
Requests for Startups Refreshed - craigcannon
https://blog.ycombinator.com/requests-for-startups-refreshed
======
vrdabomb5717
I think funding mass media is less interesting than finding a way to have
sustainable investigative journalism, both at the local and national levels.
Investigative journalism, especially at the local level, has been hit hard by
local newspapers getting shut down and the media forced to either pull out of
unprofitable areas or focus on money-making ventures. Most media outlets are
not the New York Times or Washington Post; they can't afford to send reporters
out for months to put together enough evidence to run a long-form story. The
end result though is that most media outlets focus on what attracts viewers
and makes them money: partisan commentary, stories that spread FUD, and feel-
good stories. The end result is that government and business officials can run
amok without anyone holding them accountable.

Let mass media focus on general-interest stories and slowly become reality TV
for reality. If we instead focus on investigative journalism, we'll have a way
for journalists to provide unbiased content without depending on the mass
media to provide the funding to do so.

~~~
pcmaffey
So long as journalists are paid with ad dollars, content will always trend
towards the lowest common denominator.

This applies to all media in general; but there really needs to be a better
metric for quantifying impact than clicks. If writers, etc. are rewarded for
advancing knowledge, then many many more people would be enabled to do so.

Hell, perhaps we don't even need a new metic, and instead just subsidize
everyone with UBI. Those who provide long-term value will outweigh those who
only consume.

~~~
hueving
>Those who provide long-term value will outweigh those who only consume.

Is there any evidence supporting this?

~~~
pcmaffey
It's a good question, and really, the crux of the whole issue. I don't have
evidence, just belief... The value of incremental knowledge, and of lives
lived without scarcity consciousness, when measured across large enough time-
scale, could have exponential impact on humanity (snowball effect). Whereas
the cost of UBI, while large, is relatively linear.

Hopefully, some of the experiments on UBI can start to provide the evidence.

~~~
hueving
I suppose what I'm asking is are there are enough resources to allow UBI right
now with a major chunk of the labor force (and subsequently tax income)
disappearing?

~~~
toomuchtodo
We're going to find out regardless, with large swaths of retirees leaving the
labor force to join Social Security.

------
acconrad
I've constantly racked my brain on the Underserved Communities and Social
Services: my dad is a Vietnam vet and my mom (while we were growing up) fit
that single mother middle-class type...how does technology help them?

Part of the problem is they aren't tech savvy the way the HN community is - so
what works for our community doesn't exactly work for theirs, or that they
even use technology to the extent that we do (i.e. does technology even solve
this problem?).

The other problem is revenue/profitability...this population is inherently
cash-strapped, so trying to create a technology solution that likely lies in
the Tech-meets-Consumer Discretionary industry, well, who among these people
can (and will) afford such services?

It frustrates me to no end...because I want to help, but I can't seem to find
a viable solution whenever I build something out.

It's further a problem because it doesn't follow the general YC/Paul Graham
rules for creating solutions - solving your own problems. Most techies aren't
also veterans or single mothers, so while it was a problem I experienced
second hand growing up, it's not something I live with today, other than my
innate desire to help others. It's very hard to solve a problem you can't
experience first hand.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve these kinds of problems? Am I
approaching it wrong?

~~~
zipfle
Make blue apron for food pantries. One summer I volunteered on a kind of food
pantry truck; twice a week, we'd load up this box truck with whatever the
local supermarkets had donated-- pallets of turnips about to expire, pallets
of bread, cucumbers, whatever--and we'd drive to some designated areas, set
the food out on tables, and people would line up to collect a share of it. We
had to limit based on availability; maybe two loaves of bread, three
cucumbers, as many turnips as you want.

The donations we got were usually either past their best or unpopular or both.
When food expires, there's a period when it's still fine to eat, but it's best
not to leave it too long.

So if you're a single parent working two jobs, and you get home at 7:30 to
make dinner and you have a turnip you need to use tonight before it goes bad,
what do you do?

Wouldn't it be great if someone with great logistics skill and insight into
the stocks of all the area food banks could scrape allrecipes, find the most
efficient use of the stock as ingredients, and maybe move some things around
so that the people waiting for the trucks could get meal kits with online
instructions, rather than just bags of turnips?

Just a thought.

Edit: The cool part of this might end up being the supplier side. I imagine
that a supermarket has to work much harder to donate to a food pantry than to
just throw out stuff. How could you make it easier for them to donate what was
really needed? Could you have finders who go around to stores, enter the stuff
to be thrown out into your system, decide what it would be worth it to take,
take it, and keep track of yearly donations for the retailer for tax purposes?
Could you cut their waste disposal costs and save them taxes and build
goodwill?

The bigger idea here is that just because the consumers of your service aren't
very focused on new technology doesn't mean that technology can't drive and
enable your business model. There are probably many kinds of businesses that
provide services to the underprivileged that would benefit from technology in
the back office even if technology isn't their product.

~~~
acconrad
I actually had an idea around that - neighborhood cooking. There is definitely
some widow grandmother on my block who would love to make some extra money
cooking her awesome meals for her neighbors. And I'd love to pay for that
service. Unfortunately state regulations for what is defined as a kitchen and
cooking for others has huge health code implications, and never took off.

This, what you're saying, is more of a logistics and resource allocation
problem, all needing to be done in real time. Very smart, but would require
quite a bit of up-front innovation. I'll ruminate on this idea for sure!

------
ricw
Farming is an interesting one, particularly with regards to the quoted
statistic of 40%.

From a technological perspective this has already been largely solved.
Developed countries typically have 1-3% of the population working in
agriculture. This is only possible because of large scale efficiencies, that
allow 1-3% of the population to feed the rest.

So am genuinely curious: what are you envisaging? How to market this
technology to the world or make it more accessible? Or make agriculture even
more efficient and even further reduce the number of people in farming?

~~~
rojobuffalo
It's kind of a common misconception that farming in its current state is
working. Farmers who run a factory model basically live on government
subsidies. The ecological destruction that accompanies this model is also
entirely unsustainable. Soil dies, water is polluted, species go extinct,
crops and animals are highly vulnerable to pathogens (which leads to
antibiotic resistance), greenhouse gas emissions are through the roof, etc.
Also, it encourages a horrible diet of cheap grains and meat. Diet-related
disease is the number one cause of human death; where we simultaneously have
obesity and starvation. And flavor sucks.

So I imagine YC's goal in adding this to the RFS is to promote companies
exploring sustainability, quality, and fairness in food. Btw, this is the
focus for my application.

~~~
awongh
this. The thing is that we've designed these systems (of governance,
regulation and technology) that appears to have solved the problems of food,
but we really haven't- bee population loss, inefficient subsidies, free-trade
and over-protectionist trade, soil degradation, pollution, food
contaminations, hunger, etc., etc. are still big problems.

The thing is that the system is inordinately more complex than we had
originally thought (not just about input/output sheer production volume of
commodities, i.e., pork belly, orange juice concentrate) -it's about a system
that is sustainable and non-exploitative in the big picture.

I see the different factions currently working against each other for goals
that should be synergistic.

-decrease hunger => increase crop yield with industrial farming tech

-non-gmo => grow only organic crops, anti-big business

-fair-trade => crop specialization for export to 1st world

But there's no reason why any and all of these groups couldn't be more
aligned, and I think some of it is a question of scale and vision- no one has
yet described to me the Elon Musk level vision of what a humanistically
designed food system should look like and what all of humanity should be
shooting for.

~~~
drakonandor
There's a lot of misinformation campaigns from the "anti-GMO" companies and
crowd who get in the way of an "Elon vision" for the industry. Most anti-
GMOers don't even realize that transgenics occur in nature, while making their
signs that foreign DNA is food = frankenfood.

~~~
rojobuffalo
GMO is not inherently bad, but the goals of most companies working on GMO
seeds are profit over all else. This means they select for compatibility with
pesticides, fertilizers, and monocrop annual planting. Perennial wheat, for
example, could be an incredible ecological success for GMO. But it wouldn't
have the built-in annual demand for seeds. The concern over GMO is misplaced--
people should be debating the accompanying practices that are pushed by the
industrial system. When Bayer buys Mansanto, that should be a huge f*cking red
flag.

The big vision for the future doesn't need to be entirely novel. The great
cuisines were born out of a conversation with nature. Highly local,
distributed, diverse farming systems < 50 hectares with an emphasis on soil
health should be the model. We just need to make it easier for people to
collaborate on these kinds of projects. Entrepreneurs and farms on this scale
are mostly constrained by up-front resource requirements. Once ecological
systems mature, they are far more profitable than the factory model.

~~~
awongh
I don't think the big vision of production needs to be novel, but I could
envision, if not GMO, then genetic analysis / breeding to start re-localizing
what kinds of crops are being grown. I think there are plenty of ways you can
take old-fashioned seeming systems and practices and modernize them, maybe
with more careful data collection to help it along.

I do think that if this system will ever really work on a larger scale then a
big vision will be needed to reimagine the kind of distribution system you
would need to efficiently bring the product to the customer; Getting rid of
the cold chain and reducing the amount of food waste on the way. A lot of the
assumed ways people buy and eat food are shifting with gen x/y/z. The
supermarket is a dead zone of product placement kickbacks and corn. What comes
after that?

~~~
rojobuffalo
You're spot-on about bringing genetic analysis into breeding and re-
localizing. [Steve Jones][1] is an awesome breeder who is doing this in
Washington's Skagit Valley.

I see there being a higher participation in local food production. There are
already people who want to do it but can't afford the upfront cost. As really
good food becomes more available, I think it will drive more interest in
growing. It was only 8 generations ago that participation in farming in the
U.S. was 90%, and now it's down to 1%.

For the people who don't grow or collaborate directly with growers to get
food, I see the responsibility falling to chefs to insist on working with
local ingredients. Maybe self-driving cars will also usher in a new system of
delivery for getting ingredients from local farms to households.

[1]: [http://css.wsu.edu/people/faculty/stephen-s-
jones/](http://css.wsu.edu/people/faculty/stephen-s-jones/)

~~~
awongh
Hm this is interesting. One question would be if any of these approaches is
scalable outside a single climate / area- exportable into a repeatable system
that will help breed crops given the inputs of a specific local ecosystem.

I hear some good stuff coming out of academic style research but nothing that
goes beyond small studies for a given local climate, nothing
disruptive/commercial. Maybe it's just unsexy and doesn't have that 100x
potential, but it's sometimes hard to understand why monsanto et.al have such
a monopoly going.

~~~
drakonandor
Why assume that Monsanto etc isn't also capable of using data to figure out
what works best?

~~~
awongh
I'm sure they do, but their mo seems to be vendor lock in / price fixing vs.
open ecosystem. Nothing wrong with making a profit, but I feel that plenty of
their practices are criminal / actively harmful. One of the powerful things
about the Elon narrative is that some of the underlying motivations are
humanitarian. Monsanto may claim to be interested in feeding the world but
it's clear that they don't really have any real interest in doing this beyond
making good PR.

I believe it's totally possible to be profitable in some of the areas monsanto
works in and not be so... evil

~~~
drakonandor
Which practices of theirs do you find distasteful?

~~~
awongh
Here's one summary that's rather bland:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases)

And here's one that's more... opinionated:
[http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0101-02.htm](http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0101-02.htm)

------
lifeisstillgood
On the mass media side of things, I am listening to the Audible version of
"Algorthms to live by" (excellent)

In it he comments on the explore/exploit trade off, when to stop exploring an
area / industry / string of lovers and when to settle down.

He suggests that the vast increase in derivative works in Hollywood cinema
suggests a switch from explore to exploit - and may indicate the industry
recognises it's time is limited.

With absolutely no data points, I would like to conjecture "mass media" is
similarly placed. In a world where a chatty guy with a Xbox gets ratings of
10billion views on YouTube, mass as in centralised broadcasting is dead.

Mass as in watched by many is probably going to get a lot more massive
(another 3 billion viewers to be born soon)

So I don't think fixing mass media as in somehow improving the ownership
incentives at NBC or BBC matter. What matters is giving small organisations
and individuals tools to speak easily- we will discover them and they will
become massive if we want them to.

So focus on editing tools, creativity tools and weirdly, better search and
ranking algorithms

Big media is beyond saving

------
Mao_Zedang
We need the spotify of media, where journalists are paid directly from their
readers maybe an aportioned rev share model. People who want articles about
the kardashians still get them and people who want to read about conflict in
the middle east get theirs. No more editorializing based on the current trendy
group think, no more editorializing based on what their rich billionaire owner
thinks their next crusade is.

The reason the media is so bad is because of economics, people have this bad
habit of wanting to live in houses and feed themselves.

~~~
ProblemFactory
I don't see "spotify of media" really solving the problem with low-quality
mass media.

A subscription with pay-per-view revenue share cuts out advertisers as the
money middle man, but it still rewards clickbait headlines and easy to consume
top lists over deep investigative journalism.

The core problem (or "problem"?) of journalism today is that what people
actually want to read is very different from what is "good for the society"
for people to write and read. You can't fix it with technology that optimises
based on market economics.

Some of the ways newspapers financed deep journalism in the past were
classified ads (now split into separate businesses like craigslist) and the
inability to track the readership of individual articles. Now that each click
is tracked, it is obvious that a Top 10 List article costs $10 to write while
bringing in more revenue than a $10000 months-long investigation.

So to "fix" it, you first have to decide that you are going to deliver people
journalism that is "good for them" rather than what they want, and then find a
way to subsidise producing that content above its natural market value. I
think that a "rich billionaire owner" willing to lose money to earn reputation
as an owner of a serious newspaper is actually a more promising funding model
than spotify for media.

~~~
Mao_Zedang
The reason why it solves clickbait vs investigative journalism is because its
an apportioned revenue share. click bait is easy to write and has more
competition if a user reads loads of clickbait the revenue the author makes
from that user will be low per article. On the other hand if you have a user
who reads "investigative" high brow content its more expensive so there is
less of it so you would expect the per user revenue would be much higher per
view.

Imagine if spotify paid artists based on minutes listened apportioned based on
each users listening habits instead of a fixed rate of N cents per listen.

So one user listens to Nirvana exclusively all month on spotify you would
expect 100% of the 70% rev share to go to the owners of that nirvana content.

~~~
ProblemFactory
I don't think that would be enough.

How do we decide that "high quality" content gets more per view than "low
quality" content? We would need a human who makes subsidy decisions. Or if
it's just an equal split of each user's monthly payment, then:

* I'm not sure that readers of "high quality" content read fewer articles in total,

* I'm not sure that they completely avoid clickbait, maybe just read a bit of "high quality" in addition to the "low quality" ones. Often I just read comments on HN or browse pictures on reddit instead of a long thoughtful article, because after a long day of work that feels more relaxing,

* The number of people who click on those articles is still going to be a small fraction of the whole population.

So, this can finance a small number of national or even global sites with
sufficient readership. Just like the Economist, New York Times, Washington
Post, etc still survive on advertising revenue today.

But how do we make sure every small 20k population town weekly paper can
afford similar articles on local issues? How do we encourage or guide people
to actually read them instead of looking pictures of cats? How do we make a
"good for you classical music collective" get paid 10x more than Nirvana when
everyone wants to listen to Nirvana?

------
cheriot
We've talked about "following the news" far longer than following anyone on
twitter, but when I read an article that's clearly part of an ongoing story,
there's no way for the author to send me updates. There needs to be a feedback
loop between newsrooms and readers that's more substantive than click counts
and more scalable than letters to the editor. Combine this with a newsroom
that takes itself seriously as the first draft of history and 1) cites its
sources better 2) compete's with wikipedia for those controversial topics that
break wikipedias editor model.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
This is similar to "editors picks". I think this is one tool that is not out
there yet - a means for journalists / editors to say "this is worthy of
interest" in a maintainable, curated manner of link pages (aka HN) and in
producing their own work.

I suspect this will look a lot like modelling software - as in this is how
much trade is going between these countries in a nice graphic, but the raw
data can be modelled / interpreted to show the editors world view.

------
ckluis
At some point in time - I would love to build a news site which had each
article broken into facts & points of view (left, center, right). Ideally
classifying/auto-linking to politicians statements/voting history
automatically with machine learning.

~~~
stevesearer
My favorite news app of all time was Circa which was broken into bite-sized
facts. You could even subscribe to story and receive notifications when a new
bit of information arose.

Unfortunately they never charged money and it disappeared about a year ago :(

------
the_watcher
I'll be fascinated to see what Mass Media ideas come through YC. It's pretty
obviously a problem, but I've honestly got no ideas at all about how to solve
it (although, to be fair, there's a non-zero chance that the media has always
been a problem of this magnitude, but the internet/echo chamber culture has
simply exposed what was lurking all along).

~~~
klinskyc
It's not going through YC, but Purple
([https://getpurple.io](https://getpurple.io)) has done a good job, IMO, of
having good coverage in a novel way (through facebook messages)

~~~
ryanSrich
TechCrunch does this. I wonder if they're using purple.

------
Cromatico
An idea for mixing AI with healthcare, using Tensor Flow with a huge image
database of skin conditions so the user takes a pic on a phone and it
determines the illness and the cure.

~~~
TuringNYC
The technical aspects can be de-risked fairly quickly here -- check out the
ISBI dataset
[http://biomedicalimaging.org/2016/?page_id=422](http://biomedicalimaging.org/2016/?page_id=422)
and all the papers around it.

The societal challenges will be a devil to defeat. FYI I actually quit my Wall
St job several years ago, did something similar with diagnostic imaging, built
a working classifier that is doctor-level sensitive (low false negative
especially). For us it was near _impossible_ to succeed in the US because the
US healthcare system is designed from all directions to be inefficient.

Our tepid success came from moving overseas temporarily and proving out the
system in a smaller country with a forward-looking healthcare system with less
conflicts of interest. We focused on a local problem (Tuberculosis.) Even
then, I'm almost two years in and ended up acquiescing to a premature
acquisition because the healthcare system is so difficult to navigate. My
lockup is almost complete, the next startup, I'm going to focus on something
easier like world peace.

I don't mean to discourage you, but you would likely be a lot more successful
if you have some "in" with a hospital system willing to work with you. IMHO,
in healthcare, the technology is the easiest part.

Incidentally...yes...we've built it on TensorFlow! And if you do wish to talk
tech about this idea, feel free to reach out to me.

------
snerbles
For ag-related hardware startups that may require frequent in-the-field
testing, how will that reconcile with YC's relocation requirement?

~~~
bpicolo
In San Francisco you aren't so far whole a whole lot of farmland

~~~
snerbles
It's a pain if you're relocating from said farmland, even if it's only in
Modesto or Fresno.

~~~
bpicolo
Yeah. That said, there's certainly prior art here (Farmlogs)

~~~
vollmarj
Yeah, we (FarmLogs) did YC in Mountain View and realized that needing to get
on a plane every time we wanted to visit a customer was just not worth it. We
picked up and moved back to the Midwest after YC to be near our customers.

You can either commit to getting on an airplane often, or find ways to test in
simulated environments instead. My guess is you will need some combination of
both.

------
rtpg
For Underserved Communities, there are social aspects that also need to be
tackled.

Many many many many organisations target these kinds of communities to try and
help them. People are often suspicious of the help, because there are also
many many many organisations that try to exploit them! Misleading terms, much
higher hidden fees, etc, etc. Many have almost no access to high-quality
services, just misleading ones.

Tackling this trust issue is essential to any success. In particular, I think
that a 1099-style service like Uber is a bad fit for building trust. Though
there are other ways to help someone apart from 'make them your employees'.

------
ryanSrich
Somewhat related question. Has anyone searched for an idea, came across RFS
and started working on an idea that eventually got them into YC?

------
fillskills
I have worked on two of loosely related projects. Both of them are very close
to my heart. Since I am heading another (3rd) project that has become a funded
startup, I would like to share those ideas and see if anyone is interested in
pursuing them. Would love critical feedback on these as these are my life
goals as of now.

1) Food and Farming - iPlantTrees. The idea is to set up a platform where two
kinds of people meet. One without the resources or knowledge but have a place
to plant. Other side of people or organizations who have knowledge/resources
to plant. I came up with the idea because when I moved to CA, we bought a
house with an Orange tree. It gives amazing oranges so we no longer have to
buy from the store. It would have been great if I could also get some Apple or
other trees too but I have scant knowledge of finding -> planting ->
maintaining plants. I could spend years doing so or someone could plant them
for me. You could make money by partnering with Nurseries etc. In the end
everyone would know a lot more about food plantation and have fresh home grown
food to eat.

2) Path to middle class - FillSkills. My understanding of the problem is the
barrier to entry to jobs. Which is being brought down tremendously by the
internet. Even now though I meet people all the time who would like to become
a Software Engineer or a Data Scientist or a Business Analyst etc but have no
idea where to start. FillSkills would take a look at all job postings, show
which jobs are in in demand or expected to be in demand. Think of a stock
trading app but for Job data. So you can really see what is going on in the
job market and make life choices accordingly. In addition it will be able to
tell you specifically what you need to learn to get the job profile you like.
Companies should also be able to post jobs directly with a string of
challenges (courses, exams, interviews, projects etc using whatever tools)
that if passed by a candidate, guarantees a job or at least an in person
interview.

------
ihinsdale
"What can we do to bring up the baseline and make the vast majority of our
mass media better?"

I see Sequiturs ([https://sequiturs.com](https://sequiturs.com)) as taking
this problem on pretty directly. It's a tool for crowdsourcing the strongest
arguments on a given topic. These arguments are presented in a format that is
easily digested and encourages iterative improvement. Sequiturs can 'bring up
the baseline' by serving as a reference for discussions to turn to, to gain
clarity and avoid reinventing the wheel when considering the in's and out's of
an argument. This includes serving as a reference for journalists, in
informing the articles they write and the questions they ask of those in
power.

Disclosure: I'm the creator of Sequiturs--and would love to know what you
think of it!

------
zappo2938
Knight Foundation's single focus is media and journalism. For example, MapBox
came out of a $200k grant they provided. I'm sure there are a lot of
developers and start-ups they have or are currently are funding who can use
more support. You might want to talk to them about what people are doing in
the field.

~~~
navd
Agreed, when I lived in Miami (last year) knight was funding so many awesome
ventures. I wouldn't say they have many developers but they are very receptive
to having people come in to pitch an idea and they also host many events to
come in and request funding.

------
Cromatico
> This population has to navigate a world with substandard services, low
> quality housing, overcrowded schools, and crime in their neighborhoods. They
> are often unbanked and living paycheck to paycheck.

Tiny houses, tiny schools, tiny cops and tiny banks can solve their problems,
but there are legal hurdles.

------
avivo
Why focus on "mass media"? As opposed to just "media"?

It seems incentives are the key problem in an age where there are no real
gatekeepers to "mass media."

I'm curious the request isn't more like this:

"What can we do to bring up the baseline and make the vast majority of our
media better? Incentive systems that reward polarization, misinformation,
passivity, and fear, are not improving society. We’re looking for ways to
bring the average back up and improve media quality."

(original: "What can we do to bring up the baseline and make the vast majority
of our mass media better? Media outlets that rely on polarization,
misinformation, passivity, and fear, are not improving society. We’re looking
for ways to bring the average back up and improve mass media.")

------
radicaldreamer
Don't think flavor matters as much as yield -- at least not from the farmer's
perspective. Plenty of flavorless vegetables and fruit everywhere, because
they're mostly sold by weight, not by flavor or other qualities.

~~~
rojobuffalo
It should be though -- flavor is a signal for nutrition, it almost always
signals ecological health in it system of origin, and it makes life more
interesting. We already produce 50% more food than gets eaten and huge
portions go to livestock. We don't have a yield problem.

~~~
radicaldreamer
Yes, but farmers (especially subsistence farmers) just want to get the most
yield they can. That's the only part of the chain they're involved in.

------
avivo
I'm really happy to see YC putting attention toward the (increasing) market
failure around media quality. It's a serious problem, with IMHO imperils
governance and stability worldwide.

I'm exploring a way to improve this dramatically, and fairly rapidly;
essentially creating a stronger market for trust & quality, with resulting
ranking rewards from FB, Google et al. If you are interested in learning more
and perhaps being involved, let me know (yc@aviv.me). Experience with news
organizations, partnerships, platform companies, moderation systems, or
machine learning are all especially helpful.

------
robertocarlos
Definitely like the food and farming addition. Basic sustenance is still a
very important issue for a significant portion of the human population. Worth
investing resources into.

------
w_t_payne
RE: Programming Tools "What comes after programming languages?"

I think that this is the wrong question. How about these other questions
instead:

How can we encourage the spread of _existing_ best practices? How can we lower
the barriers to entry for people wanting to make safe and reliable software at
scale? Can this be done in a way that is commercially sustainable?

------
akhatri_aus
Is there a poison and antidote? Reddit [yc backed] and <insert here> to raise
the bar. The symptom is partially caused by YC.

------
razvan_ro
It would be interesting to see an analysis of the impact of the Request for
Startups in YC applications (and the results / progress seen so far).

------
jonwachob91
Bye bye nanotech :( You'll be missed.

~~~
tim333
Looking down the list the missing are

8 Internet Infrastructure

11 Science

22 Global Infrastructure

23 Nanotech

vs
[http://web.archive.org/web/20160105095435/http://www.ycombin...](http://web.archive.org/web/20160105095435/http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs)

------
somekindaplan
> _Underserved Communities and Social Services_

This is the problem YC should be solving. Instead, YC is _still_ patently and
openly biased towards the Ivy League class, which is really just a bias
_against_ poor people. It's been a decade and still nothing predicts YC
acceptance like the Right Background and Culture Fit.

So get on it! Raise a billion dollars and fund every decent team founded by
people from poor backgrounds. Stop giving money to people that don't really
need it and don't really appreciate it.

This could change the entire world.. Poor children could grow up knowing that
someone would fund them if they try to make something of themselves. Initial
funding is _the_ roadblock.

A simple proxy for "poor" in this case can be anyone who _did not_ have
parents who could buy them into a fancy school or send them around the world.

~~~
cloudjacker
Pointing fingers all the wrong directions. Hope it feels good to get it off
your chest at least.

A more productive discussion is methods for capital formation and how some
methods can reduce inequality better than others. Judging from what you wrote,
it doesn't seem like a search query you would ever have run yourself. There
are some interesting things going on around the world on this issue.

~~~
somekindaplan
Feel free to disagree with any of what I've said. I think my suggestion for YC
is far bigger than anything else being suggested. It may be controversial to
say they're doing a bad job right now but that's what I think the truth is.

YC is in the unique position of being able to fund thousands of poor people
and yet they choose not to. Why? They don't believe poor people can be
successful? They don't want to help poor people? What is it?

Almost every poor person who got rich had some rich person's help. This is a
fact of history going back thousands of years. There are very few exceptions.

Trump had his father's help.

Steve Jobs had Mark Markkula's help.

Paul Graham had a rich lawyer's help.

Sam Altman had Paul Graham's help.

So what do poor people need to lift themselves and their families out of
poverty? Help.

~~~
nugget
How would YC know if someone is poor when they apply? Just by what school they
attended? I don't know the stats but I'd be shocked if the majority of YC's
most recent accepted class were from ''Ivies'' (a very tiny population).

I went to school with many brilliant but ''poor'' kids on full-ride
scholarships. From my perspective the biggest barrier to them becoming
entrepreneurs wasn't that nobody would fund them but rather that the immediate
salaried incomes available to them upon graduation were life-changing for them
and their families and ''too good to pass up'' in their personal risk-adjusted
calculus.

