
Pairwise and Y Combinator: Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? - domp
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/30/are-you-a-y-combinator-founder/
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euccastro
TBH, my feeling about this stuff is that it belongs in nazi research labs and
Cosmopolitan magazines, rather than as a screening tool in business where you
want the best people. If I was considering applying to anything (Y, a job at a
company), being presented with this would disappoint me and set off Dilberty
alarms.

Now, this is fun stuff to burn some minutes while procrastinating! Here are my
results:

[http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=1125255845&user;_list_id=6](http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=1125255845&user_list_id=6)

Some things that the test got backwards:

\- I'm more a listener than a talker,

\- I never smoked (I clicked on the hemp pic because I like intense green :),

\- I think I'm more into books than my score there suggests,

\- I like mild food rather than spicy,

\- I do like and have pets,

\- I'm not really that urban. I'm more comfortable in villages or small towns.

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bootload
_'You may have someone with a very high IQ but has low interpersonal skill ..
cannot relate to other people very well. Cannot understand other people. This
can be a real liability for organisations who are looking for leadership ..
looking to promote people with high intelligence'_ [0]

Interesting. I posted a similar post this week on the characteristics found in
entrepreneurs ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=7459>

_'... all we'll care about is one measure: how close one comes to the best
founders. We don't care what atoms are in that molecule ...'_

But testing for characteristics of _'high achievers'_ then correlating test
scores against potential applicants is fraught with problems. Is the
correlation against the best enough? [1]

I'm sure you might get some correlation but it's pretty unimaginative [2]. So
what could be a better tool? What about direct testing of skill? Wouldn't a
better technique be simulation? Why not build a _'startup simulator'_ where
applicants are given tools to _simulate_ tasks they actually will have to do?
Then you have a controllable scenario where you really can measure results
against successful founders.

You could test

\- _the conception of an idea_

\- _the building of a (simple) prototype_

\- _quickly find an audience_

\- _find a way to make money off it_

Wrapped up in a framework [3] where you test the _execution_ of these tasks
you could get a better grasp of the

\- _skills_

\- _determination_

\- _entrepreneurial audacity_

\- _passion_

\- _humour_

\- _leadership skills_ needed to succeed.

\- _risk taking, emotional intelligence_

There is a long history of simulators in testing & refining of skills,
competency and execution are required. Even Captain Kirk at Starfleet Academy
trained, passed (and cheated) on simulators.

Who knows it might even be fun.

Reference

[0] Professor Con Stough, Brain Sciences Institute, 'Director, Centre for
Neuropsychology, Swinburne Institute of Technology'

<http://www.swin.edu.au/bioscieleceng/neuropsych/stough.htm>

[1] But I do like the simplicity of just looking at a simple set of parameters
to make a _Gladwellian_ decision.

[2] In a competitive environment the difference between getting the attention
of the right candidates could be the tools used to measure how they stack up
against the best .. but actually doing something, learning and getting some
feedback.

[3] The framework could be a game, or simply a panel of dials. The key thing
is you can have a back room with founders, past entrepreneurs twiddling the
dials checking to see in RT how candidates handle things like a person
leaving, stressing system etc (like the LEM tester in the Apollo missions). It
also allows for candidates to learn from failure with less risk & pass on the
best decision making skills to candidates that have passed.

~~~
sharpshoot
How about doing this for real?

I mean before Y combinator, build a product - launch it. Grow the userbase -
iterate.

Reality is the superior test of whther you are an entrepreneur - don't need to
get Y com funding to get going...

See all the recent fundees: Scribd, Boso, Weebly, Buxfer: they had a product.

Doesn;t need to be so far down this track but having done something is better
than simulating it.

~~~
bootload
_'... How about doing this for real? ... Reality is the superior test of
whether you are an entrepreneur ...'_

True . Ideally yes. But it there may be times when you want to test skills or
sub sections of skills, _NOW_. I've run 8 miles in 2 hours in the past but
does that mean I can do it now?

I think the bit I was addressing was suggesting a technique to scale selection
through automated means by testing against the best. I agree reality is a
better test. But you miss the point about simulation. With simulation you can

\- test/be tested/train in compressed time

\- test/be tested/train with different scenarios

\- test/be tested/train individual components of the process

\- test/be tested/train with lower costs

\- test/be tested/train in controlled circumstances to allow better
measurement

 _'... having done something is better than simulating it ...'_

Pilots fly planes but they also train and test their skills in simulation due
to cost, risk and a lot of other factors. People who do things, need ways to
test their skills, improve and be tested. Why not startups? In the case of YC,
'done', 'doing' may not be controlled enough to measure against the best
(conjecture).

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amichail
Is this comparison with respect to all Y combinator founders or only with
respect to those who have succeeded? Have you identified any personality
differences between those who succeeded and those who did not?

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notabel
I found it relatively inaccurate, but oddly, it was always very precise; i.e.
when it got things wrong, it got them profoundly, diametrically wrong.

One thing I wonder is whether there is any logic to deal with confounding
variables--for instance, if someone picks every photo that has a bike in it,
maybe they just like bikes, and those data points should be excluded.

On the whole, though, the pairwise people have probably as good a shot at
anyone at making a not-suck personality analyzer.

~~~
zaidf
That's how I answered most questions. I like chocolate; I like nature; I like
neater pictures over complex ones. I have no idea what all that means - may be
someone does.

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Tichy
Absolutely ridiculous test. There weren't even any books in it, for example,
yet they claim to be able to tell if I am into reading books or not? Sorry,
but I don't believe their tests are scientifically sound. The sheer number of
traits they claim to identify - almost as many traits as there were
"questions", I don't think it can work.

Why don't you just use a classic IQ test if you are into that kind of stuff,
or the Myer-Briggs test?

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domp
I didn't find this to be accurate at all in telling me what kind of a person I
am. Anyone else take the quiz?

~~~
pg
I think they can do better if they make you look at more images, but for this
online version they wanted to strike a balance between that and having people
actually finish.

~~~
domp
Yeah I can see that. I found that I had no preference in many of the image
comparisons so I just clicked one. Did they simply take the average result
from the past YComb people or was there more to it? (btw sorry for posting
this topic before you!)

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dfranke
This doesn't seem to work at all for me. Its assessment of me seems to have
pretty much zero correlation with my self-assessment.

[http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=1449411178&user;_list_id=6](http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=1449411178&user_list_id=6)

~~~
Alex3917
That's nothing, it told me I should take up smoking.

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volida
ok, my observation is that, the GREEN of most attributes is somewhere in the
middle (with some nearer to some side), which means that there is a diversity
between to those who you are compared, with 3/4 of the samples to define that
side. This means that someone can be in right opposite but it doesn't mean
that personality is excluded.but be in the 1/4 of the samples. So, with all
this diversity, how valid and helpful is this test?

I think the attributes of the test, should be more questions of type, what you
do in specific situations, and be compared to what YC would prefer as answer.

 _update

or am I wrong, and GREEN is the range of answers of the samples?

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nickb
This is in the same category as astrology. 'The Brain' got less than 50%
things about me correct. It said that I like dogs better than cats, not true.
It said I like to work individually, not true... I prefer working as a part of
a team.

The premise that pictures and the choice of pictures determine anything about
yourself is simply silly. I have different experiences than someone else. I
have been to and seen different places than someone else. Different imagery
will provoke different emotion in different people.

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jamiequint
This is interesting, I was on the same side in every category, and it seems
fairly accurate, although I found some things remarkable far off, most notably
"like to read" where I scored a decisive: "aren't much into books."

I found it weird that Y Combinator founders generally fell in the "aren't much
into books" category.

Here's Mine:
[http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=509484655&user;_list_id=6](http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=509484655&user_list_id=6)

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chandrab
Great, another test I have to study for! :-)

Seriously, what impact does this have on getting funded by YC? (I'm sure
everyone wants to know the answer to that)

~~~
pg
To be honest, not much. We may use Pairwise seriously in the next round, but
this is just a prototype.

In particular, we don't care much about the specific metrics this test tries
to measure. The Pairwise guys chose those; we had nothing do to with it. When
we use this for real, all we'll care about is one measure: how close one comes
to the best founders. We don't care what atoms are in that molecule.

~~~
amichail
Even if we take it as a given that a test like this can work well, I suspect
that test takers will become more sophisticated at choosing images to get
desired outcomes.

And so the test will need to get more sophisticated in turn by finding even
more non-obvious yet discriminating pairs of images.

This is sort of like the constant battle between those creating spam filters
and spammers.

~~~
pg
The difference between this and spam is that the cycle time is too long for
people to learn efficiently how to beat the system. A spammer can write an
email and send it to his gmail acct and know in 30 sec if it beats the filter.
We only accept applicants every 6 months.

~~~
amichail
Won't such a test limit the diversity of Y Combinator founders? And so you
might get stuck in a local maximum as a result.

~~~
pg
We would never use _only_ the test. At most we'd use it to prompt us to take a
second look at someone we were about to reject.

~~~
amichail
I guess you might try applications like these as well:

online dating

airport security

immigration

finding cofounders

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marcell
[http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=1029869490&user;_list_id=6](http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=1029869490&user_list_id=6)

Does anyone remember The Spark's gender test? It's a specific case of this
kind of test: <http://community.sparknotes.com/gender/> (use bugmenot.com for
login)

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richcollins
Looks like I'll be accepted if I just cross dress while smoking and pulling
sarcastic pranks on people:

[http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=1627867125&user;_list_id=6](http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=1627867125&user_list_id=6)

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zaidf
Gender: Girl

I am too depressed to read any further:) But I did - it only gets worse:

"read books voraciously"...I'm as far from that as you can get.

"a religious person"...tell that to my mom

"have or want pets"...can't stand most pets!

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Mistone
That was fun, some where spot on, other were a bit fuzzy, a link to my results
below:

[http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=918442805&user;_list_id=6](http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=918442805&user_list_id=6)

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far33d
Weird. I'm not a smoker, but I was, for a LONG time.

And it knew that. That's really strange and freaks me out. What I once thought
was my complicated little unique snowflake of a brain turns out to just be the
combination of 21 values.

~~~
ntoshev
Don't worry, I _HATE_ smoking and got closer to smoke than not smoke ;)

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Goladus
I am fairly certain that telling me the test was going to compare me with Y
Combinator startup founders affected what was going on in my brain when I
decided what images to pick. I'd do the test differently under different
conditions.

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amichail
I've always been fascinated by likebetter.com and would like to see related
work. As a start, see this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_fingerprinting>

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timg
And mine:

[http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=596593159&user;_list_id=6](http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=596593159&user_list_id=6)

So is it good to be on all of the edges?

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jkush
Here's my result:

[http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=556637953&user;_list_id=6](http://www.likebetter.com/quiz/results?quiz_id=556637953&user_list_id=6)

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plusbryan
Thanks for all the comments, good and bad. They help us refine our test. Keep
in mind that we're attempting to figure you out in 40 pairs of pictures. We
did this so that lots of people could take it, just to introduce the idea.

A _real_ test would have more like 200 pairs, which is what the YC founders
took when we assessed their attributes in the first place.

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epall
Very cool! I didn't realize Pairwise had an actual business model back there.
Great job, guys!

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vegashacker
Not sure if it's a bug, but I got shown the same pair of pictures twice.

