of something you could transfer in an elevator, and an
idea in the sense of the culmination of an entire viewpoint on a topic, along
with the mind(s) that developed that viewpoint.

------
nostrademons
Would you recommend getting cofounders first and then iterating on different
possible ideas, or finding an idea that resonates with users first and then
approaching people you know about founding a company around it?

~~~
sama
Often they sort of happen together--you start going back and forth on an idea
with the people that become your cofounders.

------
Jommi
Hi Sam!

We here in Finland have been slowly developing a startup ecosystem.

The effort started 5-years ago and now finally, thanks to the amazing bunch of
volunteers, we have stuff like Slush and Startup Saunato show for it.

What would be your advice in rocketing the finnish startup ecosystem to the
next level?

P.S. You should visit us sometime, we'd love to host you at Startup Sauna!

~~~
w1ntermute
Not sama, but one suggestion: cut down on the sauna references (Startup Sauna,
Silicon Sauna, etc.). It runs the risk of sounding too silly/humorous.

~~~
jey
I bet we have things that sound equally silly in American English when
interpreted literally. Sadly, they're so invisible to me right now that I
can't think of one easily...

------
jennykaypollock
What would you be doing if you weren't running YC?

~~~
sama
Maybe working on AI or energy? I'm not sure.

------
hypertexthero
Just a note that I'll happily provide visual design assistance for any Basic
Income projects — [http://hypertexthero.com/work/basic-
income-11-arguments/](http://hypertexthero.com/work/basic-
income-11-arguments/)

Thanks for doing the [Request For Research on Basic
Income]([https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-
income](https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income)). It's good to see
awareness of it increasing.

------
_Marak_
What would you personally consider a good failure percentage of YC backed
companies?

Is [http://yclist.com/](http://yclist.com/) a valid source of data? If so, it
seems like YC could be at the cusp of a large amount of DEAD companies
starting from S10 to current.

~~~
sama
Maybe 40-50% outright failing? Much below that and it would feel like we
weren't making enough risky bets.

No, it's pretty inaccurate.

------
MattyMc
Hi Sam. Not sure if you'll read this, but thought I'd take a moment this
morning on the off chance you might.

I just wanted to say hi, and say thanks. 5-6 years ago I came to realized how
much I enjoy creating/making things, how little that process resembled work
for me, and shortly later after reading Paul Graham's essays felt like I had
finally found a community that who shares my interests and values.

Although my background is in mathematics I've spent much of the past 6 years
in coffee shops during evenings and weekends teaching myself to code and
bringing my projects to life. Equally important has been my business education
during this time. I now view business as a means to spend more of my time in
that creative space, and creating successful business as an equally enjoyable
engineering challenge.

So thanks. Thank you to you for the countless videos, the (awesome) recent
lecture series, the Stanford Entrepreneurial talks, and for curating this
community. Thank you also to Paul and Jessica, from whom I continue to learn
so much as I try to get to the essence of the deeper, most important questions
in life. Thanks to you all.

Well, it's Saturday morning which means Pam and I are off to the coffee shop -
her to write and me to code. Although my current project/business (that I'm
super excited about!) doesn't lend to a startup-style investment growth model,
hence no immediate YC application forthcoming, I hope one day some context
will exist where I can thank you in person.

Have a great day.

------
brashrat
Is Hacker News comment history "private/free speech", or does YC use Hacker
News comment history in judging founders, employees, business partners etc.?
I'm not talking about the judgements anybody could make by googling, I'm
talking about using your positions as insiders, is Hacker News a source of
intel?

I am not a partner or potential partner, I ask because sometimes I see people
write well meaning things that make me wince for them if they are being
judged.

~~~
sama
Personally, I never read an applicant's HN comments, nor do I note the names
associated with comments with I read HN.

~~~
teddyh
I note that this is not actually an answer.

------
bpchaps
I'm actively working on data-based civics projects that should hopefully have
positive individual financial impact - particularly for lower income
households. It's very fulfilling work that perhaps comes close in addressing
localized economic problems (eg, neighborhoods).

Problem with this sort of work is that it's generally incremental and has zero
immediate effects. In other words, there's no way in hell anyone's going to
fund me even on principal. Philanthropists? Nah. YC types? Nope. AVs? heh.
Volunteers? Eh. The only way I've found to make it happen is to apply some
sort of gamification (ads, app selling), which switches motivation from
helping all, to only helping those with a smart phone or easy access to
internet.

"No shit, you're asking for free work." is pretty common, but I have a
persistently hard time believing it's 100% systemic.

Any thoughts on building capital for a company whose goal is in helping low
income areas using YC-loved technology without any expectation of direct
income?

(Two examples:

Find/Contest bad parking tickets in Chicago. Work in progress with a newly
created team of 3: [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/red-
bin/chitickets/master/...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/red-
bin/chitickets/master/chicago.png)

Mapping domestic violence shelters in US, as this exists nowhere else :
[https://red-bin.github.io/](https://red-bin.github.io/) (unfinished) )

~~~
tdaltonc
Applying for government grants?

~~~
bpchaps
Never thought of that, honestly - I'll look into it.

I've had surprising amount of folk ask in seriousness why I'm trying to take
money away from the budget starved city, though.. That mindset might push
back. Still worth a shot! ;)

~~~
tdaltonc
Mind if I ask what city? Some cities and states have grant programs for
exactly this kind of thing.

~~~
bpchaps
Nice! I'm doing this out of Chicago, IL.

~~~
tdaltonc
This would be a good place to start:

[http://digital.cityofchicago.org/index.php/developer-
resourc...](http://digital.cityofchicago.org/index.php/developer-resources/)

~~~
bpchaps
They're the ones who inspired me to start these projects and seek funding,
actually. Half of that inspiration comes from a huge amount of annoyance in
the ineffectiveness of most of their work, though. It's all very feel-good in
the same spirit as building useless schools in Brown Country is. That's not to
say all of their work is bad.

For example, their speaker this week was an "Opposition Contractor" whose
whole dig was that he sells himself out to the highest bidder to use data in
ensuring the other candidate doesn't get elected - no matter the party
affiliation. All discussed in the frame of "civics".

Pardon the cynicism. :)

Thanks for the help and motivation to get me searching again, though!
Hopefully there's something out there..

------
smaili
I've submitted my application as a single founder - not because I want it that
way but because none of my friends have the freedom for a venture.

Does YC do match making (if they see a good fit) or this something you need to
specifically request on the application?

~~~
sama
We don't. We think it's much better if cofounders have some sort of shared
history together.

~~~
neolefty
I think you should try grouping random individuals as an experiment. They
should each already have a project, and be capable of implementing it, but
obviously they'll have to choose one when they get together.

My two most successful lab final projects in college were randoms. One of them
won the annual award for best undergrad lab project, and the other won the in-
course competition. These were late-course groupings, after as many as half of
each class's starting participants had already dropped out, so it was already
pretty selective.

Bad: We didn't know each other ahead of time. There were always weaker and
stronger participants. In one 4-person team, one teammate just completely
flaked, but the rest of us stepped up.

Good: We didn't have relationship baggage that could have come from partnering
with friends on a very stressful project. I think it really helped us focus on
the projects. We were thrilled with any success.

I used to think it was just good luck finding outstanding teammates. But
perhaps it was because they had already independently made it through the hard
first half of the course without having close friends also enrolled in the
class. As a counter-datapoint, another course had a lottery-based grouping,
with no pre-harrowing, and my teammates and I never gelled.

~~~
keithwhor
My understanding (anecdote from a YC founder I spoke with) is that they tried
this one year, and generally the outcomes weren't favorable.

Startups are fucking _hard_. A lot harder than school projects. And they last
way longer. There are millions of dollars on the line and people's
livelihoods. The people who run them, by nature, have a level of intensity
that acts as an amplifier for wins and losses.

When you meet somebody, it can take a few months before they let their guard
down and begin falling back into their "normal" behavioral patterns. Best case
scenario, they were a pretty honest and secure person and not much changes
(but maybe they're bad at remembering to clean their dishes). Worst case
scenario, they miss a deadline, blame everyone around them and punch holes in
walls. Likely somewhere in between the two extremes.

"Emotional baggage" of past relationships is a _good_ thing, because it
equates to _trust_ , as long as the people are willing to work together. You
usually have baggage because you've seen somebody at their worst. If you're
still willing to stick around, that's telling. It means you have a better
chance of being able to get through the next thing, and the one after that...
and so on.

------
beeboop
Do you think YC would have been interested in something like Minecraft back in
its infancy if you saw how fast user base was growing?

Does YC have any interest at all in startups (if you can call them that) whose
main product is a video game of some sort?

~~~
foobarqux
Machine Zone (Game of War) is a YC company. I don't know why they never talk
about it.

~~~
beeboop
Addictive pay-to-win mobile games aren't exactly glamorous, and in some social
circles are pretty heavily frowned upon. Maybe bad PR, not sure.

------
benhamner
How much traffic per day does hacker news typically get?

~~~
sama
From dang, who runs HN: "about 310k daily uniques and about 10x that in page
views"

~~~
elliotec
That's actually much less than I would've expected.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Every HN reader is an above decent potential founder or at the very least
potential product starter/inventor/maker... That is 310,000 potential
companies. I do not see anywhere else you could have that many of the same
profile.

~~~
lioeters
I love how you put it:

"Every HN reader is an above decent potential founder or at the very least
potential product starter/inventor/maker."

This whole thread has been inspiring and educational. Thanks for your comment,
it was a perfect motivation to start the day.

------
gusgordon
Why are you so in favor of nuclear energy startups when solar+batteries seems
to be the cheaper and more immediately implementable option?

~~~
_AllisonMobley
You gotta diversify yo' bonds nigga.

------
rachellaw
How much is the bias against startups that have been to other accelerators?
What are the benchmarks for progress in those cases?

~~~
sama
Small. In general, we just look for progress commensurate with resources. If
you've raised more money and been working on the company for longer, we expect
more progress than if you've just started.

~~~
rachellaw
thanks! We were wondering if it was worth applying.

We went from zero revenue to generating revenue after our old accelerator and
was looking into YC to grow now that we had a solid, validated product-market
fit.

------
partycoder
From your experience, which personality traits are the highest predictors of
success or failure in startup people?

~~~
sama
• Determination

• Unstoppability

• Ambition

• Clarity of vision/communication

• Intelligence

~~~
sbierwagen
Looks like HN doesn't support the * bullet point markdown syntax.

EDIT: Ha, did you just directly edit the html there, or something?

~~~
dang
Have some •s.

~~~
sbierwagen
Using unicode is 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜.

------
aug-riedinger
Sam, I know I'm late, but what a pain it must have been to reply to those
questions with so many messy comments with such crappy interface.

Don't you think the time has come to stop to fake advertising the success of
simplicity and to build a proper HN interface? (Just looked at the sources to
collapse all subcomments, and I found `<table>` tags, OMG)

I understand the whole "it's simple but it works, people use it"-thing, but
what's the point, when [dozen of
developpers]([https://www.google.fr/search?q=hacker+news+collapse+comments...](https://www.google.fr/search?q=hacker+news+collapse+comments&oq=hacker+new&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i65l3j69i57j69i59.2028j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8))
are willing to make it for you, even for free.

Not very inspiring for startup builders either.

------
kartikkumar
Is it a strong criterion that applicants you admit into the program have a
(clear) path to building billion-dollar companies? Or do you give more weight
to solving important problems? In other words, does ROI trump problem-solving,
and if so, are teams tackling niche problems at a disadvantage?

~~~
sama
No. One thing we like to do is help founders figure out that path.

~~~
kartikkumar
Ok great, thanks for clarifying!

------
cybin
BTW: The application form has a really nasty bug. If you've just spent the
last hour in writing some of the greatest prose ever written, hit save, and
don't wait for the response in the top right corner and hit logout your work
will be lost:( dammit! Sam I hope you fix that.

~~~
bradleyc
Seconded.

------
arasmussen
Hi Sam,

What are some actions people like myself can take to push our community,
nation, and world towards Basic Income?

This is particularly important to me because of how fast Uber/Tesla are
rushing towards fully autonomous vehicles. Over 4 million jobs in US alone are
as drivers. They're all gonna be laid off soon.

~~~
jdshutt
If you live in the United States, you might want to connect with us at the
Universal Income Project.

We have regular meetups in San Francisco, and are looking for more organizers
around the country to collaborate with on Basic Income Create-a-thons. And if
you're in a different country, we might be able to connect you with advocates
closer to you. There are a ton of interesting, active projects going on right
now around the globe.

We recently hosted a talk by Matt Krisiloff, who is managing YC Research's
basic income program, and are really excited to see how it develops.

Shoot us an email at questions@universalincome.org if you want to learn more!

------
Simorgh
I wondered what your thoughts were on the apple / fbi situation ? How would
you expect startups to act if they found themselves in a similar predicament?

~~~
sama
#teamapple

------
animex
Hi Sam, does age of the founders factor in much in an application? I'm an
older developer (40+).

~~~
chasecache
Hello, Animex. I saw your question and I had this same question the other day.
The average age of YC founders is about 29 (Source:
[https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/](https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/)). I
suggest you apply, what's the worst that could happen?

------
dougddo
Any advice or observations regarding doing one's first startup in one's 30's
and up?

~~~
sama
Bezos did it, I believe.

~~~
w1ntermute
Not necessarily their first startups, but: Dre (Beats), Larry Ellison, Travis
Kalanick, Phil Knight (Nike), Jack Ma (Alibaba), Sam Walton, Wang Jianlin
(Dalian Wanda). Mike Bloomberg and Amancio Ortega (Zara) were nearly 40.

~~~
jedberg
I find it interesting which people you chose to label with their company and
which you didn't.

~~~
w1ntermute
I thought about that quite a bit as well while writing the comment.

Since HN is US- and tech-centric, I added the company name for non-tech or
non-US companies. Walton was an exception because everyone knows
Walton/Walmart, Bloomberg was an exception because the company's named after
himself (and it is technically in technology), and Dre was an exception
because (a) most people know him for his music, not Beats and (b) it's more of
a fashion company than a technology company. I was on the fence with
Ellison/Oracle, given how old the company is.

------
mettamage
Is it possible to apply with no idea?

Assuming that the applicants are able to demonstrate:

\- they can build stuff

\- they're a good team fit (e.g. showing a small project from the past)

\- they can generate ideas which they're passionate about

If not: do you have a tip for improving these nearly graduated* university
applicants?

* 80 hours of course work left

~~~
sama
Wait until you have an idea.

We once tried funding companies with no idea. It didn't work. I'm not totally
sure why. Perhaps the time pressure of YC is bad for coming up with a really
good idea (the best ideas often start out seeming bad). Perhaps the best
founders always have ideas.

~~~
hyperpallium
Idealess-founders was an interesting experiment; that YC tries such things is
a defining characteristic.

Theory: it's not the value of the idea in itself, but the motivating effect it
has on the founder. An idealess founder goes nowhere. "Going somewhere" is
necessary for exploration - even if your destination turns out worthless, you
might find something better than you imagined along the way. But there's no
serendipity without a journey.

\- What is the current theory of the role of founder ideas at YC?

→ What experiment could disprove it?

------
tymekpavel
Do you think the recent cutbacks in startup workforces and VC funding will be
sustained, or are just a temporary market correction?

------
gyardley
Are you at all concerned that the compressed timetable leading up to Demo Day
contributes to founder burnout and unhealthy lifestyles? How do you know the
program isn't inadvertently damaging some of its participants?

~~~
sama
Yes, definitely. We do remind founders to sleep, eat well, and exercise, and
we have recommended therapists available (and we tell founders this is one of
things that it's good to spend money on), but it's definitely an intense
program. We try to be upfront about that, and that it's not a good fit for
everyone.

------
theoracle101
I'm at a YC startup that's successful. How do you look at early employees of
such companies, and how I tactfully apply? There is no way I could without it
getting back to my CEO (or so it seems to me)

~~~
vecter
YC is so big and has so many (1) existing portfolio companies and (2)
applicants to go through that they simply don't have the time to even care
about this. We graduated YC in S12 and, outside of fundraising, talk with
partners on average once a year. I don't think we've reached out to YC or YC
partners have reached out to us in any meaningful way for the past year or
two.

Perhaps counterintuitively, this is even moreso the case the more successful a
YC company becomes. There's little to nothing that YC can do to help Dropbox,
but there's way more that YC can do to help a struggling 5 person company get
off the ground.

Working at a successful YC startup can only help your chances.

~~~
theoracle101
I don't know. Sam was at a bunch of our parties/events, and has tweeted about
us. My CEO and cofounder are great friends with a lot of the partners.
Hopefully you're right, I just don't want to apply without telling them and
they find out from that. But also telling them I'm thinking of leaving is hard
too

~~~
vecter
Sam would be doing YC a huge disservice if he told YC founders that their
employees were applying to YC. First of all, it doesn't even mean that the
applicant is necessarily leaving. Getting in is pretty hard to begin with.
Secondly, he would probably be missing out on a very talented pool of
potential founders, which at the end of the day would return YC far more than
a few employees at _already_ successful YC companies.

------
GFischer
What would you value more for the application: a potentially huge, innovative
idea plus a weekend-hack prototype/demo but no market validation yet, or a
more mature, somewhat validated product but with existing startups on the
space, some YC-backed?

I have a very clear vision of what we want to accomplish, but we're selling a
much more down to earth service to our customers and prospects. I do think
there's a path leading us to our vision (think Netflix going from CDs to
streaming). Should we describe our vision in the application?

~~~
sama
It would depend on the specifics in each case, but probably the potentially
huge idea.

~~~
GFischer
Thank you :) and thanks for the AMA.

------
ObsoleteMailMan
How did you learn to communicate so well? Any book recommendations?

What do you recommend to get great at building products? Any recommendations
for college students? Engineering courses don't seem to do justice.

(21, in college)

------
viviennelee
Under what circumstances would you consider a company with: \- Solo founder \-
No revenue yet \- 13-15k monthly active users and 1200-1500 daily active users
\- Launched 6 months ago

Or is it not even worth trying yet?

~~~
sama
If the idea seems good, and the DAU number is growing fast, we'd be excited to
consider it.

------
nxzero
Curious, why're you President of YC? Just to be clear, this is not intended to
be why you vs someone, but if there's a story behind why you ended up where
you are today. Thanks!

------
rollinDyno
In management school there's a lot of flexibility regarding the nature of a
leader. In your experience grooming founders, what has been the most efficient
style of leadership?

~~~
sama
The only universal job description of a CEO is to make sure the company wins.
There are a lot of ways to do that. The one thing that doesn't work is trying
to act in a way that isn't your natural style.

If you can figure out what to do, make people care, and communicate clearly,
and not be a jerk, you'll be a long way towards being a good leader.

------
comment
Hi Sam,

I am an international founder. I want to join YC and incorporate in the US.
But to avoid wasting time on visa things, I want to return to my home country
(India) after YC.

1) Should I mention this in my application? 2) From YC's point of view, do you
prefer international founders who want to stay on in the US or those who want
to go back to their home country? Assuming they would kill it either way.

(PS - My startup is COMMENT.ws whereas YTERMINATOR.com, UNICOCK.com are light
hearted hacks to get YC's attention)

~~~
sama
Sure, mention it--that's fine with us.

~~~
comment
Thank you Sam. By the way here is the link to YC's page on Comment
[https://comment.ws/us/y-combinator](https://comment.ws/us/y-combinator)

~~~
eric001
Dude, that site is very difficult to understand. Just saying.

~~~
comment
Thanks, what about homepage [https://comment.ws](https://comment.ws)? What do
you find difficult here? Would appreciate your or anyone else's feedback!

~~~
seibelj
I honestly have no idea what this website does or what its purpose is. Is it
for commenting? I couldn't figure that out. It seems like you've glued
together various websites and search engines into a single page. Why would I
use this?

~~~
comment
Thank you for the feedback. Yes we are for commenting. We will try to make
that obvious with UI changes. You are right that we are using Bing, Twitter,
Youtube etc. They frictionlessly provide good content to users. We are also
building our own features. Hopefully they will be our usp

------
tuilan10
Hi, do you often invest on pure consumer product with no business model but
great traction ? Thks

~~~
sama
Yes! It's harder to build a product that people love than it is to figure out
how to monetize it, so we're happy to take the risk there.

------
rrtigga
How do you know when it's time to move on with your idea?

~~~
sama
When a) it's not working and b) you are out of ideas on how to make it work.

------
RCra
Hey Sam! We're disrupting a $3.2B information market, full of old slow tech.
We've received encouragement from YC alum to apply and had help with our
application, but warned that what we're doing might be too difficult for the
average tech person to grasp and be vetted out for this reason. We have 11k in
revenue from our first sales cycle and 200% mom user growth. Any
recommendations on how we can make sure we get heard?

~~~
ec109685
Typo here: Smart Company the is easiest way to keep on top of scientific
progress and research-based products.

~~~
RCra
Thanks!

------
bcjordan
Will there be another YC Hacks this year?

Did any teams/projects from YC Hacks wind up going through YC?

~~~
sama
No--we try a lot of things but they don't all work. When they don't, we move
on to new ones.

------
parisandmilo
What kind of security companies do you look out for? How much importance do
you place on technical certifications when it comes to founders in security?

~~~
sama
Security is one of the areas we're most interested in, but we leave it to
founders to show us the most promising sub-areas.

We don't care about technical certifications. I forget which company it was,
but some large tech company found that the only negative predictor of success
for its employees was technical certifications...

~~~
tptacek
I don't know who that was but will second it.

------
khalloud
Sam if you are a semi technical founder (you have coded before but not
recently enough to build your product) and you have to get a cofounder but
have the choice between one you know and will be able to climb mountains with
but has the same dilemma vs a technical cofounder/employee. Who would you
choose to go with? The one you can figure it out with or the one who can
basically do it for you?

~~~
sama
The one you know.

Having a cofounder you don't know well is usually a very bad idea. It's much
more important to trust someone and know they are great than to 'hire' for a
specific skill.

------
SdApartmenyGuy
Hi Sam,

I am planning on applying this batch, however; I have a friend who just
finished his Ph.d in Computer Vision. I want to work with him on a different
idea than the one I applying for at YC(robotics). It's in the "other
interests" category, he is not a co-founder for my current application. If
chosen, can a founder be added iff you don't like the initial idea?

~~~
sama
Yes but we need to meet them first.

------
hashnsalt
How do you see online education growing? Will there be more bootcamps or is it
really possible to build a university entirely online?

------
kartayyar
What are some of the biggest mistakes you have seen founders make when
validating startup ideas and what can be done to avoid them?

------
abhi3
In your last AMA you mentioned something about doing a YC batch in a foreign
country. Is that something you are still considering?

~~~
sama
Yes, we are considering doing something along these lines later this year,
though we haven't made a final decision.

~~~
emilwallner
You should do it in Stockholm, we have produced more unicorns per capita than
any other city in the world: [http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/26/sweden-is-a-
tech-superstar-...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/26/sweden-is-a-tech-
superstar-from-the-north/)

~~~
namenotrequired
Why should "per capita" matter to YC?

~~~
tim333
Shows there's something good about the culture?

~~~
namenotrequired
I'd think the absolute numbers of successful startups and startups in general
would be far more important to YC.

------
mwpmaybe
Sam, thank you for taking some time to answer our questions. Mark Suster and
other VCs have recently expressed distaste for convertible notes and SAFEs.
Are you still in favor of SAFEs? In general, what are your thoughts on seeking
seed funding for super early stage startups when determining a valuation might
be problematic?

~~~
sama
I think SAFEs are good. I think uncapped SAFEs/convertible notes are very bad
and misalign founders and investors--they punish early investors for helping
the company to be worth more.

------
jmcmahon443
What is the payback period YC looks for? i.e. How many years does it take for
a home-run to become a home-run?

~~~
sama
We are happy if it takes 10+ years--those are the cases where you make the
most money.

------
steve19
Thank you Sam! I know it is early days, but how is YC Research doing so far?
Any plans on expanding it?

------
matt_wulfeck
Mr. Altman, can you tell us about your morning routine?

~~~
tim333
[http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/22/y-combinator-president-
sam...](http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/22/y-combinator-president-sam-altman-
shares-his-morning-ritual/)

------
djiejxnncks
How does applying with a spouse impact an application?

~~~
joseluisnuno
We are 4 cofounders, 3 of us are brothers and the fourth one is my wife. We
were accepted to W16 without any problem, they did not even questioned us
about this. I believe that there has been several other husband - wife teams.

------
faraazn
Approximately what percentage of projects that get accepted into YC are just
in the idea stage?

------
sethiw
Sam, I know you've commented that valuations are generally meaningless re
early stage start-ups. I don't disagree, but there are a lots of funds with
holding in early stage start-ups....in some fund formats (not trad'l PE/VC
funds) they collect management and performance fees based on "fair market
value" of fund assets. Agree true valuation is best determined at a
realization event, i.e. An ipo or other form of exit, but what are your views
on determining fair market value marks along the way...last round pricing,
market comps, dcf models, or none of the above.

------
jennykaypollock
What's the best way to find a cofounder if you've already graduated from
college?

~~~
sama
Work at a large tech company or a fast-growing startup.

------
tmbeihl
Hi Sam, Two of my college buddies and I applied to YC this week, we're looking
forward to growing our startup idea. What do you think is the number one thing
that most founders don't think about that ultimately hurts their company?

~~~
danield9tqh
I would have to say asking Sam Altman for advice. Most founders simply don't
think to do it and it ends up hurting them tremendously in the long run.
You're on the right track.

------
juxtreme
How do you evaluate companies that are more technically ( hardware, computing)
challenging? If two founders have been working on a hard problem for ~6
months, what are the things you look for since there isn't any revenue or
growth?

------
iamleppert
Do you really drive a mclaren to work everyday?

~~~
sama
Most days I take Uber or Caltrain.

~~~
pw
Do you own a McLaren?

------
bbb333777
Sam, Energy has the #1 position on your RFS, but energy companies are
typically slow moving and capital intensive by nature. Can you give us a bit
more insight into the kids of energy companies you are hoping to find?

------
vm
What are the biggest CEO lessons you learned from your roles at Loopt and YC?

~~~
sama
It's easy to do a good job running an organization that's winning, and very
hard to go a good job running an organization that isn't winning.

Takeway: if the company isn't doing well, figure out whatever short-term
things you can do to get momentum. Ignore other management advice.

------
eganist
Any plans for YC to get into seed rounds e.g. both to support startups with
high potential as well as to potentially offer some of the benefits of YC
connections to those who might've gone through another incubator?

(I know YC's policy on incubating startups which have already been through
other incubators, which I believe if I recall correctly is a very data-driven
"no." My question comes more from the standpoint of whether any YC benefits
might be available to startups which already have some success but are still
very much in the early stages)

~~~
sama
Not right now--there are many things that might be interesting for us to do
that we have to say no to so that we stay focused. This is one of them.

~~~
eganist
Thanks. There are plenty of others trying to apply the YC model in other more
niche areas (Mach37 comes to mind here in DC), so it's neat seeing the
direction you and the team will continue to take.

------
fantasticfears
P.R.China has a strong policy to control information and policy restriction.
What do you think of the possible problems for YC to cooperate with Chinese
companies? Does that impede the growth of a startup?

~~~
contingencies
Also interested in this... I am working on my second mainland Chinese startup
right now. But honestly, there's easier sources of capital in the country than
outside that sidestep this problem. In my previous experience, seeking foreign
VC is difficult from China due to investor fear and unfamiliarity with the
regulatory environment.

------
canistr
What are your thoughts on working with the Ontario government to study UBI?

------
foobarqux
Is Peter Thiel still a part-time partner? Does he come around the office?

~~~
sama
Yes.

No--he does office hours at his office.

------
over
What are the pros and cons of Silicon Valley being the VC capital of the
world? How do you feel about it on the whole? Do you guys ever talk about
diversifying, either inside the US or out?

------
siddarthvik1
Is YC interested in high altitude drones for high speed communications?

~~~
sama
Sure!

------
jennykaypollock
What's the most impactful skill people should learn in their 20s?

~~~
sama
How to communicate well.

How to think for yourself (and especially, what problems are worth solving
that others are ignoring).

How to build stuff (and especially, how to get things done instead of just
talking about getting things done).

How to learn new things quickly.

~~~
MeherSom
What do you think are the right tools to get these skills ? Books ? (Which
ones ?) University/Online courses ? (Any recommendation ?) Else ?

~~~
caballo7
You might find [http://parrotread.com/yc](http://parrotread.com/yc) useful. It
has book recommendations from all YC partners, including Sam.

------
ElHacker
Hello Sam. I'm a Software Engineer at a Big Tech Co. I've been ambivalent
about going back to school to do a part-time master's degree in AI, or just do
self-studying. Creating a startup in the US is not an option for me yet since
I'm on a TN visa (hoping to get a green card in the following years). What do
you think is the best investment of my time, and how far ahead in the future
should someone plan to start a "hard tech" startup? (I'm on my mid 20's)

------
ericzawo
What's one piece of advice you could give to a recent graduate?

~~~
sama
Things are almost never as risky as they seem to a recent graduate. This is
one of the best times in your life to take a risk and do what you really want.

~~~
ericzawo
Thank you for this.

------
andreygrehov
Hi Sam, two questions.

1). When do you wake up?

2). When do you go to bed?

------
techpassion
With respect to reputation of YC, what happens if the pitch although being
amazing in an application could be a conflict or add on to one of your
existing already funded groups ?! Wouldn't there be a conflict while you
reviewing an application for it to be judged faily ? And also the pitch idea
is compromised against the benefit of the founder ! Please advise

------
8piGTc2
Hi, Sam! Don't you think that AR/VR is overvalued by large companies?
Microsoft has not created Google, Wal-Mart has not created Amazon, Ford has
not created Tesla.

~~~
tdaltonc
An enterprise software company (Microsoft) made the most popular video game
console. A search company made the worlds most popular navigation and email
tools. A consumer e-commerce company is the the biggest supplier of enterprise
cloud services.

There are more people working on 'x' outside of big companies then there are
people working on 'x' inside of big companies. So really, it's surprising that
big companies break in to new verticals as often as they do. Anything could
happen.

------
chasecache
I don't live in the Bay Area, so I don't have many connections within the YC
network. How big of a role do referrals play in the application process?

~~~
sama
Most companies we fund don't have a referral.

------
Taraji
Hi Sam, you just replied to a question with this : "Having a cofounder you
don't know well is usually a very bad idea. It's much more important to trust
someone and know they are great than to 'hire' for a specific skill."

What do you recommend for someone who isn't a friend with a good developer ?
Is it better to subcontract the development of the site/app to a good software
development company ?

~~~
sama
I'd try to meet good developers, and I think the best way to do this is either
at school or by working at a tech company.

------
throwaway41597
Do you have some advice about how a founder should organize their day? How
many hours of coding/designing/talking to users/sleeping...?

~~~
sama
Don't over-optimize. At some point you have to stop reading advice blogs and
go build a company, and figure it out as you go.

Take care of yourself, take some time to enjoy your life, and work the rest of
the time.

~~~
eruditely
Oh wow, interesting. I always remember PG saying he only had time for dinner
with a friend every two weeks.

------
vit05
Hi Sam,

What do you think about Social Media Apps that do not use traditional "follow
my profile" as a way to share photos, videos and texts?

Do you believe that dividing the profit received from the ads, a model similar
to YouTube -unlike Instagram, Facebook and Twitter where the company takes
all; can be used to attract content creators in direct competition with these
tools already established in the market ?

This could be considered a Disruptive Innovation?

tks

------
barcadad
How important to you is it that the founders of your companies have gone to
college? Has your view about teenage entrepreneurs changed over time?

~~~
sama
Not that important. I didn't finish college.

------
jondubois
As YC's portfolio of established companies gets bigger (and more valuable), do
you think YC's focus will eventually shift from "facilitating innovation" to
simply "maintaining the status quo" (particularly if the latter becomes more
lucrative)?

What measures do you have in place to make sure that YC's financial interests
remain geared towards innovation?

------
halsharari
can I apply to YC alone or do I have to have a team?

~~~
sama
You can definitely apply alone, though we recommend having a cofounder.

Startups are very hard, and very emotionally draining, and so it's really
helpful to have someone else to share the workload with.

That said, we fund solo founders every batch.

~~~
mkagenius
>Startups are very hard, and very emotionally draining...

emotional draining is not that much but since you are alone, you do not know
'how' bad a situation is and you kind of overthink it and think its very bad
and breakdown. While it really might not be that bad.

------
m_mozafarian
What's the probability on acceptance for those who are applying the second
time? Is it progress or right fit that you mostly look for?

~~~
sama
We've funded many companies on their second (or later) application. Dropbox is
a well-known example.

We do look at progress since the last application, but mostly because we like
effective people. Great founders get stuff done.

------
kordless
What are your thoughts regarding the effects venture capital strategy (game
theory) has on the compute markets, specifically the creation and acceleration
of bubble phases? Do you believe venture capital, beyond the obvious benefits
for investors and founders, actually provides a heathy, sustainable ecosystem
for innovation and advancement of humanity and the planet?

------
garrettflanagan
Sam! Hello, How do you foreseee your Universal Basic Income analysis plan
working with with politicians and public policy officials?

------
kasps
I haven't yet come across a YC partner I didn't like. How do you screen for
niceness in an interview? Any heuristics?

------
DodgyEggplant
Hi Sam! Would you consider to add preserving wild life and animals to YC
[https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/)? After
all, animals also live here with us, humans. And we need them too. Maybe
startups and innovation can help?

------
rjsparks3
Hardware startup question / both yc programs: How many "devices" would you
expect an applicant to have in the field w users falling in love for you to
feel they had sufficiently demonstrated "customer love traction". Just asking
in light of the complexities with small batch hardware. Thanks!

------
pierzcham
YCR has published request for research in basic income recently. What plans do
you have for future areas of reseach?

~~~
sama
So far we have supported AI and basic income research. We plan to do one more
group soon, and then potentially one other later this year. We'll share more
about them as we get closer--we advise startups not to pre-hype what they're
going to do, and try to follow our own advice on that :)

~~~
evc123
support biogerontology/aging research

------
MeherSom
Applications are only for an already developed product/prototype ? Or can we
apply apply to present an idea ?

~~~
sama
You can apply with just an idea, but we have a bias towards people that get
stuff done. The best founders usually build something early.

------
jpmcglone
As an iOS developer, is there any way for me to get involved with your Basic
Income research and development?

------
wj
I think I recall seeing something about the Fellowship and Summer programs
being the same application but last I looked I couldn't find where that was
mentioned. Is that still the case?

I feel like I'm a bit between in that I have a product but haven't closed my
first customer but hoping to real soon.

~~~
sama
Yes, it's the same application.

I'd recommend applying for both.

------
vral
How do you personally figure out the difference between a petty problem vs.
something actually worth solving?

------
hybmg57
Hi Sam, I'm a young entrepreneur who is really passionate about startup and
SAAS. For one man SAAS B2B startup with limited funds is there any advice on
initial growth? I have used Twitter with some success and used Adwords but had
little success (could be due to not enough budget)

------
mkagenius
Would YC fund a weird startup idea if its just in the idea stage but the
founder has a good track record?

~~~
sama
Yes! We've had great success with weird ideas.

------
bing_dai
I found a "YCombinator" account on WeChat yesterday. Is it indeed YC's
official WeChat?

Here is the screenshot:
[http://logicalorange.com/mis/YCWeChat.jpg](http://logicalorange.com/mis/YCWeChat.jpg)

Thanks for the AMA Sam!

------
currentoor
Hi Sam,

PG in some of his older articles was really big on Lisp being the most
powerful programming language and instrumental to his success. His writing
actually inspired me to learn Clojure.

In your experience, does the power of a programming language, in a software
business, matter as much?

Thanks for doing this!

------
davidgrenier
Has YC lost the love for functional programming or are founders on such a
foundation well regarded?

------
mgtla
Hi Sam. What are your views on a venture that would take some reworking or
coaxing of the state laws in order to be successful? Example- the law has
gotten more relaxed over time and would probably be where we'd need it to be
in 5 years or so. Not marijuana related.

Thank you!

------
rdl
Any interesting new verticals where you think YC will expand to the degree it
has in hardware?

~~~
sama
Biotech

------
bcjordan
Do you keep up with any recent academic research? (If so, how? If not, do you
wish you did?)

------
juxtreme
Is Robert Morris still involved in YC? Does he read applications and provide
office hours ?

------
pulsside
Hi Sam, qq from my side. If you are not programmer, but want to become one,
what would be area, programming language and industry that you would suggest
to focus on that will allow you to grow fast as a product and company? Thanks!

------
ryderj
Are we any more/less likely to be accepted if our team is straight out of
University?

------
hayksaakian
Hi Sam

Do you think non-venture backed companies can change the world?

Does YC want to help founders who do not want funding?

~~~
elliotec
I would think that is against their purpose of making money.

------
demiurge_09
Hey Sam, For a non-technical founder interested in building tech products; is
it more important to learn how to code (well enough to build a prototype) vs
understand software architecture (to manage the building of the product)

~~~
hahla
I would argue that learning how to code well enough to build a prototype is
the same thing as being able to understand software architecture to manage the
building of the product. A better question would be learn how to code vs be
able to lead and manage a team.

~~~
demiurge_09
thanks hahla, to your proposed question what do you reckon is better?

------
mcphilip
Re: Hard Tech is Back

>So, if you’re thinking about starting one, we’d like to talk. And we think we
can help

What's the preferred method of contact? I have connections to a "hard tech"
startup in Austin and pointed the founders at your blog post.

------
neurotech1
I'd read from various sources that a team and their execution are more
important than ideas, but wondered how would you handle a startup with a
(hypothetically) brilliant idea, but with less than brilliant team
performance?

------
joeblau
You're always wearing running shoes... how often and far do you run each week?

~~~
sama
I don't run that much. I do walk a lot, but mostly I just think running shoes
are comfortable.

------
laksmanv
Hi Sam,

Thanks for doing this. Accelerators like StartX at Stanford have programs
where you can volunteer to work for the entity itself. Is YC open to having
volunteers in this capacity? Do you hire often for the entity, YC, itself?

------
alexandersingh
One of my friends is a tenured professor and leading researcher on mental
trauma, specializing in PTSD. YC Research piqued his interest when I mentioned
it to him. Are you open to receiving research proposals?

------
firehawk895
Hi Sam. Ours is an education marketplace (Pyoopil), still looking for a
product market fit. Any advice for us? -- now that you guys have acquired
imagine-k12. Will there be a special focus on ed-tech startups?

------
Omnipresent
What do you think about [https://privacyowl.com/](https://privacyowl.com/) \-
Legally compliant privacy policies for websites or mobile applications

------
matt101589
Hi Sam. How many of accepted startups are side-projects before entering YC?

------
throwaway33912
What should we (smart, technical people) be doing to stop Trump if he makes it
to the general election? While it might not be the best fit for YC, have you
thought about adding this to your RFS page?

~~~
sama
Tech needs to run a candidate in the next election.

I still am hopeful Trump will not win the general.

~~~
throwaway33912
Thanks, Sam! I'm hopeful too, but prediction markets still, distressingly,
give Trump a 20% chance of winning it all. I'm sure there are a lot of people
in CA who have skills that are in short supply (familiarity with stats, social
networks, programming, etc. -- think Nate Silver), and who would want to
volunteer on a part-time basis. It's not clear at the moment how they could
put these skills to good use, other than by maybe volunteering for the Clinton
campaign (which sounds to me like the non-profit equivalent of working for
Microsoft). Probably there is room for small, technical non-profits with
creative ideas.

~~~
burfog
Some things are more important than political positioning. Even an incorrect
belief that leaders are corrupt will influence culture, making corruption more
acceptable to society. Laws can be changed back and forth, and walls can be
torn down, but corruption is mighty hard to fix once it has solidly taken root
in society.

------
tejovanth
Hey how do you talk about a culture-centric problem to a foreign
investor/accelerator. By culture-centric I mean in terms of the festivities
and celebrations that's localised to a place.

------
CCalif
What would a YCombinator look like if it was for projects aimed at moving
human society to a sustainable footing? what features of YCombinator would you
keep, and how would you modify it?

------
benclarke
Hi Sam. The social graph, interest graph, and professional graph have all been
successfully mapped online. When do you believe the location graph will also
be mapped at scale, and by whom?

------
vlokshin
The RFS list is strong, but general.

Are you excited about any specific ideas for the S16 batch? If so - what and
why? (genuinely curious. Already applied... so I can't go and change the idea
now :) )

------
api
Did anything ever come of YC's "one million jobs" RFP?

~~~
tim333
I've stuck in an application for that for S16 but I'm not sure it's terribly
good.

------
yoman07
Hi, we gave up with sending our application, because we weren't able to
validate our idea with customers. Is it better to send application despite it
or wait until autumn?

------
faraazn
What does a company lose by getting into YC Fellowship over YC Core?

------
schthngs
Hey Sam,

VR, AI, etc are really cool. But how about normal markets and solving usual
problems?

We're working on a service on top of any possible static website generator
(from jekyll to hugo) (i.e. yet another website builder) that brings total
freedom for artists, musicians, photographers with complete syncronization
with dribble, soundcloud, dropbox and so on giving universal content editor
and marketplace.

Much cheaper, simpler and easier than other (will not count names), schema.org
out of the box, blah, blah, blah — really a lot of features.

Sounds easy, but internally it's a bunch of cool _technical_ solutions.

Any chance to be a part of YC Core/Fellowship family? If yes, we'll definitely
try to set-up a demo asap and apply.

Cheers, Art

------
8cellos
Are educational projects viewed mainly by IK12 or by all YC partners? What
about hardware educational startups, do they stand a chance? IK12 only got
software startups so far, so...

~~~
sama
All YC partners, and yes.

------
samsherer
What are the main differences in your mind between Techstars and YC

~~~
sama
I think YC helps your startup. I've never been through Techstars, though maybe
they do too.

------
hkiely
Hi Sam,

What do you think is the best way for someone to express the challenges and
circumstances in life they deal with and work to overcome. These typically
aren't things one would list on a resume.

Thanks

------
BillionaireBear
Hi Sam

How do you decide between putting a company in the fellowship vs YC core?

~~~
sama
Honestly, we're still somewhat figuring that out.

------
ztratar
I've heard a lot about the areas you're most passionate about and YC has the
famous list of markets, but what areas are you least excited about and why?

------
ikeboy
How important are brilliant technical founders in non technical startups (by
which I mean the main problem they're trying to solve is not a technical one)?

------
jtatarchuk
My cofounders and I believe CRM is broken... With a heavy emphasis on
management and not the customer... What other areas of CRM do you see need
improving?

------
drwl
Was there a moment in your life that created a sense of urgency to live life
to the fullest? From the looks of things you're doing so many (cool) things.

~~~
sama
None of us live very long. May as well try to contribute to the future and try
to feel fulfilled in the little time you have.

------
janvdberg
Hi Sam, I always wondered how someone so young could become president of YC
(and do an awesome job at it). Or would you say it's actually a prerequisite?

~~~
sama
Let's see how the next 10 years go before we call it an awesome job.

------
tosh
Any plans to make borders obsolete?

What are the main levers and milestones?

------
Taraji
Hi Sam,

How would YC help an accepted application of just an idea in a technical point
of view ? Will there be developers to build a prototype to present during Demo
Day ?

------
dookahku
Hi, Sam,

Many of the HW people I see on YC focus on consumer applications.

How does YC feel about more 'b2b' applications, like nuclear seals for the
IAEA, or industrial things?

------
taytus
I've applied like 3 times already. The second time we had a follow up question
but nothing else, should I give up applying with this company?

~~~
lowglow
I had to stop and give a response. As a fellow entrepreneur/founder I'd say if
you're building a startup to get into YC, you're not worried about the right
thing. The metrics I've found most useful in building a startup/company in
general are

1\. Are your users happy? 2\. Are your users happy enough to refer other
people to join?

If you nail those, then what does anything else matter?

~~~
taytus
I'm sorry if I gave the wrong idea, but no. We are not building our company
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz7QpBub6fo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz7QpBub6fo))
to get into YC. Not sure how you deducted that. Trying to apply several times
was something that made sense for us at that time and nothing else. But it
would be goog to know if YC is not interested in our company at all.

------
madrp
Have you fund any startup who is trying to better education in third world
countries. Something like TeachForIndia or may be a school itself ?

------
kiloreux
In your personal opinion, what will be the next big thing in technology is it
AI ? do you have other thoughts ? Thanks for your time.

~~~
sama
I think there will be many, but yes I definitely think AI will be one of the
most important.

------
bobbyd12
Should economists revise the natural rate of unemployment? And what do you
think that rate will look like once AI is the new norm?

------
jbob2000
Hey Sam,

YC companies seem to have a similar "look and feel" about them. Do you agree
with that? Do you think this is a good or bad thing?

------
mixedbit
Are all YC companies incorporated in US? If not, what other countries are
acceptable for YC and investors that cooperate with YC?

~~~
joseluisnuno
Once you get accepted to YC you need to incorporate in the US to get funded.
Its not that difficult and they have a very clear process for all of the
companies from other countries (we were a Mexican company).

------
xiaoma
How would you get enough initial users for a collaborative learning tool that
requires multiple users to be able to offer value?

------
tdaltonc
How is the funding environment for start-ups right now compared to 12 or 6
months ago? How will it be in 6 to 12 months? Why?

~~~
sama
Honestly, it doesn't seem to be super different yet, except for the late stage
which has gotten much harder.

It still could change a lot--I'm not sure.

------
jpmcglone
I have a general life question for you Sam. What do you think is the main
thing or things that holds great people back?

------
swampthinker
Do you think that people will care more about energy efficiency if they saw
how much energy a home might use on Zillow?

------
AltruistPartner
Sam, if you could attract the cream of the crop, what percentage/number of
nonprofits would you want to engage?

------
kartayyar
What public companies have you invested in?

~~~
sama
AAPL, AMZN, TSLA, GOOGL, INTC, FB, YELP, BOX.

I like tech.

~~~
w1ntermute
You don't think TWTR is a good buy right now?

------
MeherSom
Can you give us an idea of the number of applications you receive for every
session and how many do you accept ?

------
efader
What is a failure you are most proud of?

------
douglance
Why is hackernews so poorly maintained?

~~~
ec109685
What don't you like about it? No ads, loads super fast, everything on one
page.

------
clbrook
Could you share the demographics for the YC Fellowship program so far?

------
amatic
No questions, just a huge amount of respect and admiration. Best wishes for
all of your projects.

------
jonmc12
What did you think was the most interesting feedback or update on OpenAI since
announcing in Dec?

~~~
sama
It will still be months at least until we've made research breakthroughs, but
we've had incredible success on the recruiting side. I think we're building
one of the strongest teams in the field.

~~~
jimrandomh
Did you read [http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/17/should-ai-be-
open/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/17/should-ai-be-open/) ?

------
kjcharles
What sort of growth would you look for in a social net applying to YC
Fellowship & YC Core?

------
hardworkisfun
What habit or habits have most contributed to your success in life and/or
business?

------
frakkingcylons
Hi Sam, do you have any general advice on selling software to government
organizations?

------
Huhty
Do you agree or disagree on each of Rand Fishkin's (Moz) 10
SEO/marketing/business predictions for 2016 as posted here a couple months
ago:

[https://moz.com/blog/10-predictions-for-2016-in-seo-web-
mark...](https://moz.com/blog/10-predictions-for-2016-in-seo-web-marketing)

???

------
MeherSom
I need a technical co-founder to build a platform and I don't know any
developer, what can I do ? 1- Search for one ? Any recommendation for the
steps to make in order to find the right man ? 2- Or ask a web/mobile
development company to build the platform ? What do you think are the +/\- of
this case ?

------
kepano
What's the meaning of life?

------
kartayyar
What do you see as the typical structure of a founding team of hardware
companies?

------
AltruistPartner
Sam, what's your ideal vision for how many nonprofits you would engage?

------
andreygrehov
Recommend 3 must-read books.

~~~
caballo7
Checkout [http://parrotread.com/yc](http://parrotread.com/yc). It has book
recommendations from all YC partners, including Sam.

~~~
andreygrehov
Goddamnyoupeople! Thanks!

------
hardworkisfun
What habit or habits in your life have most contributed to your success?

------
emmasz
It's easier to get into YC fellowship. - can you put it that way?

------
wittedhaddock
Where do you see YC in a decade? How will you know it's there?

------
hodder
Twitter valuation given revenue growth... what say you? Buyer here?

------
tangled_zans
Could you share some personal insight into modelling AI systems?

------
alfiedotwtf
What are the best ways to discover what people want to pay for?

------
tosseraccount
Will your firm ever go public and trade on an exchange?

------
superfx
Any news on what the next lab at YCR will be about?

~~~
sama
We're hoping to announce in a month or two :)

------
Kumzy30
Hey Sam,

is YC helping non-tech startups such as clothing industry?

------
lilrushi
How can I get an internship at Y Combinator?

~~~
sama
We don't really do internships, but we've funded more than 1000 startups and
many of them do. I'd suggest applying to internships at YC startups!

------
CiPHPerCoder
How about getting away from San Fransisco?

------
tosh
What do you think about distributed teams?

------
mrpearl11
Hi Sam, what is your personal mission?

------
jobobby
What happened with startup school?

------
jobobby
What happened to startup school?!

------
danield9tqh
Hello Sam, what is your opinion on REST APIs (A CRUD based model) vs RPC APIs
(a more functional based model)?

------
Balgair
Favorite Beer? Why/not?

------
philippnagel
Do you have advice for people running agency-style businesses?

What do you hate the most when working with such entities?

------
wprapido
is YC fellowship more solo founder friendly than your regular YC program?

------
lomnakkus
OK, so... what have you ever done for the world?

(As per my usual disclaimer: I'm _not_ being facetious.)

~~~
lomnakkus
... and, btw, shouldn't you be out there making bajillions instead of
answering questions?

EDIT: That _was_ facetious.

------
boredatnight12
So, what next?

------
Vitally
Nice Q&A

------
palmyra
Do you only invest in single product companies? what if a company have
multiple rebranded products (3-5) based on same code and at the end adds up to
respectable revenue figures and very good ROI?

------
jorgecurio
what do you think about the recent article calling out on arrogance of SV?

------
falsestprophet
Does this statement risk a tortious interference with business relationship
suit?

You have published a statement that could reasonably interpreted as Jason
Calacanis mistreats founders by bullying them, changing offers, sharing their
confidential info and other things.

That intentionally obstructs Mr. Calcanis from entering into valuable business
relationships with startup company founders.

It seems very risky unless you have at hand specific evidence that Mr.
Calacanis had done each of "bullying them", "changing offers," and "sharing
their confidential info."

Of course I totally believe you and wouldn't be keen to do business with him.
But, that's exactly the point.

~~~
apsec112
No, sama is not obligated to censor his honest opinions about random people he
doesn't like. The First Amendment (and in some states, SLAPP statutes) protect
him from legal threats of censorship.

Interference with business relationships is only a thing if (among other
conditions) the two parties already have some type of agreement. It does not
apply to investors approaching founders they don't even know yet.

Slander/libel is only a thing if (among other conditions) the statement is of
fact ("Bob is an asshole" etc. are considered opinion and not fact), the
statement is false, and the author knows it is false and publishes it anyway.

Here's what happens when dumb lawyers try to censor negative opinions with
threats: [https://popehat.com/2013/06/25/criticize-your-dentist-
thats-...](https://popehat.com/2013/06/25/criticize-your-dentist-thats-a-
jailin/)

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
The issue here is that the way Sam originally wrote his response, he was
clearly saying I leaked information and changed a deal on a startup -- two
things I've never, ever done.

There really is no upside to leaking information on a startup if you're an
investor (all these leaks come from employees typically).

On changing a deal, I'm really blunt about what I think a startup is worth...
I just tell folks "I would value the company at X, if you can get 3X I suggest
you go for it!" In fact, my candidness on this issue has kind of gotten me
into this mess with YC to begin with (they haven't appreciated me saying stuff
like "only an idiot would do an uncapped note" and "paying a $15m cap to a
company with six weeks of data is just dumb." ).

------
Alupis
> I'm on a H1-b visa and I'm basically in prison

I know this is an exaggeration, and I'm fully aware the current visa situation
in the US could be better, but I really take issue with the sentiment of your
statement.

You're being afforded an enormous opportunity here, and should not compare it
with being in a prison.

Think about it -- you clearly decided your home country was not as conducive
for building your future as the US may be, and therefore applied for (and
accepted) a visa. Now it's up to you to prove value in allowing you to remain
in the country. A visa is a privilege, not a right.

Literally billions of folks around the world are never given this opportunity.

~~~
DKnoll

      Think about it -- you clearly decided your home country was not as conducive for building your future as the US may be
    

Hi, as a Canadian, I also take issue with your statement. Your ancestors came
here for the same reason as him, and with far less scrutiny, same as mine, and
were provided many benefits not recieved today, including land grants.

Why does a person migrating today deserve to be treated as second class?

~~~
phibit
> Your ancestors came here for the same reason as him, and with far less
> scrutiny, same as mine, and were provided many benefits not recieved today,
> including land grants.

There has been a dramatic change in economic and social climate in the
Americas. Our vague "ancestors" entered Canada and the US in times where it
might not have been so magnificent to immigrate, and as such they were
presented with incentives to immigrate and contribute to a growing economy.
Never mind that some of our ancestors came in as refugees fleeing war and
communism.

Today, both Canada and the US have the right to protect their national
interests and prioritize the development of their own citizens above the
interests of foreign nationals. All countries do this, even those perceived as
the most accepting.

~~~
DKnoll
Canada just accepted 25,000 Syrian refugees fleeing war and something much
worse than communism.

The social and economic climate has changed dramatically, you're right. We no
longer have a climate condusive to a free-for-all exploitation of Aboriginals,
Africans, and the environment.

~~~
phibit
> Canada just accepted 25,000 Syrian refugees fleeing war and something much
> worse than communism.

This is to my point, there is less scrutiny for immigrants in 'dire straits'.

> The social and economic climate has changed dramatically, you're right. We
> no longer have a climate condusive to a free-for-all exploitation of
> Aboriginals, Africans, and the environment.

Unclear how this goes to show that anybody should be allowed to immigrate
anywhere under any conditions.

Edit: straights -> straits

~~~
DKnoll
How long did it take for us (the West as a whole) to recognise the situation
in Syria, and how many Syrians died in the meantime?

~~~
Alupis
> How long did it take for us (the West as a whole) to recognise the situation
> in Syria, and how many Syrians died in the meantime?

Should probably recognize that civil wars, genocide, and humanitarian
disasters are occurring all around the world, right now, and no nation is
doing anything about it (nor does the average person even know about these).

Nations of the world have no real obligation to do anything... which is why
nothing is done majority of the time. When the interests of "the west"
coincide with stopping an atrocity, then "the west" intervenes.

Further, it's fairly naive to believe freighting a few hundred thousand people
thousands of miles away from anything even remotely familiar is doing anyone a
service. It seems the help Syrian's are getting from "the west" has boiled
down into a singular mindset of "just ship them someplace else", never-mind
all of the long term issues that arise from this half-hearted solution
(housing, income, food, work, cultural assimilation, transportation, etc...).

Bringing these people to the US or Canada doesn't solve any of their problems
really - it only trades some problems for others. The real solution is
obviously to stop the civil war... and work is being done to accomplish this.

~~~
DKnoll
>and work is being done to accomplish this.

That's the best euphemism for bombs and sponsoring what we would otherwise
consider terrorist organisations I've ever heard.

~~~
Alupis
> That's the best euphemism for bombs and sponsoring what we would otherwise
> consider terrorist organisations I've ever heard

I do believe you have inadvertently made my point.

"The west" (including Canada) doesn't care about any global issue unless it
conflicts with their interests. In this case, the Assad regime was/is
uncooperative with the US in particular, which is why the US seized the
opportunity to topple his control (via many methods, including funding known
terrorist organizations which just happen to also be against the Assad regime
at this moment in time).

"The west" is not involved in any other civil war or genocide at the moment,
although there are many active around the world.

> >and work is being done to accomplish this.

Perhaps you're not current on events, but non-military options are being taken
right now, and are looking somewhat promising.

We've gone far into the weeds here and gotten even further off-topic than we
already were. I, however, feel you're the type to want the last word, so feel
free.

------
teej
This is going to sound crass, but if a founder can't make the sacrifice to
spend 3 months in SV for YC, are they really prepared to build the next
billion dollar company?

~~~
eranation
If that founder is a director of engineering/product in an enterprise software
company in Atlanta, has a spouse, two kids and a mortgage, and the health
insurance is dependent on her/his employer, then they will probably have a
higher sacrifice than if they are a single Stanford grad living in SF with a
year of saving after working at Google. They both need to make a sacrifice but
it's not the same scale. If you make it easier for the enterprise founder to
go and do it, and they know their industry and customers from the inside out,
I think YC are increasing their odds a little bit of getting an enterprise
software unicorn then if they don't. Nothing is guaranteed, and that
enterprise person will have to make even worse sacrifices probably if they
gets funded, but I'm pretty sure it will increase the number of them who will
make the leap.

However as Sam said he doesn't feel they are underrepresented, and that they
can use the fellowship which sounds great :)

~~~
dfabulich
Can anybody name a few successful high-growth startups that were started by
people with these kinds of family obligations?

If it has happened before, that's evidence that it can happen again, but if
it's never happened before, that's evidence that it may be harder or
impossible to form a high-growth startup under obligations like those.

(Disclaimer: high-growth startups are not the only kind of business worth
forming. The director of engineering of a slow-growth enterprise software
company may have a higher quality of life than a co-founder at an unprofitable
unicorn.)

~~~
mej10
SpaceX and Tesla?

But more seriously, some examples: [http://priceonomics.com/founders-with-
kids/](http://priceonomics.com/founders-with-kids/)

~~~
argonaut
Elon Musk has divorced twice. Not making a value judgment, just pointing out
that he has clearly chosen entrepreneurial success over marital success.

~~~
argonaut
Aaaand, he's getting divorced a third time (just in the news).

------
DanBC
How do you feel about #hnwatch?

------
daniyel
Why didn't you do this AMA on /r/programming?

------
tlawal87
Earlier this week, you listed your specific investment interests. If we are
working on one of those tough problems in regulated environments, what is the
best way to get a serious consideration from Y Combinator (apart from
continuing to build as fast as we can & talking to our initial users)?

------
srcmap
Sam,

Here's my side project -

It lets developers browse, understand and document source code via browser.

Here are a few examples Doc/Xref source code it can generate:

* WASM code in the newly release v8 Engine source.

[http://www.srcmap.org/sd_share/7/2f4b60db/v8_JS_Engine_WASM....](http://www.srcmap.org/sd_share/7/2f4b60db/v8_JS_Engine_WASM.html)

* Start up script Code trace in Android AOSP code. (10GB of source)

[http://www.srcmap.org/sd_share/7/f772faae/Android_AOSP_Platf...](http://www.srcmap.org/sd_share/7/f772faae/Android_AOSP_Platform_Linux_init_rc_Startup_Code_Trace.html)

* ES 6 code trace in v8 Engine.

[http://www.srcmap.org/sd_share/7/c2018475/v8_ES6_features.ht...](http://www.srcmap.org/sd_share/7/c2018475/v8_ES6_features.html)

The single binary is hosted in $5 / month VPS in DO. (I am cheap and don't
like to burn $.)

Soon anyone can download it and run it on their PC/Laptop. Free to individual,
$ for team.

What do you think? Good enough for YC?

