[HN Gopher] YC S20 Remote Batch
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YC S20 Remote Batch
Author : coolswan
Score : 126 points
Date : 2020-04-20 16:05 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.ycombinator.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.ycombinator.com)
| drazvan wrote:
| Applications for S20 ended on March 16th, haven't they? I wanted
| to apply but definitely could not travel, this change makes it
| interesting/possible again but I'm not sure it's not already too
| late to apply.
| cvaidya1986 wrote:
| Just apply there is only upside :)
| dolftax wrote:
| "And we're still accepting late applications if you've always
| wanted to do YC but couldn't move out to the bay area" - Aaron
| from YC.
|
| https://twitter.com/aaron_epstein/status/1252267533555470338...
| foreign-inc wrote:
| How many companies from those late applications get accepted
| every batch?
| gscott wrote:
| Now that ycombinator takes over a hundred startups it does
| seem more promising to get in, eventually.
| jeff18 wrote:
| "And you can submit after the deadline - though keep in mind
| that if you apply late, we can't guarantee the exact date of
| when you'll hear back from us with a decision."
|
| https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/
|
| Do it!
| kebman wrote:
| Thanks for all the great work! Keep it up, and remember to wash
| your hands! :D
| cvaidya1986 wrote:
| This is good for the world.
| oliverx0 wrote:
| I understand circumstances are forcing this to happen, but if
| online batches are now a possibility, the FAQs should be updated:
|
| "Can we do it without moving to where you are?"
|
| Sorry, no. We tried this once, and by Demo Day that startup was
| way behind the rest. What we do, we have to do in person. We
| would not be doing a startup a favor by not making them come to
| YC events in person.
|
| However, you don't have to be in silicon valley 24x7. If you have
| a business that requires that you be somewhere else, we will work
| something out so you can participate in YC events while also
| being attentive to your business. Usually the founders will
| rotate between locations, or fly back and forth.
|
| Of course, after the 3 month program, you can go wherever you
| want.
| TTPrograms wrote:
| It's sort of crazy to make such a sweeping decision based on
| one case - especially when remote collaboration tools are
| improving on a quarterly basis.
|
| Of course statements like this are just rationalizations - not
| arguments employed to arrive at objective conclusions.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Ya, that's exactly what I thought when I read that. I guess
| if that one single company had been an amazing success, they
| would have just dropped everything, shit down the offices and
| gone fully virtual at that point?
| vikramkr wrote:
| Yeah, looking back at it there's definitely a question raised
| by how it was just one data point, especially considering
| that this also means there likely wasn't a lot of
| institutional support on YC's end for the one remote startup
| as well. It wouldn't be deliberate but if you've just got
| that one remote startup you aren't going to be really trying
| to make remote programming work and making all the resources
| remote-friendly.
|
| For other experiments, YC has discussed publically
| (fellowship, accepting people with no idea, early decision)
| there were what seemed externally at least to be well-run
| experiments with multiple accepted and some longer-term
| tracking to see how that worked. No remote seems to finally
| be getting that proper experimentation and treatment, I guess
| we'll see how that goes.
|
| There are a lot of benefits to in person, I personally prefer
| working on things in-person to remote (in biotech, in-person
| really matters), but it'll be an interesting experiment this
| batch to see how much room there is for fully remote startup
| development across all the sectors they invest, both in terms
| of the batch itself and the companies individually.
| snowmaker wrote:
| Thanks, I'll update that.
| GraffitiTim wrote:
| I think people will be surprised how well this works.
|
| There are a lot of great startups that will be born in these
| times. Many of them will be "remote native" -- operated remotely,
| remote YC, and potentially tackling problems that have arisen due
| to the remote world we're living in.
|
| After this crisis is over, some things will go back to normal,
| but a lot of the changes will endure to varying degrees.
|
| I think people are used to the power of in-person connection and
| physical reality, and most of us are craving it. But an
| incredible amount can happen in digital reality, and we are only
| just beginning to scratch that surface.
|
| At _minimum_ it is an interesting and necessary experiment.
| [deleted]
| jjeaff wrote:
| I also think that some people are better able to get funding
| and make up for other inadequacies in their concept or
| implementation thereof by leveraging their in-person skillset.
|
| Obviously, being good in-person and being able to convince a VC
| of your competence is a skill that likely correlates well to
| success with a startup, but I doubt that it is one to one.
|
| Just like there are a lot of excellent engineers that get
| passed over frequently because they aren't good at white
| boarding, or interviews in general.
| shreyshrey wrote:
| We have specifically built airsend (https://www.airsend.io/) to
| solve remote collaboration use cases like this (especially if the
| use case involves collaboration among multiple teams across
| organization boundaries). We will be thrilled if YC could check
| us out. AirSend will be a great addition to YC's online platform,
| video conferencing and founders forum.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Nice, you can now capture that talent pool that would otherwise
| not want to relocate to California even for a stint. Hope this
| becomes a trend once normal life resumes, with YC and other
| investors.
| MagnitudeFC wrote:
| What are the odds of this being reversed mid-batch if covid isn't
| as big of a deal in say July?
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| How is VC sentiment during the pandemic? My first assumption is
| that they're more hesitant than usual to invest, but I've heard
| from peers that some VCs are now working even harder to make sure
| their most promising companies have the resources to survive past
| the crisis. Something about lessons learned from the startups
| that came out of the Great Recession.
| oliverx0 wrote:
| Currently fundraising. From what I have been hearing, VCs are
| mostly doubling down on their portfolio and reducing the number
| of new companies they invest in. Sentiment is strong for
| companies enabling remote work though.
| ThePhysicist wrote:
| If they now would be able to invest in foreign companies like
| GmbHs or UK Limiteds it would be perfect. I understand why they
| don't want to do that but I think for a lot of companies to which
| YC could be interesting (us included) it's simply not possible or
| very difficult to do a flip to a US company.
| kick wrote:
| That increases complexity drastically for what's basically a
| third and a sixth of the reward, if even that. I don't think it
| makes that much sense.
| ThePhysicist wrote:
| Not sure I understand what you mean by "a third and a sixth
| of the reward", can you explain?
| kick wrote:
| Population of Germany and the UK, respectively, compared to
| the United States (probably a little fuzzy because it was
| recalled from memory, though). Not only smaller pool of
| applicants, but also smaller markets.
| jedberg wrote:
| The market of "Germany" is actually the entire EU, which
| is bigger than the US.
| kick wrote:
| Only slightly bigger, much of it is dramatically more
| poor, and a sizeable portion of it can't understand
| English, much less German.
| robk wrote:
| German notary requirements make investing hell compared to us
| or uk
| hef19898 wrote:
| My impression was that investments in US entities requires,
| kind of, a lawyer. So not that much different, if you ask me.
|
| With Germany being in the EU, you can also incorporate in
| whatever EU country you want. The UK is obviously out for
| now, but take Estonia for example. Makes taxes a lot more
| complex for the company, but much less so when compared to
| YCs way of transforming into a US Inc. with a German / EU
| local entity. Especially when there are now US based
| operations.
|
| That being said, there is nothing wrong with sticking to one
| market. Not the last reason being to avoid the above
| mentioned entanglements.
| ThePhysicist wrote:
| Yeah I know that's unfortunate. Maybe we will see some
| innovation in that area with Covid-19 now, the problem is
| that the notary system has created a class of wealthy people
| that will fight vigorously against anything that threatens
| their income stream, even though many transactions could be
| done digitally.
|
| The main problem is that you need to appear personally,
| otherwise it's not such a big deal I find.
| contingencies wrote:
| IIRC they attempted the same approach in China. They tried to
| take the US strategy and demand a particular legal structure
| for Chinese startups that was neither normal for domestic
| startups nor common for international startups beneath the size
| of a multinational with deep pockets and switched on lawyers.
| This was probably a significant contributor to the lack of
| traction in China, and almost certainly removed by the follow-
| on program.
| [deleted]
| dt3ft wrote:
| I'd love to apply for 20-things.com. Would this be a waste of
| time, given the interest YC board has in Reddit?
| nostromo wrote:
| Makes me wonder, does YC still have any Reddit equity?
| gkoberger wrote:
| They sold to Conde Nast and the spun out, so probably not,
| actually!
| jedberg wrote:
| They've invested in reddit competitors before. Such as 9Gag.
| snowmaker wrote:
| You should apply. Whether there are companies we've already
| funded doing something similar is not a factor in our
| decisions.
| dt3ft wrote:
| Thank you, glad to hear it, that helps a lot!
| aryankashyap wrote:
| https://www.quora.com/Would-Y-Combinator-invest-in-a-company...
| invsblduck wrote:
| AS IF EVERYONE KNOWS WTF AN S20 REMOTE BATCH IS.
|
| The article doesn't define what an S20 remote batch is, nor does
| it link anywhere that may indicate just what the hell an S20
| remote batch may be.
|
| > We are confident we can produce a great remote batch.
|
| I'm sure you are. Thank you.
| jonwachob91 wrote:
| YC S20 Remote Batch = YCombinator Summer 2020 Batch, remote.
| It's the same styling they've used for as long as I can recall.
| W21 will be the Winter 2021 batch, W20 was the W 2020 batch.
| jameskraus wrote:
| Summer 2020. A lot of people who read HN are probably familiar
| with the style, so they seemed to have omitted a longform of
| the abbreviation. Other pages on the linked site call it
| "Summer 2020", "Winter 2020", etc.
| kick wrote:
| _Please don 't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to
| emphasize a word or phrase, put _asterisks _around it and it
| will get italicized._
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| [deleted]
| jldugger wrote:
| You're commenting on Hacker News, a news forum run by Y
| Combinator. I think it's fair to assume the broad HN community
| knows that YC = Y Combinator, and from there that S20 means
| Summer 2020, and that batch means the set of startups funded by
| ycombinator. In that context remote should make sense, but the
| link explains that part.
| ahmedaly wrote:
| One of the best things about YC is being there at the silicon
| valley. Otherwise, it would lose one of the most important
| benefits it offers!
| sdan wrote:
| As a Bay Area native I wish this hadn't happen, but sometimes
| radical change creates radical results.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| Why do you wish so?
| sdan wrote:
| Well I understand deeply that there's nothing more powerful
| that in-person connections.
|
| I've witnessed that multiple times when I sneaked into some
| "exclusive" events in silicon valley.
| xwdv wrote:
| It erodes some of the Bay Area's attraction for new talent
| and new companies.
| [deleted]
| immy wrote:
| As someone who doesn't yet own property here, I'm okay with
| that.
| gnicholas wrote:
| This is a single cohort, and they make no indication that they
| are changing their policy for future cohorts. No one in the Bay
| Area should care about this one-off change unless they applied
| to this batch and are worried about the extra competition.
| Four8Five wrote:
| I wonder if this changes the number of companies that can be
| accepted. I also worry that this will turn into Startup School
| 2.0.
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(page generated 2020-04-20 23:00 UTC)