[HN Gopher] Today is Y Combinator's 17th birthday ___________________________________________________________________ Today is Y Combinator's 17th birthday Author : ElectronShak Score : 371 points Date : 2022-03-12 09:37 UTC (13 hours ago) (HTM) web link (twitter.com) (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com) | redstarpa wrote: | Watching YC grow over the years has changed (good and bad) | everything we touch, see, hear and taste was bc of the 'YC | effect'.. directly and indirectly. From myself 7x applicant to | getting in YC SUS F19 to meeting /connecting with 100s of | founders from around the world thru YC. | | To me it's the best community in the world to share ideas, | knowledge, make friends and collaborate. Rarely, a community this | unique can sway a market in under a Twitter minute. | | You if haven't applied, please do. not once but everytime you | can. Your idea you have in your head right now, can change | humanity's outcome.. maybe it's a cure for cancer or the next do- | dad we'll buy at Target. Just apply and see what happens.. | | Yeah it's disheartening to get that email, the same one I got 7 | times. But understand, they're watching each of us to who tweet | out our ideas, our dreams.. You'll never know who'll email you | out of the blue to apply (I've heard a few stories Abt this). | | Here's what I'm doing to change #rideshare for the better. | | https://Fure.Cab - Where the world gets free rides.(tm) | | Rudy Ferraz- founder/biz dev, deaf family man, who likes cars, | tech, dance, music, and the stars. linkedin.com/in/rudyferraz, | Rudyferraz.com, Twitter- @rudyferraz | | Roby Devassy- founder/tech, family man who likes tech, sports and | quiet time. linkedin.com/in/robertdevassy | | https://fure.cab/ Driver Wait list | -http://bit.ly/FUREDriversSignupWaitList - 700k signups Riders | Wait list -http://bit.ly/FURERidersWaitList -100k signups | YCombinator - https://www.startupschool.org/users/A5GA-06GE9h4Qw | Twitter - https://twitter.com/furecab Angel - | https://angel.co/company/fure-cab (RUV info DM us) r/ - | https://www.reddit.com/r/fure_rideshare/ CrunchBase - | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/fure | | YouTube: https://youtu.be/gdsbp_jID7M | https://youtu.be/S898LDdDSnQ https://youtu.be/4TGIRhS9fVg | usednet wrote: | Almost an adult! | onion2k wrote: | YC has been instrumental in some _incredible_ successes. It 's | been very cool to see people I know go through the accelerator, | scale up, and eventually exit. Long may it continue. | andygcook wrote: | For anyone curious, this is the general area PG screenshot for | the map: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3815449,-71.1244449,16z | | This is about a ten minute walk from Harvard Square near an area | known as the Radcliffe Quandrangle. | 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: | Happy Birthday! | torotonnato wrote: | Happy 0x11, see you at 0x111 | giovannibonetti wrote: | "See you" doesn't apply here. All of us will be dead in 160 | years | CPLX wrote: | All but one. | DonHopkins wrote: | Oh, I don't believe dang's the only bot here! | torotonnato wrote: | I bet a San Junipero-style mind upload startup will happen | here well before 256 years have passed | mensetmanusman wrote: | We are hoping for a YC year that solves that issue :) | merrvk wrote: | Bet you're fun at parties | makach wrote: | Happy birthyday, YC! | whitesilhouette wrote: | Happy birthday | mybbor wrote: | YC has been an invaluable resource for me. | | An acquaintance was in the 3rd batch of founders and turned me on | to the ecosystem and community here. Around that time, I was a | few years out of high school and working for minimum wage at a | pizza shop. | | I was experimenting with web design, making a few extra dollars | running google ads on phpBB forums, and learning to code in the | process. I never realized my geeky side could translate into | something entrepreneurial until I started spending time here. | Tracking the progress of my friend and this community planted a | seed that turned into a dream of someday being a founder. | | Today, my two business partners and I have been running a | successful software business for almost a decade. We were | distributed before it was mainstream. We're in the WordPress | space and have a team of 20+ people all over the globe. I've had | the opportunity to travel, meet investors, smoke cigars with | business heroes, sleep in if I want to, and enjoy an exciting and | fulfilling life. | | I still find myself regularly googling about issues that arise in | my company with "hacker news" appended to the end of the query. | The stories here helped us navigate a very stressful M&A process | and countless other "business stuff" hurdles that we encountered | over the years (ie business insurance "hacker news"). | | YC provided me with direction and inspiration when I was | floundering around in my early years. The simple ideas that you | don't need an MBA to start a business and being an odd duck is a | valuable entrepreneurial trait were life-changing. The community | and discussions here are where I come to learn and be inspired. I | sincerely hope it continues to be that for myself and others for | many more years to come. | | Thanks YC! | lquist wrote: | I was rejected by YC and still point to them (namely, the combo | of PG's essays and HN comment wisdom) as the greatest single | source of startup advice as I've built a company in the 9-10 | figure range. Thank you YC! You have done so much for the startup | community! | [deleted] | ArtWomb wrote: | YC SUS Winter 2020 alum (enjoying the current "build sprint"). | Discovering new startup wisdom everday. Here's to YC's next 17 | years, and what 2040 will bring ;) | gunapologist99 wrote: | I love YC. | | Even though I'd never apply and thus never get in because of _my_ | preconceived notions about _YC 's_ preconceived notions (too | "old"?, proud Dad of a bunch of homeschooled kids, mostly solo | founder (well, I've got kids who code!), building a social/chat | app way outside of the Bay area echo chamber, and not toeing any | particular political lines (hey, I'm a coder so I'm allowed to | recursively nest parens -- don't tread on me), and even if I'm | doxing myself a bit with this comment!), YC and PG (through his | essays, Hackers and Painters, and his genuinely kind and sincere | approach to everything, even with people who are on the opposite | side of the political aisle, like me) have taught me _so_ much | about how to be a force for good in this strange and weird world. | | PG seems to truly live out Jesus' wisdom and the Golden Rule. He | wisely avoids getting dragged into political discussions, and the | HN moderators wisely steer even very wild discussions away from | flame wars. For my next act, I'd like to build a social app that | scales up the same sort of non-partisan (or multi-partisan!) | active, intelligent discourse that occurs here, even if there | are, sadly, very few dang's in the world. | | I would like to say a very, very warm and very sincere _thank | you_ to pg, dang, and the rest of the YC team who make it | possible to still have a civil, mostly uncensored, and wide- | ranging conversation, and has helped so many great startups get | off the ground, both inside _and_ outside of YC with things like | the SAFE and the startup-school opened to all, proving to VC 's | how things can and should be done, and just pursuing the most | interesting startups, period. If I truly thought I had a chance | given my coloring so far outside the SF political lines, I'd | apply in a heartbeat! | | Much love from someone deep in the heart of Texas. Keep up the | incredibly awesome work. | me_me_mu_mu wrote: | Good luck bro | gunapologist99 wrote: | Not sure if you're joking, but I'll take it. ;) Need every | bit of luck I can get! | me_me_mu_mu wrote: | Not joking. I'm also working on a social app, and I think | it's great when I hear other tinkerers speak about their | passionate work. | Dma54rhs wrote: | PG has expressed on Twitter multiple times he loathes the HN | culture and always angry Californians. Probably that is why he | stopped posting here as well, at least under his name. | [deleted] | [deleted] | jedwhite wrote: | If you're making something people want, just have a go and | apply. YC says it outright in their motto. That's really all | that matters. | | The application itself can help your own thinking about what | you're building, so it's worth doing just for that. | | Great products come from all sorts of unconventional | backgrounds, precisely because the people who made them were | from an unexpected background. Some of the best new ideas come | from the need to solve a problem that mainstream products don't | cover, or from an insight that someone in the mainstream would | never have. | | Airbnb's founders weren't conventional startup founders. They | were struggling and needed to pay their rent. | | Also, 1000% agree on the sentiment and thanks to YC for the | community here. HN is one of the blessings of the current day | web. | [deleted] | jedwhite wrote: | PS there is a section in this talk by Dalton Caldwell from YC | on 'how to create luck' (in the context of applying to YC). | It's really great on just this topic: | | https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6t-how-to-apply-and- | succ... | | There's also a separate short talk on creating luck that has | an interesting story about how Brex started, and also about | how sometimes you need an "outsider's philosophy": | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmEyx9TEkRw | | These helped my thinking. The application is a helpful way to | think about your startup even if you don't submit it. And | once it's done, you might as well submit anyway :) | | Good luck! | gunapologist99 wrote: | This is awesome -- thank you Jed! Now I'm really seriously | considering it! | jedwhite wrote: | Yeah, just do it! Good luck with applying, and with | building your startup. If I can ever help with feedback, | or anything else, just reach out (details on my profile | here). | | Also, check out YC Startup School. That's where the video | was from. It really helped our startup, it has great | resources, and a really friendly and encouraging | community to get feedback on what you're building. | | https://www.startupschool.org/ | robfitz wrote: | I got into the fifth batch (s07) and remember my other startup | friends staging an intervention to dissuade me from accepting | because "the valuation is really bad." | | Interesting to see how long even the industry insiders failed to | take YC seriously. And then once it was working, they flipped | immediately to complaining that YC was too powerful and too | influential (unbeatable network effect, seed/A valuation | inflation, and so on). | | I also remember the constant naysaying about scalability and | batch size. Our batch was ~19 companies. People kept naysaying, | "Well this model is fine for now, but it will never work past 20 | teams." | | PG would always reply with something like, "Yeah, they said that | when we had fewer than 10 teams also. We aren't thinking too far | ahead; each batch, we just find the next bottleneck and solve it, | and we'll see how far that gets us." Which evidently got them | pretty far. A lovely example of doing things that don't scale. | enra wrote: | I was in the S12 batch "the batch that killed the YC model" | with 80+ teams I think. After that they switched to the group | model where the batch is divided in to groups and each group | has specific partners. In our batch is was definitely | challenging when you often got a randomly assigned partner each | week and most of the time they didn't know who you are or what | you do. However, Coinbase, Instagram, Zapier etc came out of | that batch. | | For me as first time founder YC was super helpful and they | really drill the right kind of mindset for you. Build product, | talk to users. The stuff they tell you is often very simple but | I think lot of founders naturally complicate the startup | building and focus on the wrong things because they think thats | what should do. YC cuts through all the bs and just makes you | focus on the few actually important things | edouard-harris wrote: | > However, Coinbase, Instagram, Zapier etc came out of that | batch. | | (By Instagram, I imagine you meant Instacart?) | dsugarman wrote: | Yes Instacart, although Kevin Systrom did visit us for one | of the weekly YC dinners to share his wild startup story. | | Easily the most memorable summer of my life. I agree that | even though we were told everything was falling apart at | our batch size, it was arguably the best batch of YC, there | was some real magic. | codingdave wrote: | Your success and the success of YC doesn't make your friends | wrong. YC has improved over time, both in valuations and | processes. Even today, it is not perfect, and there is a | significant survivorship bias used to describe its success as | the unicorns are called out, but I don't hear much talk about | how all the founders do - what is the median result of all YC | companies, for example? (I honestly don't know that answer... I | would love to see it because don't see such overall stats.) | | YC absolutely has accomplished something, as have some of its | companies. I don't want to be dismissive of that. But we should | acknowledge that it embraces and encourages the high-risk/high- | reward model, which should be entered into with open eyes. | nxmnxm99 wrote: | What? The entire industry of venture capital is based on a | tiny percentage of companies absolutely exploding. The point | is, compared to everyone else, YC does it much better - the | gulf between YC (which is on track to have multiple $100b | portfolio companies) and second place accelerators like | Techstars (who have, at best, a couple of single digit | unicorns) is astronomical. | codingdave wrote: | > The entire industry of venture capital is based on a tiny | percentage of companies absolutely exploding. | | Exactly. Which means the risk level to founders is high. | Because it is a roulette wheel where the VCs are the house, | and the founders are the gamblers. With TechStars vs. YC | being akin to the difference of the wheel having one zero | or two. Founders are still gambling... even if YC gives | better odds than others. | | Again, VC has it place, as does YC. I'm not saying nobody | should do it - I'm saying they should do it as a fully | informed decision. | [deleted] | nilsbunger wrote: | This is very wrong. VCs don't control the game at all and | their economics come from the few huge outcomes where | founders also have a life changing outcome. Also, | gambling has a negative expected value, while a good team | starting a company has a positive expected value. | | Startups are a high risk game but no one says you have to | play it. | yaseer wrote: | > we should acknowledge that it embraces and encourages the | high-risk/high-reward model, which should be entered into | with open eyes | | We were W21. I would argue one of YC's main goals is to | reduce the risk to founders, and enable starting startup more | accessible to those with the right skills, regardless of | circumstance. | | Getting into YC guarantees a certain minimum amount of | funding and essential support, which not everyone outside SV | has access to. It's commonplace to see people quit high | paying jobs, and start businesses whilst married with | children (the old narrative of 20-something male dropout is | no longer the norm). This all happens because YC creates a | platform that reduces risk for founders. | askura wrote: | Congrats to the team. It's proven itself beyond useful time and | time again. | foxhop wrote: | [deleted] | 21723 wrote: | It's almost too old for itself. | kobejean wrote: | Congrats! | [deleted] | dgellow wrote: | Congrats to everybody contributing to YCombinator and HN success | :) | cosmiccatnap wrote: | motohagiography wrote: | Happy birthday, and thank you. Even though I have a bit of an HN | addiction, it has helped me sound out _a lot_ of different ideas | and put them up for challenge in a way that would not been | possible otherwise, and doing startup school in '18 was a | significant personal and professional turning point. It's not | just startups, users, and customers, you've enriched a lot of | lives. | | 17 years seems like a long time, but looking back, it's not, and | it's an example of how much all these things can grow. Cheers to | another 17 years of finding and making things people want. | systemvoltage wrote: | What a badass organization. Congrats! | fuckycombinator wrote: | tickerticker wrote: | Happy birthday! | | When I was 17, I: (a) was immortal (b) knew everything (c) had | boundless energy (d) was out to change the world (e) did not know | myself. | | Fifty years later, I am * finite * humble * energetic in spurts * | want to teach and encourage * still learning about myself. | | Y Combinator, my best BD wish is that all your mistakes will be | instructive. <3 | noduerme wrote: | Jeez, I feel old. | thatwasunusual wrote: | I _am_ old! :( | tus666 wrote: | When did this comment board start out of interest? | helsinkiandrew wrote: | https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2007-02-19&p=1 | Semaphor wrote: | Nope ;) | | https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09 | mkr-hn wrote: | Classic off-by-four error. | imrehg wrote: | Confirmed by moving the date back by one day as well :) | https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-08 | [deleted] | tmvnty wrote: | 09 Oct 2006, and you can view the top posts from everyday at | https://hnhd.io/ ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-12 23:00 UTC)