

Y Combinator's First Batch: Where Are They Now? - playhard
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/08/05/y-combinators-first-batch-where-are-they-now/?utm_campaign=social%20media&awesm=tnw.to_l2M5&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Spreadus

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Mystalic
This is a fantastic article with a lot of in-depth interviews and analysis.
This is an example of what tech journalism should be.

Another note: the beauty of YC isn't that Paul & co. pick home runs every time
-- they don't -- it's that they pick teams that eventually hit home runs.
Justin.tv is doing okay, but YC's investment in Justin in 2005 has netted it
Socialcam (acquired for $60M) and Exec. YC's investment in Reddit also netted
them Hipmunk.

And I'm only scratching the surface here -- YC founders always recruit great
people into the YC program.

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espadagroup
I've been curious about this, is it definitive that YC investments pass
through like this, i.e. from Justin.tv to Socialcam and Exec?

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tomasien
Exec and Socialcam ARE YC companies, the investments didn't pass through.
Those teams actually did YC, which they maybe wouldn't have (who knows)
without Justin Kans first startup.

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sama
One thing that struck me reading this is that many of us from the first batch
are still in the YC orbit. Exec (JKan) and Hipmunk (Steve, Alexis, and Chris)
went through YC, and Justin, Emmett, and I are part-time YC partners.

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tomasien
Sam why is your posterous password protected now?

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amix
One of the missing people that this article does not mention is Simon
Carstensen, a danish dude that was a co-founder of Infogami. I met Simon in an
university class and I knew him for some time before I knew he was part of Y
Combinator's first batch :-) Simon traveled back to Denmark after his round
finished.

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juanbyrge
Yes this is called survivorship bias. Only the successful people end up being
in these news articles, thus leading people to believe that everyone going
through YC ends up successful.

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jedberg
It probably has more to do with the fact that Infogami's other founder has
said since the beginning that he was a sole founder, and never once mentioned
a co-founder.

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stcredzero
What I like best about this news is the long term orientation of it. The more
thinking about long value, virtuous cycles, and underlying principles and
values, the better for the SF bay tech community.

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allenbrunson
Excellent idea for an article. I'm surprised I haven't seen such a thing
before now.

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KMBredt
Would it hurt TNW to link to the mentioned projects?

