
I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA - sama
YC applications for Winter 2017 are due a week from today and I like to answer questions about applying to YC.<p>I&#x27;m also happy to answer questions about anything else!<p>EDIT: Going to bed; thanks everyone!
======
kriro
Could you outline the exact reasoning why YC still believes SV is the place to
be for a startup. I've never heard any explanation that went deeper than "well
investors are there and network duh"

It seems very broken that IT specifically should be bound to a physical place.
Are there any plans to innovate in this regard or any research YC is doing?

~~~
pritambarhate
This is discussed in the book "The Industries of the Future" by Alec Ross. He
asks a question: Why can not other countries replicate SV?

The short version is accumulation of know-how in that geographic region. For
years, most of the brilliant minds in the tech domain from all over the world
have gone to SV to collaborate together. So even if another country creates a
replication of SV in terms of infrastructure (or even gives tax breaks and
other incentives), it's hard to recreate the huge pool of bright professionals
who have years of know-how to tackle startup related challenges.

~~~
djb_hackernews
I didn't read the book but that is entirely too simplistic and comes across as
american exceptionalism to me. Not to mention the author has a well defined
political agenda to sell I don't necessarily agree with.

I've lived all over the country and all over the world and between countries
I'd say it is 100% cultural.

In "europe" employee protection laws make it difficult to quickly hire and
fire employees, making it difficult to scale.

In Chile failure was shameful. A stable bureaucratic government job was the
most coveted job.

In Japan you are a social outcast if you aren't a company man.

I found quite a bit of entrepreneurial effort in west Africa, however I think
that area lacks the required infrastructure to support large scale innovation.

I don't buy the concentration argument within the US borders. The bay area has
a population of 7M, the greater NYC area has a population of 20M. Purely based
on population numbers it is difficult to believe the bay area has a higher
concentration of educated people.

~~~
yuhong
>In "europe" employee protection laws make it difficult to quickly hire and
fire employees, making it difficult to scale.

And IMO US anti-discrimination laws are also flawed. I think a good compromise
is to only include certain kinds of jobs like manual labor under employment
anti-discrimination laws.

~~~
npiazza83
How do you believe they are flawed? I hear this most often from people who
have heard rumor or trash news from America and they think American companies
have Affirmative Action "quotas" where they have to hire a certain number of
people of each ethnic background. This is false.

Though quotas have been outlawed in the United States, the European Union has
had a recent push to punish companies whose boards aren't composed of at least
40% women. And India, Brazil and Malaysia, among other countries, have laws
and policies that address affirmative action in schools and throughout
society.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/business/global/18iht-
boar...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/business/global/18iht-
boards18.html)

There are lots of anti-discrimination laws in the US. While affirmative action
is usually spoken of in general terms, there is no singular policy or
implementation of the ways in which affirmative action take shape in
government organizations, colleges and corporations. It varies.

Court cases continue to refine interpretations of how race is used at the
university level. Some schools have experimented with a variety of ways of
non-race-based models, like the Top 10 model that the University of Texas
employs, to ensure the racial diversity of students.

A 2005 study by Princeton sociologists Thomas J. Espenshade and Chang Y. Chung
compared the effects of affirmative action on racial and special groups at
three highly selective private research universities. The data from the study
represent admissions disadvantage and advantage in terms of SAT points (on the
old 1600-point scale):

Whites (non-recruited athlete/non-legacy status): 0 (control group) Blacks:
+230 Hispanics: +185 Asians: –50 Recruited athletes: +200 Legacies (children
of alumni): +160

In 2009, Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade and researcher Alexandria
Walton Radford, in their book No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal, examined data
on students applying to college in 1997 and calculated that Asian-Americans
needed nearly perfect SAT scores of 1550 to have the same chance of being
accepted at a top private university as whites who scored 1410 and African
Americans who got 1100.

While the data and legal interpretation of Affirmative Action and anti-
discrimination laws in the US are constantly changing today it has the largest
real impact on Universities and Government.

~~~
yuhong
The problem is how these laws are enforced. For example, statistics and
performance reviews are often used, which probably do work fine for manual
labor jobs where employees are treated as a commodity (and for which these
laws were probably originally designed for). Affirmative action BTW is not a
good idea either, but not bad enough to outlaw IMO.

~~~
npiazza83
You mean expensive lawsuits? That is true. Everyone in America is filing
expensive lawsuits all the time especially if you own a business the first
hire you must make is a good lawyer.

I don't see how this is related to discrimination specifically?

If your problem is too many lawsuits why don't you mention hot coffee at
McDonalds? Or the problem with drivers causing accidents and suing in China?

[http://www.ibtimes.com/china-arrests-7-faking-car-crashes-
cl...](http://www.ibtimes.com/china-arrests-7-faking-car-crashes-claim-life-
insurance-dead-cancer-patients-1930665)

~~~
yuhong
Things like car crashes for example leave evidence by definition. There are
many ways discrimination can occur, not all of which leave evidence.

------
mieko
I've been running an east-coast-but-middle-of-nowhere startup, primarily
implemented by myself, and self-funded, with the occasional with help of
random one-off contractors in the hospitality/IoT space for two years now.
Basically during off-hours from a (pretty successful) day job in a non-tech
company I started years ago.

My choke point has always been finding another technical-minded parter that
gets the industry. Every time I've seen the YC application season roll around,
I've thought it'd be a perfect fit for applying to YC, with the connections
and clout that come with it. What's stopped me, even at my half-assed pace,
was the chance of the huge ego/momentum hit of getting rejected, considering
it's still a labor of love (although profitable).

I have a handful of customers that are already paying monthly for "The Vision
Lite" at discounted prices: just enough for me to continue development. But
larger competitors are sure to move more aggressively into the area over the
next year or so, before my current trajectory can deliver on the "this is Star
Trek-level shit" experience I've got planned. I'm sure I can grow my customer
base at a moderate rate, but I'm not sure I can keep up once the field gets
serious against better-funded competitors.

Where do you think the tipping point is between the Basecamp-style "Just get
profitable, stay profitable, and move forward" model vs. "Take VC money and
turn a two-year schedule into a six months, and get entrenched while you can?"
(Fred Brooks notwithstanding)

~~~
sama
One of the most important life skills is to get good at taking rejection and
failure and then picking yourself back up and continuing.

If you are going to run a big company, far, far worse things will come your
way than a YC rejection. Try again. And again. And again.

Giving up too early is one of the biggest causes of failure I know.

In terms of the two models--it really depends on your company and market, and
what you want to do.

~~~
CardenB
Hey Sam,

What's the difference between being persistent and wasting time? I'm curious
as to where you draw the line.

~~~
wojt_eu
Seth Godin wrote a book on the subject [https://www.amazon.com/Dip-Little-
Book-Teaches-Stick/dp/1591...](https://www.amazon.com/Dip-Little-Book-Teaches-
Stick/dp/1591841666)

~~~
karimdag
Have you read this book? If so, how good is it?

~~~
tomhoward
The most important book I've ever read.

Thanks to having read that book before I started my startup, that startup has
now become two thriving companies in a highly challenging market, and I've
figured out some methods of overcoming major personal challenges, that could
turn out to be hugely valuable to many other people, once I'm ready share
them.

I'm still working through my own dip, but had I not read that book I'd have
quit very early on and would likely be living a pretty mundane existence.

It's a short book, but an invaluable one.

------
davemel37
It seems half these questions are from Single Founders. Considering YC's
interest in experimenting with who and what they fund...

Has YC ever considered a class of only single founders and trying to solve the
problems YC anticipates with single founder startups (i.e. emotional support,
etc...)

It seems to me that the demand is there, and the potential for single founders
to succeed is certainly possible... why not experiment putting together a
track that "fills in the blanks" for singe founders much the way YC does with
legal and accounting for startups to get started.

Edit: I recognize the signaling issue of not being able to convince a
cofounder to join, etc... but sometimes signals are just noise.

~~~
sama
What we've thought about the most is creating a better way for potential
cofounders to meet each other.

~~~
w1ntermute
Do you think it's usually possible for two potential cofounders who don't
already know one another to sufficiently evaluate one another quickly enough
to start a company together in the short term (say, less than 3 months)?

There seem to be similar challenges to creating a scalable solution for
finding an SO/spouse (another unsolved problem).

~~~
snowwrestler
There are precedents for quickly building trust among people who don't know
each other.

For example a mountaineering class at the National Outdoor Leadership School
puts students who don't know each other, and might not know anything about
climbing, into serious high-mountain situations for a month. At the end of the
class, groups of students head off on "small group expeditions" for a few days
without instructors. NOLS has an excellent safety record and students often
form strong friendships.

The military is another institution that takes people who don't know each
other and quickly forms bonds of trust and mutual understanding to perform
under very serious conditions.

Granted--those are carefully managed situations where the people are facing
shared challenges. But maybe that's what YC would need to create in order to
foster an environment in which founders can build strong enough relationships
to feel comfortable building companies together.

~~~
w1ntermute
Building trust is one component, but it's equally important to explore whether
you're compatible with your cofounder (or SO) across a wide range of emotions
and circumstances. There are people I personally know pretty well who I trust
but don't think I'm very compatible with. They might be great advisors or
board members, but I wouldn't want them as a cofounder.

Like you said, in a constrained environment like the military, it might be
possible to achieve this in a short period of time through deliberate actions.
I'm not sure how much that approach would prepare potential cofounders, since
they're going to be operating in a much more ambiguous and freeform
environment.

~~~
snowwrestler
NOLS is probably a better model than the military.

------
leroy_masochist
Do you plan to allow future YC teams to attend the program remotely, or with a
greatly reduced expectation of spending time in Mountain View?

I get that SV is a great place to start a startup, all things being equal. But
there are a lot of great opportunities that are 8-12 time zones away. And
leaving your customers alone for 3 months -- especially if you are trying to
grow rapidly during those 3 months -- sounds very risky. Additionally, the
money spent living in SV for three months could otherwise be spent on working
capital; this is extra true in developing markets where costs are lower.

In the absence of a formal policy change re: moving to SV for 3 months, would
you be willing to extend a bit more leeway for founders who really want to get
their companies into YC but don't want to spend too much time away from the
customers they're trying to please?

~~~
sama
We have discussed trying a remote group through the YC batch. Although we're
all varying degrees of skeptical, I think it's worth a try.

As you point out, there are (some) good reasons that MV doesn't make sense,
like your customers being very far away. That said, it's only three months.

~~~
pchiusano
I think it can be tough to move to SV for someone who is married with kids.
That is what has stopped me from applying, and I have definitely thought about
creative ways I could make it work logistically. :)

~~~
snowwrestler
I honestly believe that YC is looking for a particular sort of founder:
someone who will put their company 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in their life in order to
create explosive growth and maybe change the world.

Just running a profitable business is not enough for them. They only want
startups that have a chance to be grand-slam home runs. Paul Graham has
written about this before.

The requirement to live there for 3 months is a useful filter for finding that
type of founder. It eliminates people who might want to have something else
(like their kids) in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd slot.

I don't expect YC to ever say that out loud though.

~~~
pchiusano
People with families can certainly be successful entrepreneurs and create
companies with "explosive growth that maybe change the world". (It kinda came
across like you were implying that founders with families were mostly only
interested in "lifestyle businesses".)

There are so many factors that contribute to success, and they are never all
equal, so any sort of up-front filtering based on some factor you think is
correlated with success is going to miss out on people. And besides, I would
strongly dispute any arguments that having a family is like some sort of
handicap that must be overcome. In a lot of ways, I think having a family is a
BETTER situation for starting a company!

My impression from reading YC's stuff is more that folks feel the value of the
program comes to a large degree from the in-person interactions people have,
so it makes sense to require people to be there in person.

Related, there's this scene from Moneyball, [1] that I love. They're all
sitting around, discussing all this stuff that is at best tangentially related
to _the actual things that matter_ for success of the team. It's very tempting
and natural bias to latch on to this or that factor which you've become
convinced makes a difference "all else being equal". But all else is never
equal, and the question that is actually important is more the one Billy Beane
keeps asking: "Yeah, but can he hit?"

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWgyy_rlmag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWgyy_rlmag)

~~~
snowwrestler
I don't think it's families specifically, it's just commitment in general.

It's certainly possible that a parent could find a way to be away from their
kids for 3 months, if they are sufficiently committed. Happens in the military
all the time.

My guess is that if a person is not willing or able to figure that out, YC is
not interested in them. It's not like it is hard for them to find applicants,
and they don't need to be fair or accommodating.

To be clear, this is just my speculation, and I don't think it's the sole
reason.

------
watermoose
Sam, thanks for taking the time to talk with us. I hope it's ok, but I've got
a few questions about something not directly related to YC applications.

As a middle-aged developer, I've seen a lot in my lifetime, but I believe that
right now, even though in some ways I'm much more hopeful for the future than
I've ever been, I feel like there are many huge time-bombs out there in the
world that make focusing on a startup just to have a chance to become
financially successful a petty and, for some, a possibly futile ordeal.

For example: political divisiveness/change/chaos, scary world leaders and
potential world leaders discussing/threatening/testing nuclear weapons, wars
for and against religions involving terror, causing mass death, spawning
racism and restricted freedoms, other random shootings/acts of violence,
discord and violence between people that are racially targeted and those who
want to serve the public to protect people regardless of their race, terrible
diseases/epidemics some without cures or growing resistance to cures that
we've long depended on, weather related natural disasters, economic troubles,
etc. The list goes on and on.

Given the climate of the world today and all of our problems, what things do
you want to see- not just in the startups that you and/or YC as a whole want
to help, but across the board? And what do you say to those that think that
just don't feel safe enough to invest the time, money, and effort on a startup
which has a greater chance of failure than success when they could just be
working a stable job to try to save enough to survive what is ahead?

~~~
sama
You raise very good points.

The future will either be great or terrible--I think an intermediate outcome
is unlikely. I think it's a super exciting time to be alive, but I feel the
shared sense of responsibility most others do to do everything I can to get
safely through the other side.

I understand the desire to save enough for a scary world ahead, and I think
it's prudent to do that. Beyond, that, if you're nervous about these things,
probably the most satisfying and reassuring thing you could do is figure out
how to use your talents to maximize the chance of the a good outcome.

~~~
nradov
Intermediate outcomes have predominated through most of human history. Why do
you think it's different this time?

~~~
tim333
I think it's human nature to see things as a drama - we're doomed or happy
every after. If you look at the stats mediocrity is more usual.

------
kinkora
You (and by extension YC) always seem to mostly focus on the success stories
of the alumni/group. Have you or will you consider talking about the failures?
If you can't do it, is there a reason why?

~~~
sama
We do try to talk about this but should talk about it more.

It turns out that most people (and certainly most journalists) want to talk
about/write about the success cases.

I'll think about how to best do this.

~~~
hkyeti
A homejoy post mortem would be a good place to start given it was used a
positive case study in a bunch of talks etc

~~~
josephjrobison
Yes I've been fascinated by their story for some reason, especially since
Handy has far worse ratings and seems to still be eeking along.

------
allenleein
Hi Sam, in interview with Elon Musk, you asked him 'Do you think people that
want to be useful today should get PhDs?' Elon: Mostly not.

Here are my questions:

1\. Do you think people need to get a PhD degree to become useful research
scientist in AI industry?

2\. Do you think people need to get a PhD degree to become Member of Technical
Staff (Machine Learning) in Open AI?

Thank you.

~~~
sama
1\. No

2\. Definitely not!

~~~
rafaquintanilha
How much advantage (if any) you estimate a person holding this degree will
have over other that doesn't? In short, although you said it's not necessary,
do you think it's worthy?

------
40acres
Have founders successfully applied to YC with just an idea? A "hey I think
this would be cool, here's some data with respect to the market but I don't
have a product"?

If not, what would you need to see from an application with no product to be
accepted into YC?

If so, what was about that application that made you believe in them so much?

------
bfrog
My hardest decision in the past has often been when to decide a startup has
failed and its time to move on. Having seen many startups both succeed and
fail you're in a unique position to perhaps give some strong opinions on this.
Do you have any sort of timelines/guidelines you like to look at as a gauge of
success and when it's time to double down or dump it off the side and try
again?

~~~
sama
You should give up when no one loves what you're building and you're out of
ideas about how to make it better.

------
anexprogrammer
Two related questions.

It's known YC prefers teams. Do you have a preferred shape or size for the
team (2 tech, 1 marketing, or 1 tech, 1 web, 1 marketing and business etc); is
any combination shown to be more likely to succeed within YC?

How do you view teams too heavy on tech? It's common for a group of tech
people to have the idea, but as a team have some gaps on say the marketing
side, and probably other areas.

A startup I was involved in, years ago, lacked much depth in sales and
marketing. Filling that gap was a _nightmare._ Candidates would happily talk
out of their hat, claim allsorts they didn't have, and those we trialled
failed hard then invent no end of "reasons" why it's working perfectly.
Suddenly recruiting programmers was easy!

Even people we've known in this area suffered from at least some of these
habits, sometimes meaning it's a case of "nice guy, don't trust him as co
founder". Made it hard to resolve, so the least worst techie got stuck with
site copy etc.

No surprise, I've learnt much more about online marketing since those days. :)

~~~
sama
No particular shape, but in general we'd rather see it be overweight tech.

If no one on the team is good or is willing to get good at sales and
'business', that's a problem.

~~~
neurotech1
Have you seen a startup team that is "overweight" non-tech actually be
successful?

eg. 3 sales and business, one tech/developer

~~~
jayjay71
AirBnB

------
tmatthewj
Most recent startups from India backed by YC seem to be solving problems
within the country. Examples - Razorpay - Stripe for India, Kisan Network -
Online Agriculture marketplace in India, Innov8 - Co-working spaces for Indian
startups. Is that relevant when YC looks at an application that comes from an
Indian startup / co-founders? We could generalise the question by replacing
India with developing economies with good infrastructural problems to solve.

How would an Indian startup trying to build a global product primarily for the
U.S / Europe market fit into the scheme of things?

~~~
sama
We'd be delighted to fund an Indian company trying to build something for the
entire world.

My general criticism of non-US startups (this is very general and there are
important exceptions) is that too many are building the <<US Company>> for
<<home country>>.

I think it's more exciting to build something brand new that someone in the US
will copy.

------
cannabis_sam
What is your view on income inequality?

Do you think the start-up structure of running a business could increase or
decrease income inequality (and what do you consider beneficial?)

~~~
sama
I think it's a consequence of technology but a real challenge for society. I
think the right goal is probably to eliminate poverty--conceptually, I like
the idea of a guaranteed floor but no ceiling.

I'm very interested in basic income and we're running a large experiment on
it. If that doesn't work we have some other ideas.

~~~
bottled_poe
> I like the idea of a guaranteed floor but no ceiling

Raising that floor seems like it would simply devalue the dollar. I'm not sure
how having no ceiling helps the situation.

~~~
Liron
Raising the floor logically implies redistributing real wealth to the poor
from the non-poor, but implies nothing about the value of a dollar.

~~~
bottled_poe
It seems to me that prices and wages would rise as a result of raising the
floor. The important question is where the money comes from to raise the
floor. If it is not from the top end, the gap between rich and poor doesn't
change in terms of actual buying power. It may just widen the gap.

~~~
geogra4
It doesn't have to be strictly money, but services -- ie a guaranteed level of
basic food, housing, education and medical care for all.

------
EGreg
We applied many times in the last 5 years, since launching our company (Qbix).
Every time we go through the application process, it seems we've grown. Our
main app is now about to break 4 million downloads and we've tripled our
revenue this year and talking to VCs.

Does it make sense to keep applying to YC, given our size now? From what I
understand, we got rejected every time because our equity split is around
80-20, which makes us more like a single-founder company. We would have liked
to be part of YC but if YC strongly prefers not to consider single-founder
companies then we would save time and not apply.

------
hashnsalt
What visa do international founders apply for when they are selected to join
YC? And those who decide to stay in the US and establish their startup here
after the 3-month time period, what immigration options do they have?

~~~
sama
It depends on the particular situation for each founder--people we fund apply
for lots of different visas.

We try to help as much as we can.

------
ikeboy
I'm a solo founder, technical but my prototype website was built by someone
else. The main part of my idea isn't technical (in the sense that Amazon
wasn't technical when it first started).

What should I know about applying based on that?

Also, for the competitors question, should I put a list of 15-20 names I made,
or choose the top 3 or so?

Finally: I may be able to launch within the next few days. Should I try to
launch and wait to apply until I have launch data, or should I apply now? (The
nature of the startup is consumer facing and I think I can gain some traction
within the first week.)

~~~
sama
That's ok--at least you're taking action. We'll probably have some questions
about how you'll develop the in-house technical talent you'll eventually need.

Top 3.

Wait to apply until you have launch data if you think it will be significant
(but still apply before the deadline, the bar for late apps is definitely
higher).

------
pfarnsworth
What is the oldest age for a founder that you have accepted for YC?

~~~
sama
Early 70s.

~~~
mdasm
That's awesome! Male or female? As an older(40+) female single founder in
EdTech, I find it very difficult to attract investment and so have others with
the same profile as me. How should we approach fund raising?

~~~
tim333
I'm guessing it's John Slough of Helion
[http://www.helionenergy.com/?page_id=704](http://www.helionenergy.com/?page_id=704)

------
stevens32
You've mentioned that you look for solo founders to show above all that
they're effective - what would be a good metric for that? Is being able to
push out an MVP and getting the first handful of users seen as being
effective? Is the bar a lot higher?

~~~
sama
That's a very good initial step.

------
hindsightbias
Does the YC Group provide any psychological counseling/guidance/referals for
attendees? Does it feel any responsibility to?

~~~
buechs
yep, i do this for yc!

just like the rest of yc, taking care of yourself and your cofounder
relationship is DIY but we offers resources to help. i'm an executive coach
(with a specialty in startup founders) and our founders book office hours with
me when they need support around managing stress/anxiety, troubleshooting
conflict in difficult relationships (with cofounders, investors, loved ones,
etc), communicating effectively, and generally thriving on the roller coaster
of startup founderdom.

i also provide referrals to therapists and coaches when necessary. it depends
on what the founder's looking for and what they need.

i'm happy to answer any other questions you have about this.

~~~
Kevin_S
Hi, I am so incredibly interested in this. I always liked the idea of being an
executive coach, it seems so fascinating. And the idea of doing that for YC
founders sounds awesome!

My first thought after reading this was that it may be kind of like being a
resident advisor. I was an RA for Freshman in undergrad, and found it very
rewarding helping students make the transition to a college lifestyle.
Although this has a bit higher stakes, working with young founders likely
isn't very fundamentally different.

How do I get your job?

------
r0naa
Why are you primarily looking for >billion dollars startups?

I would wager that if you take a look at an accurate distribution of markets
according to potential you would find a magnitude more small/average markets
(that are untapped) than billion dollars ones. And similarly, I suspect that
the success rate for those "boring" ventures is much higher than the exciting
shiny rising stars.

Question: Why not optimize for companies that are certainly not going to
become Airbnbs but will capture the full value of an averagely sized market
(say between 50 and 300 millions)? And if my guess is correct and they end-up
eating a lot less resources than the soon-to-be-unicorns, you could even
optimise for volume.

Is the pay-off (wrt. to the energy spent and success rate) for unicorns really
worth it?

~~~
sama
1) This is where effectively all of our returns come from.

2) These companies are the most fun to work with.

3) It turns out that it's harder than it sounds to capture the full value of a
smaller market for a bunch of reasons, and so the failure rate is much higher
than expected.

I think the payoff, at least in our case, is well worth it.

~~~
r0naa
>3) It turns out that it's harder than it sounds to capture the full value of
a smaller market for a bunch of reasons, and so the failure rate is much
higher than expected.

What kind of reasons? Direct me to some resources if there are too many to
enumerate

~~~
dmux
I'm interested in this as well. Doesn't this go against Rob Walling's advice
in "Start Small Stay Small" as well as Peter Thiel's advice in "Zero to One"?

~~~
danenania
I read Peter Thiel's advice as being more along the lines of finding a small
beachhead that you can conquer to get started, then using that as a base to
push into a big market.

------
xzion
Any tips/examples on trying to sell a product that provides ethical/moral
benefits but very little/nothing financially?

Some friends and I were throwing around ideas on how to eliminate scalping, a
practice we get bitten by. We came up with some solutions that might work, but
they don't provide any financial gain for event organisers so I couldn't see
them going for it.

~~~
ikeboy
You eliminate scalping by charging market prices, so there's no opportunity.
Charging less is just a gift to the middlemen. (If you want to give that gift
to the people who actually come, charge more and give a rebate inside the
event, so scalpers can't collect it.)

Not sure how you're conceptualizing this that makes scalpers harmful, could
you elaborate?

~~~
xzion
I understand that this is an economics problem; the ($5b?) market exists
because there is significantly more demand than supply and ticket prices are
not adjusted to accommodate this imbalance. Why that's the case I'm not sure.
Perhaps that's another avenue to investigate for solving the problem but not
what I had in mind (partly because I like affordable tickets).

Seeing scalpers as harmful is definitely an emotional response. Popular events
go on sale at a set time and set price, with "equal" opportunity for any fan
to get a ticket. Scalpers claim significant amounts of the tickets and resell
them at 200-1000% of the face value. My friends and I often miss out on
tickets only to see hundreds available on third party resale sites. It also
enables ticket scammers which are a huge problem as well. Many music artists
and sports teams are very outspoken about their disappointment with the
industry, die hard fans waiting at the gate miss out while the person with the
most cash gets in. While I can appreciate the scalpers are taking advantage of
an economic opportunity, I can't help but view them as the scum of the earth
and would have no issue with eliminating their practice.

~~~
ikeboy
The scheme I described above leads to affordable tickets, it's basically a way
of enforcing nontransferability.

But at its core, disgust with scalpers implies preference for a non Kaldor
Hicks optimal world.

If someone is willing to pay $X for a ticket, and you're only willing to pay
$Y<$X, it is non optimal for you to get a ticket if you'd sell your ticket for
less than $X.

There's no way around that fundamental fact. At some point, if there are more
people who want tickets than tickets, some process needs to determine who gets
them, and wishful thinking doesn't help anyone.

~~~
xzion
I don't understand how your suggestion enforces non-transferability. If the
scalper pay $100 for a ticket and the ticket holder receives a $50 rebate at
the event, the scalper just adds $50 to the price they resell at.

Like I said, I understand the problem exists because of the economics. But
there's nothing to stop us from building a system that enforces non-
transferability (through identification), and preventing resale of tickets at
increased prices by third parties. It just doesn't add any value for event
organisers to use this new system.

~~~
ikeboy
You need to show id to redeem the rebate, but not to get in. Effectively
enforcing a fee for transferring that's equal to the subsidy.

------
ne01
What do you think about bootstrapped startups like Basecamp, Wildbit and
Campaign Monitor?

------
danielonco
How important is for YC founders to be ethical in a world that cares mostly
about financial success, profit margins, exponential growth, etc? Think
Theranos, Zenefits et al.

~~~
sama
[https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/](https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/)

~~~
clydethefrog
So the answer is not that much - as long as it doesn't damage the image of YC
it's okay.

~~~
forgottenpass
And the points listed seemed to be about maintaining productive working
relationships among colleagues - not ethics.

Funny choice of topic for an ethics page.

------
nabiha_zahra
Let's say someone is a fresh college dropout and wants to focus on learning
programming and start a startup, and apply to YC Summer 2017 in March. What
advice do you have on how to go about that?

~~~
sama
Well, my biggest piece advice is not to do a startup unless you have a
particular idea you really think needs to happen.

But if you want an answer other than that:

Start learning programming tonight. There are a lot of tools online, and it
takes awhile. While you're doing that, start making an active effort to notice
problems in the world.

------
rexreed
Given YC's increasing more social and larger-world problem solving focus, is
being Silicon Valley-centric still a core goal of YC? Are you planning on
coming back to the East Coast?

~~~
sama
The East Coast is not the first place I'd go to find more people who want to
focus on solving larger problems. If anything, I think I'd probably go further
west...

~~~
breck
interesting ellipsis. is there a yc china coming soon?

~~~
mattnewton
I'd say India, but either would be exciting.

------
konas
What order do you look at an application -- is the video last?

~~~
sama
Video first, then the questions about the founders, then the idea, then the
traction/revenue, then everything else.

~~~
giarc
Is this specifically your order, or does everyone review in that order?

~~~
sama
We all use different orders.

------
zeeshanm
Does the likelihood of getting into YC increases after you have been rejected
five times consecutively?

 _serious question_

~~~
sama
I don't think it increases or decreases. We've had companies get in after 5
rejections and sometimes do badly and sometimes do really well.

The negative signal for us is you apply 5 times in a row without anything
improving or changing.

------
davidw
How much investment money is simply "transferred" to local landlords in the
bay area?

Any ideas how your 'YC cities' thing is going to look?

~~~
sama
I shudder to imagine. It's a real problem with the system.

Not yet.

~~~
mathattack
This is also why retail is such a bad investment. As soon as an area is hot,
the landlords capture all the value. (And why Kmart became a real estate play
rather than retail)

------
nabiha_zahra
What do you look for/like to see in a solo founder application? What makes you
believe that someone could be successful as a solo founder?

~~~
sama
For solo founders, I look for extra evidence that the person is really
effective, ideally on this particular startup but if not then previously in
their career.

It's harder to be effective as a solo founder, so the burden of proof is
higher.

------
aestetix
I see a lot of companies being advised to focus exclusively on user growth,
but many have no business model and must eventually make serious compromises,
often at their users' expense, to succeed. How often would you say companies
are able to tack on a profitable business model after the fact without making
such compromises?

Twitter seems to be the example du jou, but there are many.

------
cjhanks
How important is technical defensibility? On one extreme I could have a
technically sophisticated product with a poor user experience. On the other,
an off the shelf software catalog with great user experience. Ideally you have
both... Realistically it is difficult given time constraints. Where does one
settle for success?

~~~
sama
What's important to us is business defensibility.

Sometimes the way to get that is with a user experience. Sometimes with
technology. Often it's something else entirely. It really depends on the
company.

------
ttam
What is your opinion today on cryptocurrencies and how big was the decline in
Bitcoin/Ethereum startup applications?

Do you feel the YC partners are mainly bullish or bearish irt
cryptocurrencies?

~~~
sama
The decline has been pretty precipitous.

I'm still fairly bullish myself and hold a lot of bitcoin. I think this is a
far, far better time to go long bitcoin or start a bitcoin company than 2014,
for many reasons including that the hype is gone.

------
spynxic
Do individuals have the opportunity to participate in funding start-ups via
YC? If so, what type of minimum requirements exist for getting started?

If not then how quickly can the [unrelated] problem below be solved,
algorithmically

Unrelated Problem: Given a set of numbers of length n, find a single rule that
can map each item x to the corresponding item x+1

~~~
sama
You can come to Demo Day and invest in YC startups there! Or did you mean
invest in YC itself?

~~~
aimo
Is it possible to invest in YC itself?

~~~
sama
Not yet but that would be interesting to offer some day.

~~~
baccredited
Please please please do this. I have invested in over 100 YC companies but my
only way to do so has been FundersClub, Angel.co, and WeFunder. I love those
guys but I would rather invest directly through YC. I am giving 20% to them
for no good reason (other than access).

------
fernandillo
Redomestication. We're based in spain with some public help in form of soft-
debt (very common in spanish startups). That makes slower the process of
redomestication, typically around 4 months. If chosen for YC, Is it possible
to create a parent company in US to give the x% for the YC investment? Tnx!

------
marlonmisra
Do you plan to release more details about common visa/immigration issues and
how Y Combinator helps with them?

------
foobarqux
Without mentioning what was actually discussed, do you think the Bilderberg
conference results in significant actions/effects in the real world?

~~~
sama
I enjoyed attending and I thought many of the conversations were interesting.

The format is just discussions. Some of them changed my mind about things,
many didn't. No direct actions come out of it, but hopefully there are some
benefits to smart people sharing ideas.

------
ne01
I don't want to sound too arrogant but why should I apply if I think I can
succeed on my own?

~~~
sama
You should apply if you think the company will be worth ~7% more if you do YC
that it would be worth if you do it on your own.

If you could make a $10B company on your own, but doing YC could make it be a
$20B company, then it would obviously be well worth it.

~~~
the_watcher
This is a (sadly) very commonly misunderstood concept.

------
annerajb
Sam,

are the odds stacked against us if we have 5 founders? (EE, ME, EE, SW,
Sales/Business)

Also does a startup that can help reduce carbon emissions/move from something
that generates lots of emission classify under the energy section of request
for startup?

~~~
sama
Slightly against--we're not sure why it is, but 5 or 6 founder companies have
(with some notable exceptions) significantly underperformed our average.

~~~
daveguy
> we're not sure why

I expect it is early burn rate and simply getting too far ahead of your
potential income. Half the founders means twice the runway.

~~~
dcposch
Also much higher probability of founder drama

------
wcchandler
I want to be a farmer.

Is there a place for me in YCombinator?

(p.s. I have several other follow up questions I'd love to ask if you
entertain me with a response)

~~~
sama
If you want to be a farmer, why do you want to be in YC?

We are the best in the world at helping people be some things, but probably
not that :(

~~~
wcchandler
Not sure if rhetorical, so I appreciate the thought exercise and your approach
to a simple question.

If you were genuinely interested -- there's quite a few reasons why YC is
appealing but ultimately one thing sticks out.

Farming has a lot of potential for control and subsequently, abuse. You said
in a recent blog post -- if I can grow the product either better or cheaper
(talking about food/produce), I'll win. With current technologies and my
background and experience it seems very likely I will be successful.

YC is one of very few organizations that I trust to assist and embrace the
humanitarian responsibility of being a potential global leader.

In a nutshell.

~~~
mattkrisiloff
fwiw we've funded Iron Ox ([http://ironox.com/](http://ironox.com/)) --
they're basically farmers

------
polmersgh
Will you fund a startup that has no idea about monetizing, like AI research
companies?

~~~
sama
Only if the founders wanted to eventually monetize in the future.

If not, it would be more appropriate for something like YC Research, which is
a non-profit.

------
BillionaireBear
Hey. We received an email saying to reapply because we were in the top 10% for
the last cycle. In this case, what order do you look at the application? How
useful are alumni recommendations?

~~~
sama
The first thing I look at for people reapplying is still the video, but the
second is what has changed since the last application.

Alumni recommendations are useful if they're strong, but neutral or slightly
negative if they're weak. If someone isn't excited enough to give you an
independent recommendation with you asking, it's probably not worth
requesting.

~~~
BillionaireBear
Thanks Sama.

PS: if it's helpful to know. The diversity office hours convinced us to apply
last time. I hope you continue to do more!

------
LifeOfRio
What will be included in the Startup Class MOOC? How will the MOOC differ from
the previous Start-Up Class?

~~~
sama
I'm going to work on the course plan next month. It will hopefully be more
'hands-on' and like a YC batch.

~~~
LifeOfRio
Thanks Sam.. I think I have an idea of what it'll look like

------
GFischer
Are you planning on another project to fill the void left by the YC
Fellowship? Especially on the "a little funding" part, and the "remote" part.

I understand you have limited resources and that YC's core is focused on fast
growing companies, but some early-stage ideas/prototypes need a little help
before becoming something YC would accept (and, it looks to me, the bar is
higher every year).

The MOOC fills one part of the gap, but, will it enable promising students to
get some sort of funding?

~~~
sama
I think in future versions of the MOOC we will explore ways to give some
funding.

Though I think the answer to this is just to apply to YC. We fund lots of
very, very early companies all the time.

~~~
hashnsalt
Could you give examples of such companies that have stood out?

~~~
sama
A recent one that is top of mind because Chad just spoke at Startup School is
Rigetti Quantum Computing. He had nothing but an idea when YC funded him in
Summer 2014, and now is one of the leading QC companies in the world.

~~~
hashnsalt
I'd love to see a How to Build the Future episode about this and how Chad got
his start!

------
dietbacon
Hi Sam,

My cofounder and I don't live in the same country so we're each recording half
the video separately and then editing the pieces together. Does this affect us
negatively in any way?

~~~
sama
No, that's fine.

If you haven't spent significant time together in person, that's a red flag
for us, as we've found those teams often (usually, even) fall apart.

------
mazeway
How do you evaluate more technical startups like the one you mentioned:
Rigetti Quantum Computing. I assume one needs some theoretical quantum physics
knowledge to evaluate it.

~~~
sama
I generally have very broad but very shallow knowledge. It's helpful because I
can screen a lot of different kinds of companies very quickly. If I feel out
of my depth I usually know a smart person I can ask to go deep.

But one of the advantages of our model is mistakes of inclusion are cheap.

------
tonyabram
And thank you for the Playbook. This, along with cs183, is among main
materials of my life so far.

~~~
sama
Thank you for telling me!

------
tima101
Sam, thank you for working on a new online course. I think it will have a huge
impact.

For how many companies per batch, YC is a second accelerator? How many
companies have raised Seed round?

~~~
sama
Thanks!

I'd guess less than 10% are pre-accelerated.

A much larger percentage have raised some (usually a small amount, but not
always) capital.

------
CN7R
How does a college freshman get into startup culture without technical skills
learned in upper division classes?

Is working at a start up a viable path for college graduates or is it
recommended starting at a more established company?

Do you see Silicon Valley maintaining its dominance as a tech capital in
future decades or will there be better entrepreneur ecosystems?

Which industries are ripe for entrepreneurship? Like the automobile industry
at the moment has innovations of self-driving and electric energy source.

Thanks!

~~~
sama
Working at a startup is the right answer to your first question, and it's
definitely a viable path!

I expect the rest of the world will trend towards Silicon Valley. But I'm
biased.

To find industries ripe for new companies, look for places where technology is
causing a high rate of change.

~~~
CN7R
I really appreciate your answers as it solidifies my goals -- now if only I
can convince my mom to stop asking to go to medical school.

------
Jd
Do you really think that financially incentivizing voting will create good
downstream effects? Almost all ideas of civic duty are historically drawn from
non-financial incentives and the idea of attaching some financial incentive to
them potentially seems to further exacerbate a "pay to play" atmosphere that
is one of the reasons people (like myself) don't find it particularly
stimulating to participate in the present political climate.

~~~
danieltillett
Here in Australia we get a fine if we don’t turn up at the polling place and
have our name crossed off the list on election day. Of course this creates a
pool of voters (5-10%) who really don’t want to participate (these people
typically spoil their ballot by doing things like drawing a penis on the
ballot), but what this does do is keep a much larger section of the population
engaged in the political process.

What happens is that many people who don’t really care about politics most of
the time take notice in the last few weeks of an election campaign because
they know they will be voting. While not perfect, I think the good of
“compulsory voting” outweighs the negative.

~~~
Jd
Do you think the penalty works better than a positive incentive? i.e. if you
got $5 to vote or a 1 in 100 chance of $1000? Also, was the penalty introduced
in order to increase turnout? Is there any data on how it affected it,
including among which demographics?

~~~
danieltillett
Normally people give a higher weight to a loss than the equivalent positive
gain so I think fines should work better than a cash payment.

We have had the fine system since the 1920s so it is really hard to know how
it affects the political process. One thing it does do is get the turn out to
>95% (we also get a fine if we don’t register too).

One of the big positives is it takes away the decision of voting or not - it
is just one of those things like paying your taxes that you have to do.

------
draghu_1
1\. Where do you think the jobs in the software field will be after 10 years?
Currently, we can say that the jobs are in the web developer and mobile app
developers categories. Like that what would be the major category in software?
And what would be the future of web and mobile app developers if they know
nothing about machine learning now.

2\. In the competition of web vs mobile? What would be their state after 10
years? Will there be more native mobile apps or websites?

Thanks!

------
KeatonDunsford
Hey Sam. I'm considering applying with my nonprofit edtech startup (a new
crowdsourced education system that's peer-to-peer and mobile -- built around
software, like Watsi). I'm a solo-founder still currently building the MVP.

Quick question 1: Is there a "Delaware C Corp" equivalent for the
incorporation process/legal structures of nonprofits by state, or does it not
matter?

Real question: Is there something to be said about founders waiting until they
have users and initial growth to then use the YC opportunity to transition
towards growing their company? In other words, if a startup is only getting
one shot to go through YC, generally is finding initial product-market fit
harder, or is growing the company?

Granted, the latter can't happen without the former happening first. But it
would seem that for some founders that have genuine insights into real big
problems, it would suck to waste the opportuniy of YC just "checking the
boxes" of building their MVP, which they could know how to do already from
PG's essays/YC's blog/Startup Class -- whereas they could be getting genuine
advice on problems unique to their specific domain problem if they just waited
and applied later.

~~~
sama
QQ1: It does not matter.

RQ: In general I think waiting is a mistake, except that you should wait long
enough to have a good idea about what you're going to do.

------
thekevinsu
what is YC's stance on cannabis related startups that take the plant?

~~~
sama
We've funded several cannabis companies. Some YC partners are customers.

------
jondubois
Does YC ever plan to open a new office/branch in another country (not the US)?

~~~
sama
Yes I expect we will, but haven't figured out details yet.

------
pan_w
I'm working on a startup that provides live remote video assistant as a
service and we piggy backs off of existing technology platforms (FaceTime,
Hangouts, Skype) rather than building the tech ourselves for the meantime.

Do you prefer that companies have their own technology or is it okay that a
company utilizes existing platforms in the beginning?

My team consist of CS and ME/EE.

It's PokeBin.com if you wanted more information.

~~~
sama
It's usually a good idea to leverage other platforms, at least as the start,
as long as you're not entirely dependent on one.

------
Det_Jacobian
I'm 27 and I've cofounded only one company in a lifestyle industry (video
games). Despite being nearish the top of my particular field, I don't have a
PhD in a relevant field like AI. Games are hard in that they are very
competitive, but we're not exactly curing cancer.

How behind am I, assuming my primary goal is maximizing positive impact on the
world?

~~~
sama
You are 27. Hard to imagine you'd be behind in anything.

But no reason to delay in making the impact you want.

------
Yinka_Adepoju
What do you think about younger people under 18 applying to YCombinator?

~~~
sama
At least one founder has to be 18 or older, otherwise no one can sign the
legal documents. But we've funded teams with 15, 16, or 17 year olds on them
before.

------
ckehoe
If one of our 3 co-founders (CTO), is in a different state right now, should
we still include him in our application video?

~~~
sama
Yes.

~~~
ckehoe
Awesome. Thanks for the reply

------
nodesocket
Sam... Do you think bootstrapped companies, where founders want to build a
"lifestyle" business and not raise capital can compete and be successful in SF
and the valley?

Put in another way, would there ever be a case where you'd recommend a
bootstrapped company not take investment (assuming the terms were good) in the
bay area?

------
310BrownGuy
Hi Sam. Can you explain the process for considering a Non-Profit a little bit
more? A friend and I naturally think that we have a significant value
proposition in the non-profit sector with everything other than the technical
part flushed out thus far.

EDIT: Particularly if there is potential synergy with a business component as
well?

~~~
sama
For non-profits, we're looking for large impacts on the world. A lot of the
evaluation criteria--how good the founders are, how good the idea is--are the
same.

~~~
310BrownGuy
Thanks Sam. I appreciate it.

------
carapace
Have you read Christopher Alexander? (Pattern Language, et. al.)

~~~
sama
Yes! I love A Pattern Language.

~~~
carapace
Awesome! :-) (I'm thinking of the new cities project.)

------
rojobuffalo
How many applications are you guys expecting this year and what percentage do
you expect to invite to interview?

~~~
sama
As a very rough guess I'd say around 6000. I expect we will interview around
450 in person and video interviews with more.

~~~
rojobuffalo
Thanks, good to know.

------
soneca
Is this thread being punished by a flaming war trigger? It is not on front
page, not even the first Ask HN page.

~~~
dang
It probably was, plus Ask HNs get a penalty. I just turned that off. Sorry!
Was off gallivanting.

------
kfish15
If you were in early 20's, what 5 things would you deem most important to work
on to help the world?

~~~
sama
What matters here is what _you_ deem most important--don't live someone else's
life.

But for fun, here is my list:

•AI

•Biotechnology, especially anti-ID and anti-aging.

•Energy

•Better governance

•Education

~~~
schoen
> anti-ID

I didn't know what this was, and I was idly hoping that this was somehow about
making biometrics not work. :-)

It turns out to be an idea in immunology:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiotopes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiotopes)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
idiotypic_vaccine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-idiotypic_vaccine)

(in case other people weren't familiar with the concept)

~~~
transcranial
Pretty sure he means anti-infectious disease

~~~
schoen
That's a simpler interpretation, but search engines seem to strongly favor the
idiotype interpretation, and it also seems to be the most common in medical
research

[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=anti-
id](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=anti-id)

------
mrhektor
What is an ideal stage for a company to apply to YC? We've gotten together an
excellent team and partners, and are just starting to build out the value
prop. However, we don't have any customers / traction yet. Should we wait to
apply, or apply right now?

~~~
berpasan
Apply, you lose nothing. And apply again once you get more progress.

There is no ideal stage, but they'll fund the most promissing of them. The
more your startup grows and the more times you apply (= persistance and
staying alive), the more interesting your startups gets, hence better the
odds.

At Quero we applied 3 times before being invited for an inverview and
approved.

~~~
mrhektor
Thanks for the advice, I think we'll fill out an application and see what
happens :)

------
ta11
I have applied many times . I now have a patent for a technology that I
believe is a disruptor of enormous proportion. I have asked repeatedly to get
a few minutes with someone to discuss this technology, because your
application process doesn't seem to work for this.

~~~
sama
What doesn't work about our process for this?

~~~
ta11
I have applied again and again and have been rejected each time. I honestly
don't mean to be vague but have found that it is very difficult to convey in
words. It's a graphical technology that takes just a very brief chat for
people to understand. It's a large horizontal departure with wide
possibilities. That makes it difficult to explain as a single targeted product

~~~
blairanderson
I would say that if you cannot explain it simply then you cannot sell it
simply. You also sound like you 'deserve' to be heard while in fact nobody
owes you a meeting.

~~~
ta11
I'm not saying I deserve a meeting, I'm saying the process doesn't work for
me.

I don't agree with your simply conclusion. People didn't know what Twitter was
for. And Gordon Moore didn't know why someone would want a home computer just
to keep recipes. But those that understood it knew what the possibilities
were.

~~~
the_watcher
People did know what it was for, but they knew what it was. Because it could
be explained simply.

------
marauder016
Hi Sam — seems like 'Science' was removed as a category in RFS. Can you
comment on this?

~~~
sama
People never really understood what we meant by it. Will try to break out into
several more descriptive RFSs in the future.

------
Lordarminius
A delegation from YC was recently in Lagos, Nigeria. What data and/or
considerations did you take into account that kindled your interest in Africa
(instead of say, Brazil ?)

Do you have any particular industries in mind to invest in? where do you see
the most potential?

------
jondubois
How can an engineer become employee #1 or #2 of a fast-growing YC startup? How
important is networking (knowing the right people) vs simply having the right
credentials/experience?

What sort of advice does YC offer founders when it comes to hiring early
employees?

~~~
sama
Many YC companies post job ads for engineers on HN. That's a great way to
start. Nearly all are constrained in how quickly they can hire great
engineers, so you can also probably just email the CEO directly.

Our advice is: _Hire slowly_ Be very generous with equity *Have a very high
bar for early employees

------
brianbreslin
How do teams deal with families? I'm curious how many founders can uproot
their entire families for 3 months to relocate, or do they just try to make
long distance work for the 3 months while the spouses/kids stay back home?

------
nabiha_zahra
The application for YC has recently changed. You no longer ask the question
about what is a person's greatest achievement, which was previously said to be
the most telling question on the app. Where are you now getting that info on
the new app?

~~~
sama
We do still ask that, and it's still one of the questions I read first. It's
on the individual section (each person has to fill it out after the submitter
enters their email address).

~~~
nabiha_zahra
What do you like to see when reading the answer to that? What are your
indicators for success?

------
h4nkoslo
Do you stand by your statements calling for government supervision and control
of machine learning research? Is it likely that machine learning will become a
highly regulated industry roughly on par with nuclear power plant development?

------
rojobuffalo
I noticed you guys added Food and Farming to the RFS. How did that decision
come about?

~~~
sama
The same way every other item on the RFS got there--a partner was passionate
about it and chose to add it.

~~~
rojobuffalo
What is a company (other than SpaceX) with a super long-term goal that you are
excited about?

~~~
sama
Here are 5 out of ~200 that fit this category:

Helion Oklo Rigetti OpenAI Gingko Bioworks

~~~
nathcd
Links:

\- [http://www.helionenergy.com/](http://www.helionenergy.com/)

\- [http://oklo.com/](http://oklo.com/)

\- [http://rigetti.com/](http://rigetti.com/)

\- [https://openai.com](https://openai.com)

\- [http://www.ginkgobioworks.com/](http://www.ginkgobioworks.com/)

------
soneca
How well suited is YC for a company that only expect to have YC itself as
investor?

i.e. might have no interest in presenting at demo day or pursue any further
fundraising, but instead look for profitability and self-investment as the
path to growth.

~~~
sama
We care that a company might eventually be huge. Usually that requires raising
more money, but if it doesn't, that would be ok with us.

------
lizziepika
What do you think of the women in tech movement, and other diversity
initiatives?

~~~
sama
I'm supportive, obviously.

I think in some ways diversity in tech is very bad (e.g. very many, or perhaps
nearly all, of the CEOs of 'unicorns' are white men).

I think YC has made good but not great progress here. I don't pretend to know
all the answers. About 11% of the founders that apply to YC are women, and
I've heard that's a fair bit higher than what other investors see.

We fund women (and Black and Latino founders) at very nearly the rate they
apply. In addition to a pipeline problem, I think there are further problems
once women and underrepresented minorities start companies that make it
unwelcoming.

I also think the conversation has become so polarized by the extremes on both
sides that I feel uneasy participating, and I know other people feel the same
way. But I'll certainly keep doing whatever I can do to get YC to help.

We're always open to advice about what to do here.

~~~
venantius
Could you elaborate on the further problems you're alluding to here?

------
toocute2care
Thanks for doing this AMA, a quick question...

1\. What's the possibility of YC companies doing biz dev with LargeCorp during
the 3 month bootcamp? Is this something that YC can help with due to it's
large network etc.

~~~
sama
It happens but big companies are often slow. We can usually but not always
help with it.

------
bazsouthafrica
Hi Sam, I would like to apply for Winter 2017. If we are not accepted for this
batch, would it hurt our future chances (i.e. could we apply again for the
next batch without being negatively affected).

~~~
sama
No, it doesn't hurt future chances!

------
afchavez40
Do you prefer international companies that don't have U.S as a market?

~~~
sama
No preference here.

------
diziet
If you went back in time and did Loopt again, what would you differently?

~~~
sama
Pick a different market.

~~~
diziet
Sorry if I was not clear enough in the question: Do you mean you would
completely not do anything social / consumer related and build a
b2b/enterprise product, or just pick a tangental/related market in consumer
apps?

------
arodceo
What do you look for in a single founder (non-tech) when they apply with their
company being very early stage. What helps you determine they'll be a good
company even if they are early?

~~~
sama
Honestly, that's a tough combination.

We'd look for evidence that he or she could execute and make stuff happen.

~~~
chadnickbok
To clarify - are single founder, early stage applications unlikely to be
invited to interview at YC?

At what point does 'early stage' no longer matter?

~~~
alexbeloi
I think the tough combination is 'single founder' and 'non-tech', I have heard
him in an interview recommend finding a tech side cofounder in those cases.

------
imkeean
What startup stage would you recommend a company be in when applying?

~~~
sama
The "we have a plan to be a multi-billion dollar company if this works" stage.

------
jmcmahon443
Can you make the application autosave?

------
davidlee1435
You've been very outspoken about AI, but tangentially related to AI are
intelligent chatbots and more general conversational interfaces. What are your
thoughts on chatbots?

~~~
sama
I think that's a great application of AI. It's a very crowded market at this
point, so my biggest question would be "why will this one win?"

------
tomrod
Sam, I greatly respect the positive impact YC and you are having on society.

This question is unrelated to YC. How often do you go with your gut in
decision making, and how well does it turn out?

~~~
sama
If there is data, I try to decide with data.

If there is not data, I am very happy (probably too happy) to make the best
guess I can.

------
ENadyr
Hi, I know you started accepting hardware startups recently, I also realize
you value teams that can iterate quickly. Having spent 18 months working to
show that what the complex hardware product is feasible, my worry is that we
would be seen as "slow" because in the software world , where I came from, 18
months is a lifetime. So my question is, do you treat hardware and software
startups the same in terms of iteration speed? Cheers!

------
charlesyost
My partner and I think search engines will look and feel completely different
in the future, thus we're working on this next generation.

Do you agree with this? How do see these evolving?

~~~
sama
It would be surprising if they don't change, but I haven't thought enough
about it to have any strong belief about where they're going.

------
stansedberry
Sam, thank you so much for taking the time to add so much value to all of the
applicants of YC. I have learned so much.

For emerging industries like our's in the virtual reality space, there is so
much money driving the industry into gaming and the desires of the bigger
players like Facebook and Oculus. Is it more valuable to align with these
bigger players and play along with their game, or disrupt the industry but
risk being outcasted?

Thanks! Stan Sedberry Vidi VR

~~~
stansedberry
* And I want to throw a personal question that I haven't seen anyone ask. If ELon asked you to be the president of his Mars colony, would you take the role and if so, what would be your first action as ruler lol

------
rbloughlin
If we edit our application after we submit it, then are you notified? Or is
there a chance you read our application before we edit it and you miss our
edits?

~~~
sama
Once you submit it we may read it away, so you shouldn't submit it until you'r
ready.

~~~
dzink
Made that mistake once - nobody viewed the re-submitted video.

------
mangeletti
What are your thoughts on Zcash[1] (either the product OR the company behind
it)?

1\. [https://z.cash/](https://z.cash/)

------
VaedaStrike
Is someone's creds on 'getting things done' largely based on visible projects?
Or are other things considered?

For example becoming a self taught programmer? Quadrupling one's income? Doing
all that while starting a new family? I feel like I'm becoming significantly
more formidable. But the side project that pulled me into becoming a
programmer, itself, is still lacking clearly visible progress.

------
rnc
Sam, you started Loopt when you were 19 and figured things out very quickly
along the way. Could you give us some insights on how to increase the speed at
which we learn stuff? Many people here(myself included) rely on books to learn
about something or solve their problems, and that doesn't seem to be the case
with you and other top founders(Collison brothers, Drew Houston, etc.)

------
ifemide06
Sam, what would you say to a bootstrapped fast-food delivery startup, cash
positive, little overhead and 10,000's of customers applying to YC?

------
konas
We happen to match up with your RFS for city-related to startups. Do we need
to tie this into your RFS beyond checking the box on the application?

~~~
sama
Great! No, please just do that.

~~~
konas
Thanks! Just saw the RFS list changed, but we match another category.

------
andy_ppp
Can you be clearer about minimum requirements? I have an incomplete prototype
but I get the impression you want more? It'll probably have a few security
issues right now that I need to iron out too.

When to put this on the Internet to show you guys and how much should I have.

Working on this in my spare time is very difficult to get to a point I'm happy
with. Maybe I should quit my job?

Be good to be super clear on this...

~~~
sama
An incomplete prototype is ok. Obviously more is better, but we've funded
companies with no prototype at all. You have little to lose by applying.

~~~
pritianka
Would you say that someone who applies in the early ideas stage a few times
gets dinged in future applications for having been rejected a few times
before?

~~~
snowmaker
Not at all.

------
hellojebus
I want to transform the way we use checkins and turn them into awesome real
world experiences.

I have the idea, a v1 design, portion of the API, and incomplete web app
prototype... all built by me. I lack the business plan in paper however have
pretty cool ideas on how I can eventually generate income.

Is this enough to be considered? Have companies come to you with less while
still being accepted?

------
mbaha
Do you think we'll be seeing more and more XaaS-like businesses growing ? Or
do you think we'll move away from selling APIs ?

~~~
sama
I think this trend is likely to continue for a very long time.

------
nswanberg
You've said it's important for founders to be able to communicate and
persuade, both in public and one on one. I think in that same talk you claimed
to not be a very good public speaker but that you were much better in person.
There are lots of examples for learning better public communication. How do
you learn to be better one on one?

------
a13n
Would you consider negotiating the equity percentage for startups that stand
out in terms of team/traction? If not, why not?

~~~
sama
We do this in exceptional circumstances, but maybe only once per batch (as far
as I know, we didn't do it at all last batch).

I think YC adds far more than 7% of value to companies we fund. And I hate
negotiating/conflict.

------
peter_retief
Inventors and innovators in Africa have a really hard time getting access to
international markets and funding. Can you help?

------
shams93
Have you seen any patterns in terms of idea generation, do successful startups
come up with the idea for the business in the same way, or is it basically
extremely diverse, I'm wondering if people are tending to use any analytic
methods to find low hanging fruit to get started or whether its largely
"scratching an itch."

------
imkeean
Do you favour companies on your request for startup list? Such as a
pharm/biotech company > a software startup?

~~~
sama
No.

------
tonyabram
Sam, I have several pet projects, but I know YC loves teams severely committed
to a single project. Is there a reasonable chance not just to get the
interview, but to join the batch if I send multiple applications but most of
them won't have this "three months of growth of KPI" kind of traction?

------
santoshimz
With so many companies like General Assembly offering part time bootcamps
without one leaving the job can't YC follow the same approach where one can
work on a startup without having to leave the job. This will bring in more
ideas and products by people who don't want to quit their day-to-day job.

~~~
turnip1979
You know .. this is a quirky but interesting idea. PG started YC because of
his experiences/challenges as a tech founder. Maybe someone can address this
niche. Obviously, the funding terms would be different. There are legal issues
having to do with existing employer contracts .. this could be a rathole. I am
not sure doing a startup as a side project is at all useful .. but I might be
wrong.

One comment I have to make .. risk is the name of the start up game. Maybe
business in general. You cannot completely de-risk it and still call it a
business.

~~~
aantix
Why is that? If a majority of businesses fail, then finding new ways to
minimize that risk should be the priority.

In the context of a side project, can go both ways. The founder is minimizing
their monetary/opportunity risks by maintaining their current job. YC should
be minimizing their investment and/or offering the basics (the network, office
hours, and invites to guest speaker engagements).

------
freese
What are some examples of adding value to a company that's already raised a
good seed round ($2-4M)?

------
pr5k
Has there been any graphic designer co-founders accepted into YC? If so, has
there been anything noticeably different about that dynamic compared to usual
co-founder teams of hackers? If not, are applicants that include graphic
designer co-founders at all desirable at YC?

~~~
jstnjosepht
Not sure how much overlap there is with your particular skill set, but Brian
Chesky had a Product Design background before starting Airbnb. Paul Graham
even recommends attending design school over b-school in his How to Start a
Startup lecture.

Q: Do you see any value in business school for people who want to pursue
entrepreneurship?

A: Basically no, it sounds undiplomatic, but business school was designed to
teach people management. Management is a problem that you only have in a
startup if you are sufficiently successful. So really what you need to know
early on to make a start up successful is developing products. You would be
better off going to design school if you would want to go to some sort of
school. Although frankly the way to learn how to do it is just to do it. One
of the things I got wrong early on is that I advised people who were
interested in starting a startup to go work for some other company for a few
years before starting their own. Honestly the best way to learn on how to
start a startup is just to just try to start it.

------
dave1619
How involved are you and Elon in OpenAI? What are your roles specifically,
both for you and Elon?

~~~
sama
We both go in most weeks for about half a day and talk to the team whenever
they need.

------
palakz
What are the chances of a Subsidiary in getting accepted to YC? Have you had
any case like this previously?

P.S.: I'm talking about a case where only the subsidiary has applied for YC
and that subsidiary is making a different product than what the parent company
is making.

~~~
sama
I guess I'm not opposed, but I'm not sure we've done it before. Generally we
don't like complexity though, so we'd want to be sure you're truly an
independent subsidiary.

------
partycoder
What do you think of South America?

------
davemel37
Two Questions:

1\. Would YC consider a media/publishing company that is not really a tech
startup short of leveraging tech to reach a broader audience. (it's more like
investigative journalism to arm buyers with info. needed to negotiate better
deals.)

2\. The info. in these reports can capture value by being sold right away, but
giving the info. away for free is more in line with the mission of eliminating
information asymmetry (by selling we are just replacing one inbalance, with
another)...so is it better to capture initial value...or try to build trust to
the point of people going straight to you to research purchases...and monetize
later on or with add-ons (i.e. outsourced negotiation.) or eventually becoming
the defacto source for consumer research (which is bound to be monetizable one
way or another)?

------
no_protocol
Do you prefer startups from a certain level on Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

------
twelvedigits
Are applications confidential?

~~~
sama
They are read by some alumni and YC staff. We try hard to keep things
confidential but the group of readers is large--I wouldn't put nuclear launch
codes in them, just because of the risk of accidental breach.

------
oli5679
You have said that the best founders believe their success is inevitable, yet
YC (understandably) has a really high failure rate.

Do you think it helps, as a founder and in life, to be optimistic rather than
realistic?

------
marknadal
Can you be too far along? We already raised from billionaires Tim Draper and
Marc Benioff of Salesforce. Is this still okay to apply? And how much does
being a solo founder reduce chances of getting in?

~~~
GFischer
I'm not from YC, but I think that's actually a big plus for them. I've seen
many companies for the last few batches that already had substantial
investment.

------
econnors
What are the best ways for hardware startups to show traction pre-launch? We
feel like we have a compelling prototype, but are worried that a lack of pre-
sales/press/etc. will be a red flag.

~~~
liseman
Launch:) Short of this, get your cardboard-box-level prototype into users'
hands.

No matter how early and rough, show your product to potential customers and
listen to what they say. You'll learn more from an hour doing this than a
month of brainstorming with your team about what features you should someday
maybe add to make your product compelling.

Over many cycles of sharing many prototypes with customers, you'll figure out
what your future users actually want your product to do. This will almost
always be way different than your original vision.

And stop worrying about whether you're too early: many of our best startups
get rejected before applying again with progress and getting accepted. Pretty
much everybody thinks they're too early or late for YC, and they're all
wrong;)

(Disclaimer: I work for YC advising hardware startups.)

~~~
econnors
Thanks for following up on this, that's helpful advice.

------
avi0103
What is the minimum stage the product should be in to be selected in yc ?

~~~
sama
As Finbarr says, non minimums at all. Sometimes we fund just an idea if the EV
seems high enough.

~~~
elmar
What is "EV"?

~~~
GFischer
Expected Value. How big the idea is :)

------
du_bing
Hi, Sam, how do you think about the opportunity of technology in China, do you
think China a good place for investing and developing? What the difference
between the China market and USA market?

~~~
sama
I think China is probably the second most interesting startup market to me in
the world right now (after Silicon Valley).

~~~
du_bing
Great, it's really inspiring for you to say so, haha, I am an English
Literature major with epilepsy in China, now I am learning technology to make
a living remotely, hoping someday I will be able to apply to YCombinator with
my friends. I am also translating some articles on Hacker News that I love
into Chinese, I love the site, it's precious on the Internet.

------
afar
What do you think is the biggest blind spot or most limiting aspect of YC
Group and how do you plan to fix it? Asked another way, what are YC's
weaknesses, in your opinion?

~~~
sama
We're spending a lot of time right now thinking about where we should add new
groups (i.e. where we're limited and where the biggest opportunities are).

Hopefully will be ready to talk about it early 2017.

------
nabiha_zahra
How do you identify small but fast-growing markets?

Is it a good/bad idea to found a startup in a market that is no longer
saturated but also has big players (such as social media?

~~~
sama
Predicting the future is hard. I don't have a great general answer for this,
other than to look for highly engaged users. IE, when the iPhone came out,
users loved it and used it all the time. Even though the market was small in
absolute size, you could be confident it was going to grow quickly.

It could be good or bad depending on details, but it's certainly not always
bad.

------
mdeligoz
When interviewing, what key points are you looking for?

~~~
sama
_Determination_ Effectiveness _Clarity of vision_ Clarity of communication
_Intelligence_ Quality of the idea *Potential to be huge

~~~
sbierwagen
I've seen you try to use the markdown list syntax enough times on HN now that
you might consider patching it in.

------
LifeOfRio
Are there any books on Start-Up Market-Research a.k.a Talking to users? If
not, what are the top mistakes startups make when talking to users?

------
tinbad
What companies have you seen/interacted with lately that have a good chance of
taking IoT to mass adoption that are worth watching for?

------
Xcelerate
What are your thoughts on quantum computing?

------
wwwdonohue
How important do you think blog posts/videos/other forms of content are for
startups coming out of YC?

------
imkeean
What universities stand out to you in particular, if any, when gauging talent
from institutions across the world?

~~~
rkho
I'm (very obviously) not Sam, but I recall him having praise for Waterloo a
couple years back.

~~~
imkeean
Water water water ;)

------
ttam
a question about anything else:

what's you opinion on product managers and when/do you think a startup should
hire one?

------
neom
Bunch of folks in the city world keep asking me how your city stuff is going.
How's the city stuff going?

------
michaelbarton
Are there ways to apply to HARC, or demo at HARC for people who have ideas
that might fit within its remit?

------
tmaly
I watched your startup course that was done at Stanford.

Have you ever considered writing a startup book?

~~~
huntermonk
He compiled a list of recommended readings for the class here
([http://startupclass.samaltman.com/lists/readings/](http://startupclass.samaltman.com/lists/readings/)),
and in the morning macro it was stated that "We’re going to replace the
Fellowship with a much larger MOOC launching next year.".

I know that's not what you're looking for, but at least it gets us close!

------
dietbacon
How do you assess the "quality" of founders that have no startup track record?

------
Jd
Have you ever invested in a band or music production company or considered
doing that?

~~~
meowface
I'm not sure if he has, but why would he ever do that? Unless it was not only
production but also engineering/innovating in some sense.

~~~
Jd
Yep, well that would be interesting in the sense of how you could disrupt the
music business by "manufacturing" beats. We've seen some similar progress
around machine generated art (e.g. deep dreaming and the like).

~~~
meowface
I'd sooner expect strong AI than an AI that can actually produce good music
purely autonomously.

~~~
alexbeloi
Who knows what you mean by purely autonomously since even people can't help
but learn from their experiences.

Nevertheless, here's a novel composition made by an NLP algorithm trained on
classical music:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEjdiE0AoCU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEjdiE0AoCU)

~~~
meowface
I stand corrected.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcGYEXJqun8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcGYEXJqun8)
also changed my mind a bit.

------
internaut
sama, a big picture question, what is your take on the Stagnation Hypothesis?

I know you know a bunch of people who are concerned about technological
stagnation and I was curious about your personal take on it.

Thanks

------
bourneliu
On average, how much time will you spend on handling 1 application ?

------
wishdock
Why didn't I see this earlier :(

------
bourneliu
Will you come to China? When?

------
kgc
Do you secretly have a Japanese nickname that goes something like Sama-sama?

~~~
sama
Yes, some people call me that...

------
scinering
When you want to start a startup and you don't have any kind of job experience
in tech industry, do you think that is necessary to be intern in some tech
company, or just to focus first on coding skills, and to build stuff?

------
ternbot
How do you make a product that is profitable while serving an underserved poor
market? i.e. if a market is massive but has no money to spend - is the
business model different?

------
ali30
Sam whst mean the word hustling to you??

