

Interviewing with Y Combinator or How to Not Finish Your Sentences - sinzone
http://blog.outspokes.com/2009/11/24/interviewing-with-yc-or-how-to-not-finish-your-sentences/

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revorad
Good to hear from someone who didn't get in. Thanks for the tips.

Keep up the good work and wish you the best.

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yosho
Did they tell you the specific reason you didn't get in? I'd rather know what
went wrong than how to prepare.

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SwellJoe
They generally do not give specific reasons; at least not in any form that
would be generally useful to anyone other than the applicant.

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pmjordan
Interesting - I seem to remember YC having a policy of deciding "there and
then", but receiving a call 12hrs later means that's not the case. Did this
change or is my memory incorrect?

In any case, I wish the author and his cofounders all the best with their
startup!

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SwellJoe
Your recollection is incorrect, at least for as long as I've been aware of the
process. In 2007, it was as it is today. We got our call at about 10PM the
night of the interview.

I've been told by some (very few) interviewees that they got a "no"
immediately, but those were usually folks who had obvious reasons for getting
a no. The most obvious was a group that were sophomores at MIT, and their
business idea was vague at best (no business model, no idea of what kind of
user would use their code, and lacking in obvious desire or plans to start the
company without YC backing; it looked like a classic case of "what I did on my
summer vacation", to me, and I'm not as good a judge of these things as pg and
co.)...pg told them to go back to school, and re-apply later because they were
a great team of smart people, but weren't really ready to start a business.

Generally, though, teams do not get an answer until the night of the
interview, and that's the way it's always been, as far as I know.

~~~
pmjordan
Thanks, fair enough. Maybe I misinterpreted something I read - I guess a
couple of hours is still a hell of a lot quicker than raising money via angels
or VC, so it could be that. Or maybe it was the other way around, i.e. the
founders have to decide more or less immediately whether to accept the
investment at the proposed valuation?

Not that any of this technical detail is especially interesting or relevant, I
suppose. :)

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avk
Thanks for the support guys! My co-founder Jerry wrote this but I didn't catch
this HN post until today. Glad you all found it useful.

