
The Social Radar: What I Did at Y Combinator - _pius
http://foundersatwork.posthaven.com/the-social-radar-what-i-did-at-y-combinator
======
paul
Culture is one of those factors that is very difficult to quantify, yet
incredibly important for success.

At companies with great cultures, employees are eager to show up and get
things done because they genuinely care about the team and mission. That was
very much my experience at early Google.

Companies with bad cultures try to motivate employees with fear and
intimidation, or simply fail to motivate them at all, and everyone wastes
their time playing video games or whatever. Not surprisingly, those rarely do
well.

In my estimation, most startups have weak to poor culture, which is one reason
why you read so many startup horror stories. My advice to anyone looking to
join a startup it to pick a place where you are excited about showing up and
contributing every day. I think that's a much better predictor of happiness
and success than trying to follow the social media hype or hotness signals.

~~~
n72
> Companies with bad cultures try to motivate employees with fear and
> intimidation, or simply fail to motivate them at all, and everyone wastes
> their time playing video games or whatever. Not surprisingly, those rarely
> do well.

This seems like it could be a chicken or the egg problem though. How do you
know that good culture isn't a byproduct of success. If Google stock were
tanking, how do you think the culture would look? I honestly don't know.

~~~
paul
I'm talking about the very early days, so there was no stock to tank, the
company was largely unknown and not yet "successful".

------
rwallace
This is an excellent and inspiring post, but I'm worried people might try to
use it as a model.

Neurotypical people think they can tell all sorts of things about someone's
character from a short face-to-face meeting, but it turns out this is all
noise; people's impressions of character obtained this way are not
significantly more accurate than random chance.

Having said that, for all I know, Jessica may well be in the 0.1% of people
who have extraordinary skill in this area, who really can accurately read
character; if so, fair play to her, she has certainly made an immensely
valuable contribution to Y Combinator.

The problem arises when other people try to emulate her and filter job
applicants, business partners etc. by intuitive reading of character from a
face-to-face meeting, because there is a 99.9% probability that _you_ are
_not_ in that 0.1%. So you end up turning away good people because their hair
was messy while simultaneously falling prey to glib sociopaths who know what
buttons to press.

So by all means appreciate the post, and certainly appreciate Jessica herself
if you have dealings with Y Combinator, but I would strongly advise against
trying to copy the strategy of filtering people by intuitive reading.

------
leelin
I interviewed almost exactly 6 years ago, right at the inflection point
between the old style intimate and the modern structure. The impact from the
atmosphere and community is enormous!

Startup morale can seemingly come and go for the most arbitrary reasons, but
the Tuesday dinners somehow always re-energized me into wanting to get back to
work asap. It's some combination of (1) relief knowing other great founders
face similar stumbling blocks, (2) excitement to try many fresh ideas
overheard at dinner, and (3) fear/embarrassment that I'm not working hard or
fast enough.

Even today, we still get introductions and advice from YC and when I reach
out, I've never waited more than 24 hours for a response.

As far as the interview goes, I had the original, single-track 4 YC founders.
I remember a bunch of questions from Paul and Trevor, but I'm only now
realizing Jessica was the one subtly keeping the conversation on track. Near
the end of the 20 minutes, Jessica made her one and only comment related to
our idea, but it was the most insightful and for good reason. In 2009 our
startup was positioned as anti-Craigslist and Jessica had recently interviewed
Craig for Founders at Work!

------
spcoll
I'm genuinely curious here: what if you happen to be frankly ugly? What if you
are really awkward around people?

These characteristics don't necessarily mean you will be unable to build great
products or a disruptive business. They don't mean your startup will fail. But
they would almost certainly cause you to fail the character test.

Admittedly, being awkward and ugly does put your startup at a disadvantage
because it will be a bit harder to recruit and a bit harder to close sales.
But I am positive it is still possible to succeed if you are delivering real
value. The product will speak for itself.

So aren't such character filters a bad business decision for YC? Aren't they
passing on great startups by paying too much attention to things that
ultimately don't impact success that much?

~~~
petercooper
There are lots of successful actors, politicians, business people, sales
people, etc. who are subjectively "ugly" to many. It's rarely about looks.

Social skills, on the other hand, are important but, much like physical
fitness, can be learned and trained unless you have a serious disability.
Someone not willing to invest in their social skills might well deserve to
fail a 'character test' for that reason alone.

~~~
nether
Too bad attractive people are convicted less often by juries, receive more
one-on-one attention by doctors, receive higher grades in school, etc. Read
"Looks" by Gordon Patzer.

------
lettergram
The part I really enjoyed reading was:

"Before Y Combinator, character had not traditionally been an important factor
for investors. Investors have often funded people who were jerks but who
seemed likely to succeed. But I couldn't do it. YC is not just an investment
firm. It's like a family in that we're inviting these people into our place to
have dinner every week."

This is what I would attribute the success of Y Combinator to. By focusing on
founders as opposed to ideas, individual drive, demeanor, and not business
models become the center.

Paul Graham on multiple occasions discusses Sam Altman as someone who can't be
stopped. Here is an article[1] from Paul Graham's article titled "Five
Founders," the prompt "Inc recently asked me who I thought were the 5 most
interesting startup founders of the last 30 years." Sam Altman made it as #5
up with Steve Jobs, Larry and Sergey, etc.

"I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list.
But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. If he wants to be on
this list, he's going to be."

The idea, is if people have what it takes, have the drive, the heart, and the
understanding of how to treat others, they can make anything happen.

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not
replace you as the driver.” - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

[1]
[http://paulgraham.com/5founders.html](http://paulgraham.com/5founders.html)

~~~
alecco
I'm amazed how Ayn Rand is still alive and kicking in the YC crowd.

~~~
juliangregorian
I'm not. Dismayed, but not surprised.

------
davemel37
I wonder how many good people never apply because of reading posts like this.

I am not saying any of this weeding out is a problem. It's not. But
publicizing it will likely not scare off the competent BSers but will
eliminate many good folks who are a little insecure. (I don't buy that being
confident and secure is a requirement for success.)

~~~
general_failure
People who apply for YC let themselves be 'judged' because that's what the
interview process is all about. This post gives you more insight into this
judgement process. So, I would say this post is valuable for people who will
apply or intend to apply for YC.

~~~
davemel37
If it was about judging if a team can execute and if an idea has merits,
that's one thing. If its about judging if they fit into a culture you are
cultivating that is fine too.

But if its about judging character...This filters out the humble people and
curates the narcissistic.

I guess I am saying that most good people don't go around thinking how good
they are...and the better a person is the more likely they will take
responsibility for everything in their lives, which may lead them to think
less of themselves.

Whereas, someone who is narcissistic thinks he is a good guy, and is actually
really bad.

I still think they should filter for culture fit and even ethical fit, but
they should not publicize it, and definitely should not proclaim they are
gifted at it and very accurate in their assessments.

I can think of lots of good guys who would never want to be judged on their
character in 10 minutes by someone the valley looks up to and who proclaims
they almost always accurate when reading people.

I know my own shortcomings. I am afraid Jessica will see right through me and
see how rotten to the core I know I am. But who knows... maybe I am just hard
on myself and I really am a great guy. I guess I would rather not find out for
sure :)

~~~
graeme
>But if its about judging character...This filters out the humble people and
curates the narcissistic.

Good judges of character can see through narcissism and appreciate humility.
You seem to be assuming that anyone judging character will be easily fooled.

~~~
davemel37
You missed my point. This will prevent humble people from even applying.

~~~
graeme
Oh. It wasn't very clear. Also I think you're mixing up humility and low self-
esteem. Humble, in the positive sense of the word, just means modest. And
modest people can be confident about themselves.

~~~
davemel37
Your definitions are correct when it comes to measuring your own abilities but
not when it comes to judging your own character. Truly humble people won't
perceive themselves as humble and be confident about how humble they are.

To your point about low self esteem and humility. These aren't mutually
exclusive...many good people have a low self esteem but are still confident in
their abilities and achieve success.

------
tomasien
I expected some backlash as Jessica made here "hey guess what, I'm a co-
founder of YC and I was as important as anyone" tour complete with this post.
Glad to see it wasn't that bad.

For those that are put off by Jessica doing this: she is not going to get
credit unless she takes it. She deserves it, she's earned it, and the
historical record should indicate it. Good on her for taking the FFC and this
post (and a couple interviews) to set the record straight. The story of YC is
the story of a female founder and it's critical the record reflect that.

------
throwaway41597
Great to read more about startups from jl! Please keep posting, maybe you
could split subjects across several posts next time and have more room for
specific stories (if you can share them).

What are the most common types of "startup shitshows" that YC sees besides
cofounder disputes? Which are unrecoverable?

------
solve
Just one thing I'm curious about: How do you later find out if you had been
correct? Have you tried to estimate how often you've been correct by following
up on the people later on?

RE the article: awesome that you have the goal of funding good people and
constantly asking yourself what's best for the founders.

~~~
bhayden
It's not like YC gives them money and says "cya" and never talks to them
again. They are probably forever involved in the start up until they exit,
which doesn't seem to happen often.

~~~
paul
Exactly. We're painfully aware of our mistakes.

~~~
eaxitect
Then, why implicitly stating that "some" rejected applicants were bad persons?
Why not simply saying "we did not invest because we don't think it will
succeed."

------
pickwick
"Culture matters for startups. For a startup to succeed, it must have a
culture that reflects what it wants to achieve."

Digital Equipment Corporation had a culture. Companies like Loopt (proto-
grindr), InstallMonetizer (drive-by-download enabler), and GrooveShark
(copyright infringement)--all YC funded--do not.

This emphasis on "culture" and "culture fit," or any other subjective hiring
or selection process for that matter, is bound to result in unintentional
discrimination against those applicants who differ (racially, in gender, or
some other respect) from the person or people doing the selection. The
evidence continues to mount that humans are swayed by all kinds of unconscious
biases, even those who sincerely believe they aren't racists, sexists, or
bigots of some other stripe.

If the partners of Y Combinator really want it to be something of a
meritocracy, then these sorts of practices, rather than being openly boasted
of, should be abandoned in favor of more quantitative, objective filters

Note that I am not a progressive, even if the tone of this post came across as
such. I just genuinely believe in meritocracy, and if evidence demonstrates
that certain practices are harmful to it, then I feel obliged to speak out
against them. If you sincerely want the best candidate regardless of race,
gender, weight, attractiveness, or age, hiring based on something so
subjective as "culture" is not the way to get them.

~~~
lutorm
Like what? There is no well-defined figure of merit for "a startup that is
likely to succeed".

------
sajid
To a first approximation, a startup's company culture is simply a reflection
of the personality of the founder(s).

~~~
dcole2929
And this imo, is one of the reasons why JL's input has been so valuable to YC
over the years. If a company's culture reflect that of it's founders
personality focusing on founders who are "good" people goes a long way towards
ensuring the companies YC funds act a certain way. Whether that way is good or
not is up for debate but from pure anecdotal evidence I'd argue that YC
startups tend to comport themselves better than others.

------
soneca
I think she is completely right at the importance of culture and the value of
"soft" skills on building a company. But I don't know about how judgemental
they are about character. All sounds very much like a "thumbs up" or "thumbs
down" from a roman emperor. It is binary:you are a good person or you are a
bad person. All this based on the myth fully internalized by both Paul Graham
and Jessica herself that she can just judge character. They don't even care to
try to understand it, they just assume she has this superpower and we all
shall trust it.

My point is not being a good person doesn't matter on building companies. I
too firmly believe it does. A "fraternity of good people" can be very
powerful. I try to keep close to myself only good people, including doing
business. I also mentally veto bad people that could possibly give me good
business. But I don't judge them on character so quickly and so often.

A recurrent topic here in HN is how language limit and direct thought. In
english the verb "to be" is used in two situations that are very different,
and you can realize that if you speak a latin language. Myself, I speak
portuguese, and we use to different verbs to translate "to be". We use "ser"
and "estar". "Ser" is for something more permanent. "Estar" is for something
more transitory.

So when in english you say "Your friend is ugly", you can tell is you judge
the people as ugly for life, I mean, he just isn't handsome, he is ugly, he
must accept it. Or if you are actually meaning that he is ugly right now. He
chose the wrong outfit, the wrong haircut for him or that simply he isn't as
astonishing as he use to be. To mean that you must add a time stamp, like
"Your friend is ugly today". So this phrasing and using of the verb "to be" in
english nudge you to a very binary way of thinking. And people's character are
not binary. Jessica might vet a very good person as being bad, just because in
the day of the interview they were pissed that they found out that an ex has
cheated all relationship and they were feeling more beligerant and raging than
usual. And that was judged by Jessica's superpowers as "being bad people".

All great arguments for culture and atmosphere were lost to me because of this
judgemental stand.

------
Fede_V
Given that the dataset of YC companies is starting to be somewhat sizable, I'd
be incredibly curious to see if people tried to run a regression between lots
of plausible variables that affect success (founder demographic variables,
subject area, exact time, etc) to see if there are any non-trivial
correlations.

The dataset is not quite big enough to train a very complex deep net, but even
some simple linear regressions would be fascinating.

------
bootload
_"... when people are BSing, how tough they are, if they get along, and
surprisingly often, considering I only have 10 minutes to observe them,
whether they're good people or not. ..."_

That's a difficult task. Was it the comfort/discomfort paradigm used here?
(cf: Navarro: [http://www.jnforensics.com](http://www.jnforensics.com)) From
experience, you only really grasp the mettle of ones character in adversity.

You can ask questions and see if the response is causing a person discomfort,
but that's all. The reason for discomfort could be nervousness or a host of
other things. More questions need to be asked based on the observation.

 _" We continue to filter for character"_

Who are the worst offenders? Does the adage, _' want to get an honest answer
by avoiding management and ask an engineer'_ apply?

------
brezina
ah, i remember those early dinners and fancy cheese plates that weren't orange
nor formed into a brick.

i've found that potential employees are getting more and more savvy about
evaluating culture.

One thing we do at Sincerely to share our culture and evaluate the candidate's
character is to play a board game at lunch during interview days. The
candidate drops their guard, treats communication less like an interivew, and
we get to see deeper into their real character. And they get to see one of the
ways we like to interact with our teammates outside of shipping products.

------
wellboy
One of the best startup articles written in the last few years. Looks like the
startup ecosystem is finally finding its standards as there is now real data
to back up the soft values, i.e. what's a good founder, what co-founder
dynamics are the most successful (you've been friends before the startup).
Would be interesting to see some sort of compendium for that, or data on the
soft values. Many investors or investor groups have those for themselves, but
there's no one standardised summary of all of those yet.

------
beamatronic
Is that a homemade Segway clone? I'd like to know more about that!

~~~
TheMakeA
[http://tlb.org/#scooter2](http://tlb.org/#scooter2)

~~~
beamatronic
Thanks! This is really cool!

------
n72
"but I can tell things like when people are BSing, how tough they are, if they
get along, and surprisingly often, considering I only have 10 minutes to
observe them, whether they're good people or not."

How do you know you have this ability and it's not just bias? I really don't
mean this as snark, but increasingly more research confirms that humans far
overestimate their abilities in this area. In my own case, as I've grown older
I've come to realize that I'm not nearly as good a judge of character as I
thought I was in my early 20s. So, again, not snark, but how do you know? Have
you set up a control group?

~~~
paul
This is a fair question, but like most things with humans, almost impossible
to answer in a definitive way.

There was once an accidental control group though. Jessica missed about half
of the interviews and PG, RTM, and Trevor were left to decide on their own. I
would estimate that the error rate without her was about 2x-3x as high.

The other thing to remember is that we keep track of the startups that we
interview, and for the ones that we accept, we end up working with them for
many years. We make a point of studying our mistakes (and successes), so there
is a feedback loop, and I believe that we're getting better at it every time.
But of course there are about a million other variable in play, so it's very
difficult to be certain about anything (which is part of what makes this
business so interesting).

~~~
n72
> This is a fair question, but like most things with humans, almost impossible
> to answer in a definitive way.

Which is precisely why you have to be very, very, very careful. The matter-of-
fact way it was phrased in the blog post didn't give me the impression that
there was a whole lot of skepticism regarding her abilities. If one does make
such a grandiose claim, it seems like a person conscious that it is a
grandiose claim would preface it with a whole lot of qualifiers and such.

> There was once an accidental control group though. Jessica missed about half
> of the interviews and PG, RTM, and Trevor were left to decide on their own.
> I would estimate that the error rate without her was about 2x-3x as high.

I'm curious what the sample-size is and what error-rate actually means. I
realize with the control group question and this question, I risk coming off
as awfully pedantic.

~~~
lazaroclapp
> Which is precisely why you have to be very, very, very careful. The matter-
> of-fact way it was phrased in the blog post didn't give me the impression
> that there was a whole lot of skepticism regarding her abilities.

Speaking about unconscious bias, although this judgement can be valid, would
you have said the same about say, a (male?) engineer claiming that "I can
often tell good software architecture from bad". Which is a similarly
subjective, heuristic-based imprecise classification problem.

Not saying you wouldn't, by the way. But I wonder if for plenty of us there
are biases in play here as well, since we are talking about skills usually
considered less "hard" scientifically (even though they are just as much 'hard
skills' as the above example about software architecture [1]).

[1] Unless you are in the 0.00001% of developers who deal with formally
specified and verified software.

~~~
paul
One of the problems we have in the tech world is that there is a lot of
respect for the analytical "left brain" skills (which is great), but a great
deal of doubt and skepticism directed towards the more subjective "right
brain" skills. I think this is why the "neckbeard" crowd has often dismissed
Apple's success as being the product of slick marketing. My opinion is that
their success has a lot to do with Job's ability to combine both analytical
prowess and creative genius. People who try to be entirely analytical about
everything are rarely good founders.

~~~
n72
I absolutely agree, but that doesn't mean that epistemological rigour can't be
brought to bare on the non-analytical side of things. Jessica may in fact have
these right brain skills, but that doesn't mean that it's not important to be
very, very careful she's not falling prey to a bunch of well documented
biases.

------
projectileboy
It was interesting to read how deliberately Jessica worked on the vibe and the
culture. Many companies would be better places to work if their founders had
done the same.

------
natural219
First of all: Excellent piece. Every time I read about Jessica Livingston I
inexplicably feel totally inadequate (in an inspiring way, don't worry :D).

Secondly, about Culture. The problem with talking about culture is that it's
too high-level of a model to have a conversation about and come out with
useful, applicable results. Several commenters here expressed a belief that
"culture = ping pong tables", or office naps, or not wearing suits or
something. They're not wrong -- the word "culture" can feasibly refer to those
things, but (I think) that's typically not what we talk about when we talk
about how important Culture is to startups.

I would like to read and hear about lower-level models of "Culture" that
really drive success. Here are some really bad examples of what I mean:
Clarity in speech, clear division of responsibility, product delivery / QA
process norms, onboarding processes, personal respect, etc.

You might not mean any of these things when you say "culture". I realize this
is an incredibly hard if not impossible task -- the whole reason we defer to
Culture is because its importance is matched only by its complexity. However,
given that it seems like such a ubiquitous and important factor for startup
success, I feel that progress in producing better startups can _only_ be made
by tackling this problem on the low-level.

------
rokhayakebe
As I am reading this, I wish YC had stayed smaller.

------
elmar
Jessica is YC secret weapon.

------
n72
""Softer" stuff like values, culture and community is often ignored by the
press, and more dangerously it's also sometimes ignored by founders."

Really? Seems to me that there are in fact far too many stories about ping
pong tables and nap times and such when it comes to startups.

[Edited to remove a comment which just wasn't necessary and was a bit ad
hominem.]

~~~
dcole2929
Ping pong tables and nap times do not equate to values, culture or community.
Sure they can be tangentially related but that's about it. These are surface
level features that do very little to describe the "Softer" stuff that
actually matters.

------
aceperry
Since I discovered yc, I've really enjoyed all of the articles, advice, and
debates that came from them. The more I learn about their history and culture,
the more impressed I get. Jessica Livingston's post has increased my
appreciation for yc even more as I realize how much they've done for founders
and vcs. Excellent article!

------
thomaspun
One thing I told others about why YC is unique: Although technically they are
our investors, they are more like parents which you could always go back no
matter what shitty situation you have got yourself into. We were one of the
last few batches with the original YC team and Jessica always had a way to
cheer you up during weekly dinner.

------
elmar
Jessica currently only scans 20% of YC candidates, so who is doing the "social
radar" on the other 80%?

~~~
herdrick
Good question, but that's the culture that's she's talking about having
created. Although no one else has such good radar, everyone is at least paying
attention to these matters.

------
elmar
Culture is probably the single most important factor on the outcome of any
organization.

------
brayton
If keeping the family aspect is an important goal, why not stay on a smaller
scale? Why feel the need to go to 100+ per batch? With your metaphor of being
Mom, can you know the names of 2000+ children?

~~~
clay_to_n
Because the benefits of more founders presumably outweigh the loss of
intimacy. I also think she mentioned "do things that don't scale" in the
article (if she didn't someone did in the comments) - if you build an
incubator where you treat 20 founders like family, when you get to 1000
founders you will still be trying to do that.

------
mikeucb
I agree completely. You can't overvalue the culture at a startup, and that
each startup has its own culture.

------
herdrick
I enjoyed reading this more than maybe anything ever on HN. Thanks, Jessica.

------
gailees
Culture can't be duplicated.

~~~
dragonwriter
Culture is precisely a set of transmitted patterns of behavior; how to
engineer a duplication of culture may be a difficult challenge that needs to
be solved on a case-by-case basis and which lacks a simple, general solution,
but "culture can't be duplicated" is untrue.

------
pskittle
is this her recent conference talk in a blogpost?

~~~
dkyc
Yep, as mentioned at the bottom. _" (This post was derived from the talk I
gave at Y Combinator's Female Founders Conference in 2015.)"_

------
untilHellbanned
This is a quite braggy post by someone who claims to dislike bragging. Lots of
"I did this".

> Before Y Combinator, character had not traditionally been an important
> factor for investors.

Really, before 2005 social factors had nothing to do with people giving each
other money?...Really?

Comical generalizations and an absurdly ironic level of grandiosity on display
here.

~~~
onion2k
_Really, before 2005 social factors had nothing to do with people giving each
other money?...Really?_

Yes.

I was a developer for companies that raised money in the late 90s/early 2000s,
and I can absolutely assure you that the decision to invest was driven by
slidedecks and financial models _far_ more than personalities and the social
abilities of founders. If you could write a good business plan with all the
right keywords you could raise an early round even if you were a total
sociopath with no clue what you were doing.

That's not to suggest there was anything actually wrong with that. People
hadn't invested in SaaS businesses before because they didn't exist. No one
really knew what was necessary for success. The personality of the founder or
their ability to _sell_ wasn't considered important. People thought that
"Build it, they will come" was a viable route to market. The shift to
investing in companies that have a good culture driven by interesting,
exciting founders is something that investors learned relatively slowly.

------
jnem
Im going to offer this info without comment: The first thing I check for when
reading a blog article like this is Ctrl+ f " I ". The word "I" was stated 42
times in this post. Compare this to someone like Paul Graham's blog, who
averages around 5-10 "I's" per article.

------
eaxitect
My own two cents: it's a very unfortunate blog post.

1) As mentioned few times here, "cultural variations" can not be handled as
such, unless you have a special training on this -which I don't read so -.

2) It's totally a back pusher on applicants, if someone says "I see through
you, and tell if you're evil", I say, "no thanks, have a nice day with your
corporate culture". Indeed, I'm not considering to apply YC with this
attitude. (Therefore, I'm not good, possibly caught by JL-radar)

3) Regarding 2, I think YC became too picky, so they're starting to sound
these -nonsense- ideas to cutoff pouring applications.

I miss PG's guidance.

