
Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST - vaksel
http://mixergy.com/live/
======
maxklein
My questions:

\- Is he always calm? Does he ever get angry and throw things around?

\- Has he ever 'cut off' a YC company from access to YC?

\- What is the current relationship between YC and the early successful
companies like reddit and loopt. Is there any? Do they call ever now and then?

\- What proportion of YC applicants come from name-brand universities?

\- If a YC company becomes a lifestyle company, does YC still profit? Or does
YC only profit on a big sale?

\- If a YC company folds and significantly changes, like DraftMix, is YC still
involved in the new company, or do they lose their 6% when the company
changes?

\- What mobile phone does he use?

\- Would he accept a patch to get rid of the tables on news.ycombinator and
change to css?

~~~
pg
Only my eyebrows; we once sold our stock in one; we talk quite frequently to
the Reddit and Loopt founders; I'm not sure, maybe 1/3; we only make money if
there's an exit; it depends whether the new idea is the same company--
bluefrog is; some crappy old Motorola flip phone; you would have to reach deep
into the Arc libraries to do that.

~~~
padmanabhan01
What's the reason behind using the motorola phone? to avoid distractions?

~~~
pg
You mean not getting an iPhone? Yes, because I already spend too much time
online. The last thing I need is for it to follow me out into the world.

------
AndrewWarner
If you have any questions, add them here. I'll check these comments about 10
minutes before we go live.

The focus is the biography of Y Combinator.

Along the way I'd like to learn how pg gives the kind of insight that past
Mixergy guests said turned their businesses around.

~~~
iamwil
What's usually the biggest mental hurdle for hackers to transition into
entrepreneurs? An understanding of their market? An empathy for users? How to
tell a compelling story about their product?

Were past YC alumni who were more hacker-ish molded into entrepreneurs through
YC, or did they already come in with such a mindset?

~~~
pg
Coming to terms with the effort required.

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JimFMunro
You've had quite a few guests on Mixergy that started their own businesses
solo, without partners. PG has repeated that most of the companies he's looked
at have at least 2 founders.

Has he changed his views on this any or is this still the main advice?

Either way, what would he look for in a single-founder startup (besides being
Relentlessly Resourceful).

~~~
pg
Not much different than we'd look for in founders generally.

------
ANH
Andrew Warner (founder of Mixergy) has a great interviewing style. Should be
good.

~~~
acangiano
I think Andrew is doing an amazing job. My respect for him skyrocketed when I
watched his interview with the bribe kid. He handled that extremely
professionally.

~~~
iconfinder
He's really great at interviewing these guys. I always have an interview ready
on my iPod. I hope he keep doing this.

------
edw519
My questions:

\- What advice would pg (2010 instance) give to pg (2004 instance)?

\- What property of the 4 yc partners, if removed, would do the most damage?

\- What has surprised you the most?

\- What is the biggest mistake people have made?

\- What is the biggest thing that will have to be different (about yc) in the
future?

\- What kind of yc startup is most likely to hit a grand slam home run?

~~~
pg
Wow, these are good questions. But it's 10:58 so I'll try to answer them
afterward.

Edit: Answers:

1\. Not to be influenced by credentials. Where people went to school in
particular.

2\. Our own determination, probably. We need it too, not just the founders.

3\. How many people just give up.

4\. That founders have made? Building stuff users don't really care about.

5\. Doing everything on a larger scale.

6\. The kind with the right founders.

~~~
adrianwaj
People are hard-wired to give up. There has to be a carrot, stick or both to
overcome it. Ideally, just wanting to make a change, or being really excited
by something is what keeps people going against the odds: like Steve Jobs.
Developers are basically problem solvers, I suspect giving up occurs when a
certain set of problems seem or have proven to be insurmountable.

------
covercash
From the interview: Jessica Livingston is working on a second edition of
Founders At Work.

~~~
there
can i buy just a diff between the two editions?

~~~
pg
It's not a new edition; it's a second volume.

~~~
covercash
I stand corrected. This makes the news even more exciting!

------
AndrewWarner
The video is edited and posted along with an MP3 download & transcript.

<http://mixergy.com/y-combinator-paul-graham/>

~~~
patio11
Thanks Andrew. I didn't get to see it live, but that is my favorite interview
you've done (and that is in a group of quite interesting ones). Also thanks to
pg.

------
staunch
I just hope it's a lengthy interview. I don't think I've ever seen an in-depth
interview with PG.

~~~
loganfrederick
Here is a one-hour interview (audio) Paul Graham did with EconTalk on
Startups:
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/08/graham_on_start.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/08/graham_on_start.html)

------
antidaily
My question: Consulting treadmill - how do I get off it without a killer app
idea?

~~~
jasonkester
I never understood why people consider consulting to be a "treadmill". For me,
a consulting gig is an instantaneous injection of capital and another 6-9
months runway for the entrepreneurial stuff.

I mean, a 1-month gig will pay your rent for the year. Another one will pay
for your servers, hosting, dev machine and food. The rest of the time is yours
to spend as you like.

Is it possible that people are doing "consulting" work for <$50/hr and
mistaking it for the real thing? That, in my mind, is not consulting but
rather "being taken advantage of." Especially if you do it in an office
surrounded by other employees in a similar position.

~~~
antidaily
Consulting is a pie-eating contest where the reward is more pie. If you're
good, you get just enough work to keep you from doing something else. I know
I'm not alone here.

~~~
jasonkester
Indeed, that's essentially another way to rewrite what I said above, though
perhaps a bit of a pessimistic one.

If you're just squeaking by, getting enough consulting work to pay the bills,
then your schedule is likely pretty open most of the time. Unless you're
spending 28 hours a week chasing work, you should have plenty of time for
entrepreneurial stuff.

And of course, if you're working 20+ hours a week on billable consulting work
and just squeaking by, you're simply not charging enough.

~~~
commonsense
> getting enough consulting work to pay the bills

"Consulting" does not just pay the bills. You're thinking of freelancing for
dipshit entrepreneurs who think $10k will buy them the next facebook.

~~~
gridspy
$10k might very well buy the next facebook, in the startup stages. It wasn't
always this big. All it takes is the right idea and some money to pay the
bills.

~~~
commonsense
> $10k might very well buy the next facebook

Get the fuck out of here. The amount of engineering the founders put into
facebook far outpaces $10k. You're living in a fantasy land.

~~~
gridspy
My point is that those founders didn't draw a salary until well after they had
a value proposition for investors.

Or to put it another way, Stephen and I have put > $400,000 of hours into
Gridspy, but our costs are limited to board prototyping, outsourced layout and
web hosting. For most internet startups, costs are perhaps $10,000 per founder
for 3 months + hosting (perhaps $100/mo until there is enough traffic to drive
ads).

It only gets expensive when you need to bring in contracting help. That is why
it pays to be a switched on hacker in this game.

Remember, the giants weren't always giants. As they transitioned to giants,
there were doing it with VC money - not founder's cash.

Don't look at the destination and get put off. Take it one step at a time. You
can probably get to traction with $10k.

~~~
gridspy
One further point. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that facebook is burning
through $1m per day now.

[http://www.google.co.nz/#hl=en&q=facebook+burn+rate](http://www.google.co.nz/#hl=en&q=facebook+burn+rate)
would seem to agree with me ($200m per year perhaps).

------
marciovm123
Andrew Warner: "how does a talk start a revolution?" (re: pg's talk at harvard
that led to YC)

pg: "hmmmmmm (laughs)"

That would have been an awesome talk to have attended...

~~~
ericd
Yeah, it was a (I believe related) talk of his at MIT that really got me
thinking seriously about rejecting the big cubicle farms and doing a
startup... before that, it was just an unrealistic-seeming dream.

I'm still amazed by the effect he had with one speech, but it was just what I
needed to hear.

------
xiaoma
I know YC recruits founders from all over. However as someone in Asia seeing
more and more great Chinese web services, I'd love to know if any YC companies
primarily serve a non-English speaking market.

~~~
pg
I think iJigg does.

------
icey
I'd like to know who the first company that YC wanted to invest in was -
whether or not they were able to and if it worked out (in case it's a company
we don't know the name of).

I'd also like to know if there are parallels in running an venture firm to
running a startup. Does it take the same kind of guts? Do you get discouraged
from a lot of failures? etc

~~~
pg
There were 8 simultaneously in the first cycle. Some definitely worked out:
Reddit (which was a merger of 2 from that batch), Loopt, Textpayme (the first
YC funded startup to be acquired), and Kiko (which was not itself a big
success, but afterward the founders started Justin.TV).

------
quellhorst
My question: Why does Paul Graham think you must be in silicon valley when
doing an Internet startup? Living expenses there are expensive, broadband is
available everywhere, and many people are outside the valley and successful.

~~~
abossy
<http://www.paulgraham.com/revolution.html>

------
nkh
To rewatch, or see for the first time, here is the link:

[http://www.justin.tv//mixergy#from=11.00%252CFebruary-9-2010...](http://www.justin.tv//mixergy#from=11.00%252CFebruary-9-2010&r=171fziU)

~~~
Sukotto
Link doesn't work. "Sorry, we couldn't understand the date and time
'11.00%2CFebruary-9-2010'."

Click the link under the video pane to get to the archives... archive for Feb
9 is 10 minutes of some guy with super-short hair looking into the camera and
drinking from a cup... with wacky indian-ish background music. The picture
almost completely obscures some kind of moving text... with an occasional
glimpse of the phrase "Paul Graham" ... WTF?

Searching for "mixergy" in the justintv search box comes back with no results
and a suggestion to watch a video about Bioshock 2

~~~
philwelch
"archive for Feb 9 is 10 minutes of some guy with super-short hair looking
into the camera and drinking from a cup... with wacky indian-ish background
music"

Yeah, that's exactly what was on the channel post-interview. "Some guy" is
actually Andrew Warner, though.

------
orionlogic
Glad Y-combinator think about graphic designer. it reminds my post a few years
ago <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50375>

------
icey
This was a great interview; I can't wait until it's available online to watch
again. I had to take a few phone calls during it so I missed a few things.

------
wallflower
How do you gauge how well founders gel/get along/chemistry/rapport?

Is there hope for non-technical founders?

How do you redefine failure?

~~~
pchristensen
RE non-technical founders: the first part of building a company is building a
successful product/service, and technical founders can do that with sweat
equity. Non-technical founders can still add value, but they need technical
people to make the product. Spencer Fry of CarbonMade has written some great
stuff about duties for non-technical founders: <http://spencerfry.com/whats-a-
non-programmer-to-do>

------
DanielBMarkham
From a Y Combinator's "customer's" standpoint, (the new companies applying)
with all the iterations and increased class sizes, what's to keep the magic
sauce from disappearing? Can larger class sizes get the same attention from
you guys as founders did during the first session?

~~~
pg
We can measure that. Founders book office hours online. We know the founders
are getting enough attention (by their standards) if not all office hour slots
get taken.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Just out of curiosity, how many hours do you guys keep open each week for
office hours? Or is that something you'd rather not say?

~~~
pg
Depends on the time of year. People want to talk a lot more the week before
Demo Day than in April. On average I'd guess 10-15 hours a week. But I also
talk to startups outside office hours; e.g. at the dinners, which span about 6
hours each.

~~~
weaksauce
Is it all at the table or do you have some kind of presentation too from past
founders?

~~~
pg
There are all kind of presentations and special events. I'm just talking here
about individual conversations. (I'm not sure what you mean by "all at the
table.")

------
vaksel
can a mod edit out the title since the interview is over?

~~~
adamsmith
I was able to get (at least the beginning) to play at the archive:
<http://www.justin.tv/mixergy/archive>

