Meanwhile in the previous episode they were pushing startups to jump on the LLM hype-wagon or risk being left behind.
YC seems to be focusing more on whatever the buzzword topic that is trending amongst the Twitter monoculture.
Rather than educating founders on more fundamental topics such as how to get from 0-1, how to hire, fostering positive culture etc. For which there is still such little content on.
They deleted a lot (all?) of the negative comments on that video too, hah. At one point this was their advice:
> We see this so commonly at YC that we have a term for it. It's called a "Solution In Search of a Problem," or a SISP. And these are usually not great, because usually, you never actually find the problem. You're much better off starting with a problem, and then looking for solutions.
Very few people have a problem that AI can currently solve. It might not _stay_ that way... but man I wonder what kind of moat a startup could build when they're just wrappers around foundation models.
I think wrapper companies could do very well if AI does end up becoming having an impact near on the order of the internet or smartphones, which it may never.
A product that incorporates a foundation model could still require solving a hard engineering problem separately from the training and provision of said model. Someone who could, say, provide a reliable filter for copyrighted content from an LLM is providing real value and has a tangible moat.
> Rather than educating founders on more fundamental topics such as how to get from 0-1, how to hire, fostering positive culture etc.
My experience is that none of these things actually matter anymore. I wish they did, but my experience has been that getting any of these things right in today's environment is in the best case inconsequential to success and in the worse an actual determent.
I've worked at horrifically toxic startup cultures, but it never seemed to hurt them getting funding from outside teams that didn't care in the slightest how healthy the org was or even the product was even remotely good for customers.
I've worked at companies that literally did not know how they were every going to make a profit IPO, then continue to fail to figure this out and changed their strategy to shrug-your-shoulder-and-wait-for-the-return-of-zirp, with no observable consequences on their stock price or investor support for years. Maybe this will eventually catch up to them, but so far they've been quite successful burning a dollar to make $0.70.
I've worked at companies that hired hundreds of completely useless data scientist, filled management with toxic management consultants, driven out all the serious talent they had... with again, no real consequences.
And all of the companies I've known that checked all of your bullet points? Well they've mostly stayed small, saw revenue decline, and eventually start falling apart. All of the best companies I've worked for ended up having to get rid of all the things that made them good in order to appease investors and keep growing.
I wish that we lived in a world where your advice was correct, but I haven't seen any evidence that that is the world we actually inhabit.
Pure money stuff. He has said if you think something is over valued, short it. If you think the VC startup industry is overvalued the best way to do that is to start (and sell to VC) a startup. Enter adam neumann.
No, shorting is different; it's borrowing something you might not be able to pay back.
WeWork was signing leases - borrowing real estate. They went bankrupt from not being able to pay for it. This isn't the same as selling shares to VC's. Equity isn't debt.
Okay, I remember that. But I think this could more simply be seen as becoming a supplier, responding to temporary demand. This could be done well or fraudulently.
If you think LLMs are overhyped, you likely expect a bubble burst when the "Emperor has no clothes!" moment happens - so it's rational to avoid the risk of being stuck holding the bag when that happens.
I don't know about Twitter but I do know that what YC focuses on is founders. If most of the startups are working in some area, it's because that's what founders want to work on.
Maybe there's some link between the kind of founders that YC looks to fund, and the sort of things such founders want to work on, but as far as I know YC isn't pushing them in that direction.
I haven't heard anyone at YC claim to "pick the best"—that feels like it's been reworded to sound more arrogant.
The point is that YC focuses mostly on founding teams in deciding who to fund, and having funded them, focuses on supporting them in doing what they want to do.
speaking of the LLM hype-wagon or risk being left behind conundrum, is anyone surprised that Michael Saylor hasn't sold all his BTC, and used the proceeds to buy graphics cards?
YC seems to be focusing more on whatever the buzzword topic that is trending amongst the Twitter monoculture.
Rather than educating founders on more fundamental topics such as how to get from 0-1, how to hire, fostering positive culture etc. For which there is still such little content on.