
My key takeaways from Y Combinator’s Startup School 2012 - DanielRibeiro
http://nowaternomoon.com/post/34062996874/my-key-takeaways-from-y-combinators-startup-school
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iloveyouocean
I was there. And I can say that this would not be my summary of Startup
School. This summary makes me question every other summary of events on HN.
Not to say that the author didnt provide a good summary for himself, but
instead I now realize how radically differently two people can perceive the
same event, based on their experience.

~~~
viviantan
I couldn't be there, but I would be very interested to hear your perspective.

~~~
wilfra
I posted my takeaways on Quora (second one, currently)

[http://www.quora.com/Startup-School/What-were-the-key-
takeaw...](http://www.quora.com/Startup-School/What-were-the-key-takeaways-
from-Startup-School-2012)

I agree that two people can have vastly different takeaways from an event like
this, but don't see anything wrong with that. Different people have different
backgrounds and different things they wanted to learn going in.

~~~
plinkplonk
Thank You. Upvoted (both here and on quora) That was a very interesting bunch
of takeaways. I found them more interesting than the ones in the OP.

I wasn't there so I'm probably imagining things, but I'm getting the vibe that
the VC/investor types were giving canned pop psychology 'MBA'/management
consulting type advice like advice, where the hacker/founder folks _sound_
more original (and useful).

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buro9
Patrick Collison of Stripe, his quote is a paraphrase of the US Tour de France
winner Greg LeMond, "Training doesn't get any easier, you just go faster.".

Another of LeMond's that I always felt applicable was, "You don't suffer, kill
yourself and take the risks I take just for money. I love bike racing.".

You better love what you do.

~~~
wilfra
It wasn't paraphrased, he gave a direct quote and a picture of LeMond was one
of his slides.

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vukmir
I enjoyed reading this.

My takeaway from his takeaways would be:

1\. Commitment matters. Stop talking, make it happen. - _Ben Silberman_

2\. Don’t worry about competition, just improve yourself. - _Hiroshi Mikitani_

3\. Failure to decide is what kills you. - _Joel Spolsky_

I've shortened the Joel's quote because your inability (unwillingness) to
decide whether you'll ‘get big fast’ or have an ‘organic growth’ is not the
only place where indecision shows its ugly head.

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viviantan
Thank you for sharing this! Does anyone know if YC will post the video? I
couldn't watch the live stream on Saturday.

Too bad about Instagram for Squirrels. I would've been one of their 5 users.

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jgrahamc
Did Zuck really claim: "Human is the only animal who dreams about social
interactions"?

~~~
wilfra
Yes, or something very close to that.

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theycallmemorty
"Human is the only animal who dreams about social interactions."

How could we possibly know that?

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brador
Is there video of this event anywhere?

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jeandenis
There are some videos at <http://www.youtube.com/user/mshelengelena> but it's
not complete and doesn't appear to be official.

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dinkman
Also, Ben Horowitz apparently not a fan of "bitch ass ness"

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pbiggar
Good photos - did you take them?

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armansu
Yup. Most - on my camera, some - on the phone.

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wilfra
Good post.

"Palantir (I didn’t understand the market)" I'm pretty sure he said he didn't
understand the size of the market. Subtle but important difference.

