[HN Gopher] Changes at YC ___________________________________________________________________ Changes at YC Author : todsacerdoti Score : 278 points Date : 2023-03-13 20:42 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.ycombinator.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.ycombinator.com) | ftxbro wrote: | > Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. | | guys maybe they were impacted in a good way tho? | xqcgrek2 wrote: | no, they meant the way when a car impacts a wall, or when stool | gets impacted in a colon | tropicaljacket wrote: | Maybe your question is a joke but I assume "impacted" means | laid off in this context. | | Kind of like when people say someone "passed away" to mean they | died | karamanolev wrote: | Can we please just use "fired", "let go" or even "we | separated with"? Impacted is just soft wording taken to a | comedic level. | smugma wrote: | Fired implies with cause. In the US, it would be "laid off" | and in the UK it's often "made redundant", which is itself | more ambiguous than need be. | lotsofpulp wrote: | "As of today, we are no longer buying labor from 17 people | we previously bought labor from". | ZephyrBlu wrote: | Whoosh. | Ekaros wrote: | So where is the bailout for these impacted people? Wasn't it just | recently that YC posted a plea to bailout so that people wouldn't | be fired? And then they don't do one themselves? | ethanbond wrote: | I'm not necessarily pro-bailout but there's a clear distinction | between job losses due to money trapped in a failed institution | versus job losses due to a business deciding to eliminate those | jobs. | vorpalhex wrote: | You mean like a fund where corps like YC pay into on the | regular and then people who are laid off get back some of their | salary for a portion of time? It would be like insurance but | for being unemployed, just like we have insurance for your bank | failing. | tick_tock_tick wrote: | > Wasn't it just recently that YC posted a plea to bailout so | that people wouldn't be fired? | | No, that never happened where did you see that? | | > So where is the bailout for these impacted people? | | Unemployment exists and I'd bet a lot they got severance pay. | djyaz1200 wrote: | I'd be very interested in the specifics of how and why late stage | investing is so different that the success of YC in early stages | doesn't translate. | PKop wrote: | Prices were higher, and upside was lower. | lchengify wrote: | Not privy to special information w.r.t. this change, but I can | think of a few: | | 1. Breaking focus / competing on multiple fronts. Lots of firms | specialize in A-stage or later. By investing in seed and later | rather than just seed, the later stage firms see you as a | "competitor" for, rather than a "supplier" of, early stage | startups. You have that many more competitive relationships | rather than cooperative ones. | | 2. LP fundraising. LPs have to make choices as to who to fund, | especially in this economy. Later stage vetting, returns, etc | are different than early stage. May not be worth the heavy lift | of competing for LPs. | | 3. Specialization. Once you get into later stages, you get | firms that specialize by industry vertical. Not just business | (marketplace, fintech, hardware) but even within software | (SaaS, dev tools, consumer, enterprise, etc). Might make it | harder to make deals. You now have a multi-front problem where | each potential counter-bidder for the deal lead has hyper | specialization to the startup, whereas YC is a generalist by | nature. | | 4. Competition for deal terms. Most of the time, the deal lead | sets the terms. If you can't aggressively bid to lead deals, | they may not get the best economy for each of the deals since | the lead may have other priorities. This may produce less | optimal returns vs just putting more money into seed. | | 5. Partner / investor preference. VCs compete for partners / | investors. If partners in the late stage at YC are limited to | only YC companies vs the whole late-stage market (or have other | limitations), it may not work for them vs going to a firm with | less terms. | | Ultimately as a generalist investor, pre-seed/seed/A-and-later | are very different markets. With interest rates this high and | everyone being more picky, it becomes harder to outperform | unless you can operate in that market independently. I suspect | YC looked at a model for their returns and came to this | conclusion. | anyfactor wrote: | I just realized w.r.t means "with respect to". | | Heck this just happened a few days ago, I recieved an email | with that lingo followed by a keyword. I opened a fricking | ticket for it, asking if we have any information on that | "w.r.t. <word>". | bsuvc wrote: | Well, for one, I imagine the "network" provided by YC is less | valuable to late stage companies than it is to early stage, so | YC probably found they were not able to bring as much value. | | Second, the amount of capital needed to invest in later stages | is much higher, and with companies delaying IPO, they would be | tying up capital for much longer than they probably expected | originally. | | I have no insight into YC, this is just my guess as to how it | is different. | illiarian wrote: | All of Y Combinator startups try follow the same playbook: | successfull exit, or successful IPO. YCombinator benefits from | both. | | Since most YCombinator startups never see any profit, late | stage investment becomes a risky proposition since even "top | YCombinator startups" lose billions of dollars a year, for | years, with no path to profitability or recouping investments. | xyzelement wrote: | I am not VC but I think this is kinda apparent from the get go. | | In early stage you are betting on and nurturing a small team | with a full-of-hope business plan. They need relatively small | bits of help that can go a along way. So both "who you are | chosing among" and "how you are helping them" is very specific. | | With bigger companies, the team and the business plan is more | proven and they need help navigating size and scaling their | offering - a very different set of people you are chosing from | and what they need from you. | | I am sure there's a lot of additional nuance. | roflyear wrote: | If it is, bad look for YC: obviously they did not think it | was apparent, and they should be the experts. | cm2012 wrote: | YC took a risk with a new division and then closed it when | it didn't work. That's not a "bad look" at all. | roflyear wrote: | It's a bad look if it's "obviously why it didn't work" | xyzelement wrote: | To be clear, my grandparent post is about how the two | domains are obviously different. That's not the same as | "obviously wouldn't work out" | ip26 wrote: | If you fail to do something hard, it's easy to guess why; | it was hard. But that doesn't impute it was foolish to | try. | xyzelement wrote: | These are two separate topics. | | The things are obviously different. Why YC thought they | might be synergic and where that went wrong is a separate | question. I have no idea. | rosywoozlechan wrote: | > bad look for YC | | I guess don't apply to them for seed funding for your next | big idea if you don't like the way it makes them look. | roflyear wrote: | I wouldn't! They take too much of an ownership %. | cm2012 wrote: | Id guess that YC has a much greater competitive moat in the | former. It's much "easier" to do late stage investing - a few | big transactions instead of many many small ones, and | everyone's working with the same information. | | Very few places have the infrastructure to deal with large | volumes of start-ups + a lead flow of small companies trying to | join YC, so there's no acquisition costs. Add to that, YC's | experience with small start-ups compounds - they can probably | predict start-up success way better than competitors at this | point. That's almost certainly not true for late stage | investing. | danvoell wrote: | I would think having seed stage investments would offer | additional late stage moat. My first thought was that the | current down round later stage environment is squeezing a ton | of common equity founders/execs. Its tough to be both founder | friendly and investing at later stage prices that leave many | startup execs low in equity/motivation. | rosywoozlechan wrote: | > is so different that the success of YC in early stages | doesn't translate | | that's not a claim made in the article. It just said the late | state was different enough to be a distraction from their core | mission of being an early stage investor. A company with just | an idea and 2 founders and nothing more is obviously very | different from a company with many employees, a revenue stream | and a long list of customers. It should be obvious how | different that is. | iLoveOncall wrote: | It costs a lot more to invest in a late stage startup than an | early stage one. | | In the current economic climate they probably can't afford (or | just don't want to risk) to invest large sums, while on the | contrary can "take advantage" of early stage startups which | will struggle more to get funding. | fgimenez wrote: | My pithy observation - Early stage investors are fantastic at | extrapolating from minimal data points. Late stage investors | are fantastic at extrapolating from many noisy data points. | They screw up because the methods for each of their | extrapolation functions are entirely different, so much so that | they manifest as cultural differences in investment firms. | berkle4455 wrote: | > how and why late stage investing is so different | | It requires due diligence and knowing how to invest instead of | throwing darts and celebrating the occasional bullseye as proof | of your acumen. | uptownfunk wrote: | More upside on the table if you get in early. It's probably | just not an efficient use of their time since the returns from | gettin in early are so outsized. | richardw wrote: | They have the absolute advantage in early stage, from marketing | to skills and focus. Surely everyone thinks YC first. Not true | in late stage. | | Focus. Much easier to have the entire company focused on one | thing. | | Specialisation of labour. Become experts, make sure nobody | catches you. | | When you start diluting your goal you trade off focus and | specialisation, potentially reducing your advantages. | | Now I'm wondering how to apply that to myself. The answer seems | obvious but I like being a generalist. | erickhill wrote: | 187 comments almost entirely focused on language usage, and at | best two to three words. | | Fascinating. | ptero wrote: | Clarity and technical honesty are very important in technical | work; especially so in a startup: you want people to focus on | solving technical issues, not translating corporatese to human. | | Plus, if a group tries to hide behind the wording for an | inconvenient message what else would it sweep under the rug? YC | is usually _way_ better than this, which may be the reason | there is so much attention to the wording which reads like the | standard PR spin. My 2c. | aikinai wrote: | Probably because there's not much new in the layoff story that | hasn't been covered in tens of thousands of comments on | previous layoffs. But this is the first time a lot of people | have had an outlet to discuss the frustrating linguistic | phenomena that have been on display this cycle. | hmoodie wrote: | not only that but it's the exact same top-comment subthread | that appears at the top of literally every story involving | corporate comms. I wonder if it's the same people every time or | if there's a constant influx of new commenters who feel | strongly about corpspeak. | siva7 wrote: | This thread has to be best description of nerds i've seen | nappy-doo wrote: | Yours too | kerblang wrote: | Sticks and bones may break my bones, but words can divert me | into hours and hours of endless hairsplitting and bickering | until I die of being bored with myself and doctors gather and | marvel at the inexplicable fact that I am still complaining in | the absence of a discernible pulse | tempaccount420 wrote: | In an already difficult economic climate, it's heartbreaking to | hear that these individuals will be impacted by this change in | strategy. I hope that YC will do their best to support these team | members during this transition. | mehlmao wrote: | Man, YC cared so much about protecting jobs two days ago when | they were begging for a bailout. What happened? | toomuchtodo wrote: | Would YC be willing to share more about the effectiveness of the | Continuity Fund? A post mortem would be welcomed and valuable | imho. | npalli wrote: | In case you are wondering, that is about 20% of the staff. | | https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/13/y-combinator-cuts-nearly-2... | eimrine wrote: | That's great (from my sofa's PoV)! If your mission is to fund | youngsters and we know the story about that bank from the Silicon | valley so this is the best way to save some resources. | lucb1e wrote: | The change that the title hints at: | | > we're going to decrease the amount of late stage investing we | do | | Which allows letting go of 17 employees involved with that, which | is 20% of employees. EOF (and that was already more info than the | article contained) | bobobob420 wrote: | can those employees not be staffed to other projects? surely | the skillsets are reusable. Something is very fishy about this | and the timing. | lucb1e wrote: | No no, clearly it is just a coincidence that lay-offs are | happening everywhere at the same time. YC must have made a | fully independent assessment and decided based on | spreadsheets and algorithms that this is the correct business | strategy by using past data and developing predictive | metrics. Just looking which business unit to cut loose based | on cost reductions cannot have been a part of this process. | distantsounds wrote: | just mere days after SVB crashes and burns, wonder how much pg | had tied up there. | Finbarr wrote: | The YC Continuity team did amazing work helping me and many other | later stage founders. I'm sad to read this news. | | YC is best known for their early stage investing. But Ali, Anu | and the team created some excellent programs for later stage | companies as well. Shogun benefited from the Series A program, | Scaling from A to B program, and the YC Growth program. I wonder | what's happening with all of those initiatives. | | Through these programs and the direct support and mentorship from | the Continuity team, we learned a ton and significantly scaled | our startup. | | Wishing all of the affected team all the best. | garry wrote: | Thanks Finbarr. The group partners and MD's and I know these | are important and valuable programs, and there is a lot more we | need to be doing for alumni and the experience after companies | do YC. | | I don't have more to share now, but know that I really value | you and this note. | roflyear wrote: | How much $ does YC make per employee? | i_love_cookies wrote: | [dead] | pwmanagerdied wrote: | [dead] | auggierose wrote: | I am wondering if "impacted" is used because really lots of | different things have happened to these 17 team mates. Or if | "impacted" = "fired", and "team mates" = "ex-employees". | MattGaiser wrote: | That is the point of writing it that way. So you have to do the | mental work yourself of translating "impacted" to "fired." | O__________O wrote: | Does this also mean YC is killing off their YC Continuity | Programs: | | >> Series A Program: Help founders achieve the best possible | outcome when raising a Series A via year-round workshops, | fundraising guides and 1:1 support. | | >> Post-A Program: Batches for YC startups immediately after | their Series A to share best practices for growth: managing a | board, building a team, key metrics for a Series B and more. | | >> YC Growth Program: Graduate school for startups. We bring | together cohorts of CEOs of rapidly growing YC companies to focus | on the challenges of company building: the changing role of a CEO | at scale, setting strategies and success metrics for the | organization, hiring and managing great leaders, and more. | | Source: | | - https://web.archive.org/web/20220812233728/https://www.ycomb... | | _____ | | EDIT: Related comment from Garry on the topic: | | - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35143443 | gingerrr wrote: | Yes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35142261 | O__________O wrote: | Not seeing anything related to the programs I referenced, am | I missing something? | gingerrr wrote: | Sorry - the link in that thread is to a tweet, not the | article the tweet links, which is what I wanted to link - | that article indicates the partners leading the fund (and | program) left YC. | | Also, the continuity program page (provided info for all 3 | programs) is completely gone: | https://www.ycombinator.com/continuity | | I haven't heard specifics about those programs but with the | partners leading gone it seems difficult to imagine them | continuing - fair point though, no solid news. | O__________O wrote: | Already linked to a source that shows the references to | the programs are gone in my original comment; though that | page is still there. | | Also, might be wrong, but "theinformation.com" as a | source is insta ban as a result of it being a "hard | walled" content; hard walled meaning it's not possible to | access the content via alternative means. If you have a | source that's not blocked, feel free to provide it, | otherwise just see this as promoting a source that's ban | on HN. | | Here's all the dead submissions, though you likely have | to have "show dead" turned on from your profile settings: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=theinformation.com | gingerrr wrote: | Oof, I don't lurk here during work nearly as much as I | used to - missed the memo about it being a banned source, | do you have a link for that? In the past that source has | unpaywalled articles specifically _for_ HN readers so I | 'm saddened (but not really surprised) they decided to go | for the full cashgrab. | | Not really sure what you want here - the evidence of | those programs being affiliated with YC has been scrubbed | from the public web, do you not believe in Occam's Razor | or are you waiting to find a quote delivered straight | from Garry Tan's mouth on the question before you accept | the likely conclusion from all evidence? | | edit: either way, I don't have a second source - that | article from theinformation is the only active story I've | found that specifically names the partners leaving. | O__________O wrote: | HN rarely comments on bans, though almost 60 submissions | have been posted in past 30-days and every single one is | dead. | | Here's a comment from dang, the only official HN mod, | related to "hardwalled" submissions: | | - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35074950 | gingerrr wrote: | Oh, got it! Thank you for scrounging that up I was | specifically looking for mention of that site, no wonder | I didn't find it. Makes a ton of sense in general and | it's lame we no longer get a special exception to their | wall. | O__________O wrote: | Related comment from Garry: | | - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35143443 | throwaway1777 wrote: | Probably, or at least scaled back? | earlystagethrow wrote: | [dead] | blobbers wrote: | Can YC post some info on their fund that they're winding down? | Would be nice to put that out in the public. | | Any YC team members care to comment? | tabbott wrote: | I wish there were some publicly available numbers to analyze | here, but it seems likely that YC's late stage funds have lost a | lot of money (on paper) doing late-stage investments at sky-high | valuations over the years leading up to 2022 that are now down | significantly as a result of the current startup downturn. | | Folks who are thinking about these YC changes as a layoff are | missing the point -- YC is exiting what had been a major part of | their business (especially if measured by total dollars | invested). | | And from the outside it seems likely that the reason for the | layoff is probably less that YC is in troubled financial | straights and needs to cut costs on its operations, but because | their late-stage investing business was losing money and YC has | decided to give up on it and no longer has work for specialists | in that work. | swyx wrote: | and yet Anu Hariharan and Ali Rowghani seem to be leaving to | start a new fund. no failures in VC, just pre-success :) | breck wrote: | I like it. Double down on what people love about YC--getting more | people to become entrepreneurs. | | The later stages there's plenty of YC companies out there that | can help (WeFunder, Mercury, Brex, Clerky, Stripe, LSTE, etc). | pastabol wrote: | "Farisa will arrive." --spray painted at Y Combinator | headquarters by a just-now ex-employee, 13 marzo 2023. | zac23or wrote: | Changes? They are layoffs. This PR language is irritating. | voz_ wrote: | > Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. | | Never allow corporations to speak in passive, weak, blameless | terms. | | Use direct, honest, language, and force them to do the same. | | "Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today." - > "We laid off | 17 employees today" | | "I was impacted by layoffs" -> "Google laid me off" etc | Kerrick wrote: | Maybe they weren't fired? The way the post was worded has me | wondering if they'll be retrained and have their roles changed | to fit YC's new needs. | justinator wrote: | Exactly the point - passive, weak, blameless terms makes it | nebulous on what has happened. Just say you want you need to | say - you're the captain of the ship. | [deleted] | CydeWeys wrote: | Oh c'mon, there's no way this is it. If they hadn't been laid | off there wouldn't be an external announcement. You don't | post something like this merely to announce that you're | retraining some employees. | MattGaiser wrote: | They wouldn't announce it if that were the case. I am curious | whether it would have been announced at all without all the | heightened economic fear. | naet wrote: | They were 100% laid off. The wording is intentional and | standard for the industry. | | You aren't "impacted" by changing roles or retraining, you're | impacted by losing your job. | | "we want to acknowledge and express our appreciation for | their substantial contributions" translates to "these people | will no longer be contributing as they are laid off effective | immediately". | beebmam wrote: | It is important to keep in mind that the companies are the | ones doing the impacting. They don't have to lay people | off, they're choosing to. | lcw wrote: | I think this is just a matter of opinion. When something severe | happens it's natural to not use the most harsh term to describe | the event. It doesn't seems like something malicious. | | When describing a death many people will say "they are no | longer with us" instead of describing the circumstance of | death. When talking about traumatic events we as a society have | a natural propensity to not use triggering words. There is | nothing intrinsically wrong with that unless it's hiding | information. As described above no one is hiding anything | because we all understand what happened. | johnfn wrote: | Perhaps you could argue over the use of "impacted", but the | use of passive voice is pretty objective. "We impacted 17 | roles today" or perhaps "I impacted 17 roles today" is, well, | it's still pretty bad, but at least it takes some | responsibility. | lcw wrote: | I agree with you, but I think a passive voice is used | correctly in that sentence you are referencing. It puts the | emphasis on the impacted employees and then goes on to | speak to their contributions. This takes away the company | for a moment from the conversation to discuss the "impacted | teammates". They were using an active voice up till that | point. | tshaddox wrote: | "They are no longer with us" is widely understood and very | unlikely to be ambiguous. If you said "they were impacted" I | would lodge the same complaint. | FpUser wrote: | >"It doesn't seems like something malicious." | | No it seems like weaselicious to me. | Kwpolska wrote: | Death is inevitable, unexpected, unplanned, usually caused by | things beyond human control. Layoffs are a planned thing | explicitly done by one human to another in order to increase | corporate profits. | 300bps wrote: | Layoffs are often a choice between letting a small | percentage go or causing the entire company to go out of | business. | swatcoder wrote: | * * * | maximinus_thrax wrote: | Do you have some data to back that up? I'm not sure if a | small percentage of employees are so expensive as to be | the tipping point for a company to go out of business. | cloverich wrote: | Employees are one of or the most expensive part of doing | business for many. I guess you could google Gross vs Net | margins in various companies or industries as an example | (maybe here[1]). But layoffs aren't merely firing people, | they are "firing people and not re-hiring for their | positions or work." So it's often closing out on entire | product strategies, such as the case here with YC. | | [1]: https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/ | datafile... | maximinus_thrax wrote: | > Employees are one of or the most expensive part of | doing business for many | | Not debating that. I'm debating: | | > Layoffs are often a choice between letting a small | percentage go or causing the entire company to go out of | business | | Show me a company that MUST let go a SMALL PERCENTAGE of | its workforce in order to not go out of business. Meaning | a company which is hanging by a thread and that thread is | (again) a small percentage of the workforce. Because if a | small percentage of the workforce is expensive enough to | provide you with the runway you need to continue doing | business, that runway is short enough that the company | will cease to exist anyway, so the point is moot. | [deleted] | herval wrote: | When someone is accidental, blameless or unexpected, like | someone suddenly dying, it's entirely natural to use | something like "passed away". Not the case when someone is | directly responsible - "X was murdered by Y" is quite common, | I believe? | maximinus_thrax wrote: | Please don't compare death with layoffs. One if an inevitable | but tragic part of life the other is an inevitable but tragic | part of keeping the shareholders happy. | khazhoux wrote: | I think the whole notion of companies doing things "for the | shareholders" is vastly overblown. Doesn't it make perfect | sense on its own that YC realized the late-stage game was | not working out, and that they were not going to be able to | use those people effectively on other work? | xqcgrek2 wrote: | Perhaps they meant seventeen of their teammates have impacted | colons? It's an odd thing to share, yes, but these are trying | times. | raz32dust wrote: | Why is it the corporation's fault though? We live in a society | and governance structure which encourages corporations to | consider revenue over everything else. Why would they act | differently? What _should_ Google do? Sorry I understand the | human cost of layoffs. But it is a reflection of what this | society values. If you want corporations to consider the human | cost, you need to make it feature in their financials. Or the | government should offer better protection to unemployed people. | cardosof wrote: | I, too, prefer that companies spoke in direct, plain terms, | without PR shenanigans. | | Does anyone know why do they do this, though? Is it to de-risk | potential lawsuits or do they believe people prefer that way | ("sounds professional")? | petercooper wrote: | Assuming legal signed off on the basic message, I'm guessing | it's out of a sense of 'politeness' in a delicate situation. | Consider how someone might publicly communicate a | relationship breakdown with language like "we're parting | ways" or "we have made the decision to end our marriage." | _Sometimes_ you get plain, direct language but people might | infer acrimony from it. | madeofpalk wrote: | A combination of cargo culting/"sounds professional", and | just wanting to make yourself/company look less bad. | annexrichmond wrote: | Never mind " _I_ was impacted by layoffs ", I often see " _my | position_ was impacted by layoffs " | zoklet-enjoyer wrote: | I was impacted by layoffs recently. As in, my department was | good, but for how long? Should I start looking for another | job? | _puk wrote: | In many places, without at will employment, you can't lay an | individual off, but actually have to make the position | redundant. | herval wrote: | To be fair, that's usually accurate - unlike someone getting | fired because of their own performance, layoffs are usually | untargeted, and include people that were great at their jobs. | | And let's face it, getting fired is a huge stigma, so it's | totally understandable that someone would phrase it like | that, as the victim of the situation | pclmulqdq wrote: | It's hard to blame anyone for using the "soft" terms about | their own situation, since firing tends to be a very | sensitive topic. It's not hard to blame companies for using | those same terms, since it comes off as "MBA-ish" and | sleazy. | loeg wrote: | "Exonerative tense," "mistakes were made," etc. | | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/past_exonerative | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistakes_were_made | | https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/14/... | DeltaCoast wrote: | I've never heard this as an actual term, thank you for | sharing. | stonogo wrote: | Submitted for inclusion: | https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide- | to-... | kylecazar wrote: | Favorite example has to be Luis Suarez in his apology for | very clearly biting a World Cup opponent in front of the | world some years ago: | | "The truth is that my colleague Giorgio Chiellini suffered | the physical result of a bite" | [deleted] | alexpotato wrote: | I liked Zinedine Zidane's: | | "I am sorry I was kicked out of the World Cup final but I | was not sorry I headbutted him". | NoZebra120vClip wrote: | He missed a bet in not describing that as a "powerful human | mandibular compression" | xavdid wrote: | Some newspapers are really dreadful about this with regards | to people killed/injured by cops. | | A well-known example from the NYT: | | > A reporter was hit by a pepper ball on live television by | an officer who appeared to be aiming at her | | https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2020/new-york-times- | twe... | zamnos wrote: | There was one circulating where the newspaper headline | stated that "A man with no active warrants was shot by | police." Which is just about the most nefarious way to | say "an innocent man was shot by police". | NikolaNovak wrote: | That one I actually understand. Calling somebody innocent | is a _very_ strong and contextual / scoped statement, | and ultimately that's what the courts take their time to | do (and even they I think kinda stop shy? I don't know if | acquitted is the same as innocent. I feel it's more "not | proven guilty"). | tjohns wrote: | In the US, we have the presumption of innocence. Until a | court says you're guilty, you're innocent. | | Most modern countries consider this a fundamental right. | [deleted] | Zak wrote: | Those don't mean the same thing at all, and the headline | is weird for any possible set of facts. | | The average mass shooter has no active warrants, but most | people would consider it correct for the police to shoot | him to end his killing spree. The average wanted | fugitive, on the other hand is usually arrested without | any shooting. | | I read the article linked in another comment, and the | headline I would give it is "Police kill man while | raiding wrong house". | hk__2 wrote: | Isn't it different? IANAL but having an active warrant | issued for you doesn't really have anything to do with | you being guilty or innocent. It just means the police | must conduct you to the juge, either because you're a | suspect or (in some countries) a witness. | | Edit: I guess this is this story: | https://www.actionnews5.com/story/35967817/officers-kill- | man... | bombcar wrote: | "A man with no active warrants issued" also perfectly | describes every single one of the 9/11 hijackers, but | that wouldn't equate out to "innocent" either. | Syonyk wrote: | Careful. Presence or absence of warrants has almost | nothing to do with getting shot. | | Assuming you have no warrants out for your arrest, should | you charge at a police officer with a knife or gun drawn | while yelling that you were about to kill them, and then | ignore any commands they issued, what would you expect to | happen? | schrodinger wrote: | Newspapers also need to be careful to not spout facts | about a potential crime that doesn't have a guilty | verdict. They'd have to throw an allegedly or something | in there to write it as you described which I don't know | would read as well. The way they wrote it let them put | the facts first (woman hit by pepper ball shot by police) | and then hedge the intent with an "appeared to." | madeofpalk wrote: | "Officer involved shooting" | khazhoux wrote: | That example seems fine to me. There is clear attribution | (" _by an officer_ "), and the "appeared to be aiming" | could be to emphasize that the officer was not just | generally shooting into crowd, but targeting individuals. | [deleted] | SalmoShalazar wrote: | YC is not special. It's a business and they'll use weasel words | like the rest of them. | dllthomas wrote: | While those examples do use the passive voice, the passive is | not the real problem. "These events impacted seventeen of our | teammates" is the active voice, and it is no more forthright. | "Mistakes were made by Bob, Sean, and Susan, who have been | fired" is (if accurate) quite clear about assigning blame while | using the passive. It's true that some people overuse the | passive, and for those people noticing and considering whether | to rephrase can produce better writing, but insisting on | forgoing the passive entirely probably won't. If we want to | prevent evasive writing, we should look for and call out | evasive writing, whatever voice is used. | SoftTalker wrote: | To me it's the phrase "these events" like it's something | beyond their control. Replacing that with "our decision" | would be taking more ownership. | | Edit: re-reading TFA, they don't attribute the layoffs to | "these events" so I'll amend this as being a response | directly to the parent comment. | dllthomas wrote: | Right, the active construction does grammatically require | we put something there, where in the passive we get to omit | it, which is why the passive is sometimes used for evasion. | But if you're interested in whether someone is being | evasive, just... look at whether they're actually assigning | agency appropriately. Grammatical form doesn't answer that. | | See also | https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/index.php?s=passive | for much related amusement. | jmyeet wrote: | What you're talking about linguistically is the difference | between passive voice ("I was laid off") vs active voice ("YC | fired me"). It is a pervasive technique and a form of blame- | shifting. Whenver you see a headline, ask yourself which voice | is being used and why. It is a key part of media literacy. | bloodyplonker22 wrote: | I knew an ex co-worker who grew up in another country whose | manager, in a "sync up meeting", told him that he was | "impacted" and he didn't need to continue work on his current | sprint. He came out of the meeting with a smile, had no idea | what this meant, and he showed up the next day. | SoftTalker wrote: | Did he get to keep his red stapler? | smithmayowa wrote: | Damn that sucks dude probably thought he was being praised or | something. | fdomig wrote: | You are absolutely right. This is the only correct wording. | concordDance wrote: | Does this accomplish anything other than increasing resentment? | [deleted] | roflyear wrote: | It's precise, and language should be precise: http://www.butt | e.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/style_purpose.... | rad_gruchalski wrote: | Yes. It makes one admit to a mistake. Intellectual honesty. | "We failed" instead of "we are a victim of circumstances". | | Edit: however, a pr release with language other than what's | written on the linked page can be a liability. | comte7092 wrote: | Begs the question, what do you think companies gain by using | such passive language? | pastabol wrote: | A number of reasons already discussed, but in person it has | the "benefit" of slowing down (drawing out) bad news. It's | like string betting in poker, but it's also a way of | showing dominion over time (by burying the lede and making | someone anxious.) | aatd86 wrote: | Sometimes it's not for the company but for the person who | was laid off. | | To mean that the person was laid off but it wasn't their | fault. It's their position that was impacted. Somehow. | | Result the same but sentiment might be dulled a little. Not | blaming the person but blaming external conditions that | resulted in someone being made redundant. | jeron wrote: | when you first read it, did you feel better or worse for | the employees when they wrote impacted vs "laid off" | sverhagen wrote: | I went back to GitLab's announcement, because I thought | it was better: | https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2023/02/09/gitlab-news/ | | Turns out, it says: "reduce the size of our team by 7%", | which also isn't as specific as the OP is suggesting. | | HOWEVER, they then go on to spend more than half of their | post explaining how the impacted staff is supported, and | YES, that did make me feel better. | rodgerd wrote: | Distancing. It lets people who make these decisions portray | themselves as the helpless victims of the way things are, | rather than people who have made choices that have led to | this. | | "The market says that we need to downsize" sounds a lot | better than "an investment analyst says I go, or you go". | MattGaiser wrote: | You have to stop and think about what it really means. | "Impacted" just means something happened. You have to do | the legwork to get to "called into a meeting and fired." | breakingrules wrote: | I actually believe he put out a 10/10 example of how this | should be done. We all know what he meant, he was concise and | then reminded you of the mission and that this is all about the | mission. | slantedview wrote: | Maybe you can grant him 9/10, but you always have to deduct | some points for hiding behind euphemisms. | [deleted] | i-use-nixos-btw wrote: | 9 would be far too high IMHO. | | If you're laying people off, say it straight and with a | backbone. The language is passive, weak and makes it sound | like a mere consequence of a slight breeze upon a dainty | leaf causing it to gently fall from a tree. | | 17 people lost their jobs. Likely many of those have | families to feed, houses to uphold and bills to pay. In | this economy, the same will likely happen to many of us and | a statement like the above would feel like a punch to the | gut. | | The uppercut that follows is: | | > we want to acknowledge and express our appreciation for | their substantial contributions. | | Saying you want to acknowledge and express something is not | the same thing as acknowledging and expressing something. A | statement would struggle to get more generic than this. | bradleyjg wrote: | Laid off is itself a less harsh version of fired. | pcl wrote: | In the US, "laid off" has a pretty substantially different | meaning than "fired". | | "Laid off" usually means that the company shut down a group | of roles, and the individuals happened to be in those roles | and so lost their jobs. | | "Fired" usually means that the individual was intentionally | let go because of behavior / competence / etc. of the | individual, not the group. | itronitron wrote: | We hereby lay their employment with us to rest. | schrodinger wrote: | There's usually a significant difference for the individual | where laid off means you get unemployment while fired | (implies cause) does not. | margalabargala wrote: | They're not quite the same, those two terms have taken on | different meanings. "Fired" has come to mean "for cause", and | "laid off" has come to mean "not for cause". | bradleyjg wrote: | My hunch is that the evolution was driven by executives, | probably in the 70s and 80s, that didn't want to say they | were firing people in order to make more money. | | In other words the same dynamic that now leads to | 'impacted'. | ip26 wrote: | It's a very useful distinction; it likely would have | evolved one way or another. | femto113 wrote: | In the UK they have the term "redundancy" (as in "your | position has been made redundant"). Can't see that term | catching on in the US but it does cover the use of "laid | off" to mean "the company chose to eliminate the position | I worked in rather than choosing to get rid of me as a | person", and thus may carry less stigma. | heyyyouu wrote: | And "laid off" means eligble for uneployment; "fired" often | does not. | adfm wrote: | For some, "laid off" has the same connotation as furlough. | tomnipotent wrote: | A furloughed employee has the expectation that employment | can resume with the company, while a laid off employee | does not. This is important for tax and other legal | considerations. | r_hoods_ghost wrote: | This very much depends on where you are. For example in | the UK a lay off technically means being told to stay at | home because there isn't enough work [1], although it's | often used these days to mean "fired without cause", i.e. | the American usage of lay off has become more common and | it has simultaneously became common to use the term | "furlough" to describe layoffs during the pandemic. | | [1]https://www.gov.uk/lay-offs-short-timeworking | plorkyeran wrote: | It had that connotation 50 years ago, but anyone who | thinks it still does is just confused. | SilasX wrote: | It's the opposite: they started out distinct, but then, by | the euphemism treadmill, became used interchangeably. | | And if you go back even further it meant something even | milder, like furloughed or terminated with the intent to | rehire when expected business picks up. | wyldfire wrote: | They're related, I suppose. But there's a real, meaningful | difference between the two. | sidlls wrote: | Depends on the circumstances. I associate "fired" with a | negative reason (e.g. performance, theft, harassment). "Laid- | off" doesn't carry the same connotation. | bink wrote: | Fired -> Let go -> Laid off -> Impacted | | I'll be curious to see what comes next. | smallerfish wrote: | Reassigned to an external role | ip26 wrote: | Fired still semi-exists. Let go seems to show up for | insufficient performance, e.g. semi-amicable "it's not | working out". Fired shows up when somebody really screwed | up, e.g. laws were broken or products failed. | zen_1 wrote: | Selected for new and exciting opportunities! | caseysoftware wrote: | "Fixed the error" | nsenifty wrote: | Completed? (like in Never let me go[0]) | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(novel) | morelisp wrote: | Carousel! | rvnx wrote: | "Let go" is the worst, it implies "I let you go" -> "I | allow you to leave" which is the ultimate humiliation when | you are getting fired | Arrath wrote: | I think of it more like the protagonist (or antagonist, | one could argue) of a movie holding on to the hand of | someone (employee) about to fall off of a cliff (the | descent, ultimately, to poverty and homelessness) just to | make the metaphor as vivid as possible. | Throw10987 wrote: | Role is "disestablished" | lotsofpulp wrote: | Terminated is to the left of fired. | bradleyjg wrote: | Playing around at the online etymology dictionary, it | appears dismiss is the oldest--early 15th century. Sack | and fire are from the 19th century, and laid off in this | sense isn't until the 1960s. Terminate, as in dismiss | from a job, is first attested in 1973. | nemo44x wrote: | Can't we all just agree on "shit canned"? | | "Today we are announcing that 10% of our company is being | shit canned". | make3 wrote: | fired usually means, with cause. laid off is for when a lot | of people are getting cut at the same time because upper | management asked to do big cuts | SoftTalker wrote: | Yes, and importantly if you are laid off you generally can | get unemployment compensation. If you are fired for cause | you often cannot. | ak_111 wrote: | This comment comes across as a silly nitpick given the sober | content of the post, but I think it is completely fair given | Paul Graham's many writings and tweets on the virtues of | writing clearly and his hatred of what I call corporatese. | marktani wrote: | Not sure how involved pg was with this post as its stated | author Garry Tan | ak_111 wrote: | You would imagine he read it at some point. You would also | imagine his CEO would have internalised Paul Graham's most | important piece of advice about communication (writing | clearly). | simonebrunozzi wrote: | When there's a PR person involved, truth goes away, double- | speak comes in. Even in the case of YC, which in general is way | better than most other organizations. | beebmam wrote: | There's nothing diplomatic about it. It enrages me far more | than the truth. | [deleted] | lazide wrote: | For you, but often for others it doesn't. | | It depends on if someone wants to believe the truth, or | believe something else. Most want to believe something | else. | grayhatter wrote: | hackers don't though; as a rule, hackers value truth over | comfortable lies. | warent wrote: | This immediately stood out to me as well! It didn't come across | as tactful, just bizarre | bovermyer wrote: | Passive voice afflicts many people's writing, not just | corporations. Yes, it's a bad practice, but I don't feel it's | egregious in this case. | [deleted] | comte7092 wrote: | That is a reasonable argument if one assumes that this is an | unconscious choice, however, passive voice has become the | standard with these types of press releases. It is a | conscious, intentional choice. | pastabol wrote: | Passive voice is a tool. It's perfectly valid and | grammatical. The problem is the abuse of it to misrepresent | one's agency or responsibility, but there's nothing wrong | with the sentence, "I was hit by a car on the way to work." | | The issue with corporate passive is that business language is | not only ugly but serves evil purposes. In person, it exists | to slow down bad news so you can read and manipulate people | ("string betting") and, on paper, its raison d'etre is to | project authority to which one has no actual right. | itronitron wrote: | There isn't even a need for a public blog post about this | change in business strategy. This reads fine as an internal | email, but I've never worked at a company that publicly | referenced their layoffs. | [deleted] | fairity wrote: | I can think of a few reasons why YC would make this decision | without admitting so publicly: | | 1) Too much negative signaling risk when they don't make follow- | on investments | | 2) Negative returns given the recent downturn | | 3) The increasing business need to make non-founder friendly | changes in late stage companies (e.g. replacing CEO) | | 4) Anu/Ali deciding to leave first to start their own fund | | I wonder if any of these reasons is a predominant driver. | [deleted] | greatpostman wrote: | Wonder if this is related to the current down turn in risk assets | and the venture capital blow up | doodlesdev wrote: | I find it almost impossible to not see them as related. Take a | look at [0]. Long-term this could be a good decision, I believe | early-stage investing really is different to late-stage | investment, but of course the moment to make this decision | makes it evident there are other factors at play that influence | this. | | [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35114009 | dang wrote: | The timing does make that almost impossible! But if you want | the actual connected edge in the directed graph I believe | it's https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32637686. | doodlesdev wrote: | Hmm, that does make sense. The other comment here said that | this kind of change is almost impossible to happen is such | as short amount of time, which makes sense. Maybe they were | already planning for a change in strategy by the new CEO, | and this just happened to be an appropriate time to get | done with the change already. | | edit: Oh well the other commenter was the new CEO LOL, not | used to reading usernames. I guess that adds a bit of bias | but I believe it's a true statement. | garry wrote: | Changes of this sort cannot happen in a very short amount of | time. The timing was coincidental. | bigbraintheroom wrote: | I have made changes with other C-level employees in under | 30m which had more than 30m of impact. | | Can you explain how that would not be the case here? Not | understanding how this timing is "coincidental", it doesn't | appear to be that way at all. | garry wrote: | It's not, this is about making YC awesome for early stage | founders right at the beginning. | echelon wrote: | YC does early stage well. Spreading out focus and capital | over other stages takes energy away from this. | | Other firms already have a good grasp of late stage and it'd | be a battle for YC to improve over this. | | Maybe YC can return to late stage later when the environment | changes. | dang wrote: | It's not--my understanding is that it's been in the works for | quite a bit longer than that. | bobleeswagger wrote: | I don't think the timing is random considering the climate. I | have a feeling these seventeen will land softly compared to | 99.9% of those caught up in recent layoffs. | zamnos wrote: | "current down turn in risk assets" is almost as wonderful a | phrase as "17 team members were impacted". The fact is that | SIVB shares are now worth $0, and that many VCs and LPs were | surely holding those can't be a total coincidence with today's | "changes". | johnbellone wrote: | This wasn't the announcement I expected. | bionade24 wrote: | Y combinator website hugged to death by hacker news. Lmao. | martin_a wrote: | Title should be "YC fires 17 people". Can someone change that? | jefftk wrote: | "fire" != "laid off" | aidenn0 wrote: | "laid off" is a subset of "fired" "to fire" just means "to | dismiss from a job" which includes lay-offs. | zamnos wrote: | At the very least, we can agree that " _Changes_ at YC " is | burying the lede? | nostrademons wrote: | Only if you're not fluent in corporatease. Whenever I see | an e-mail entitled "Changes in [some organization]", I | assume that one or more of the following is true: | 1. The leader is leaving. 2. People are getting laid | off. 3. They're exiting a line of business. 4. | They sold the company. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | I agree. You're fired when you sexually harass or suck eggs. | Being laid off doesn't have the stigma for the employee. | balls187 wrote: | Yes it absolutely does carry a stigma. | | What companies layoff their best people? | | (I say as someone who has been laidoff) | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | Competent people who were effective at their job are laid | off all the time. You're basically saying there's a | stigma to not being the best at work. | zamnos wrote: | I mean if the company is pivoting and closing the entire | division because they no longer need to, eg, make film | cameras or make buggy whips, why would you keep anybody | from there around? You don't need their expertise any | longer. Even if they were the best at their job, if | you're not doing those things any more, what would you | keep them around for? | davidw wrote: | A company might lay off really good people when shutting | down an entire business line, for example. It's different | than firing someone. | adamckay wrote: | > What companies layoff their best people? | | Any company where the execs and decision makers are so | far removed from the people they're judging, where they | won't even truly understand or care what the person does, | let alone who they are. | | Google and Twitter and two very recent large companies | that have done just that. | tabbott wrote: | I don't think that'd be accurate - YC is exiting the business | of late-stage investing, and that's the main news. It sounds | like they had 17 people who were working on that part of the | company who they laid off as part of this transition, but given | the major role that YC Continuity played, it's significant news | that they're no longer doing that. | fnordpiglet wrote: | Sorry to everyone who lost their jobs. It can feel like the end | of the world and your worth. But I've seen throughout my career | people land somewhere better. Someone once wise told me the most | important saying in the world is "this too shall pass," which | applies to all things, good and bad. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | "Everything that arises passes away." | riffic wrote: | no one died here sheesh | honkler wrote: | 17 jobs died | riffic wrote: | you'd be speaking about livelihoods then, not lives. | ccn0p wrote: | <checks URL> | | not reddit! | layer8 wrote: | Like clouds in the sky. | gordon_freeman wrote: | Also wanted to add: never forget that "the law of averages" is | our friend when this happens. It ensures that there is always a | good chance to lend somewhere if one keeps trying (submitting | applications and giving interviews). | whitemary wrote: | [flagged] | gus_massa wrote: | I _had_ to search it and found this: " _Soviet Union | (93,548) > Employment security, termination of employment | (955)_" https://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex4.detail?p_lang= | en&p_is... | | > _A dismissed worker shall receive a severance indemnity | equal to the average monthly wage._ | | [...] | | > _In case of restructuring or liquidation of the enterprise, | the worker while seeking employment, retains his or her | average monthly wage for up to three months, taking into | account the severance indemnity._ | whitemary wrote: | What does it say about families losing their sustenance? I | am intentional in my phrasing. I care about people, not | "jobs". | slt2021 wrote: | It shows that you have never lived in soviet union and | happily eat communist fairy tales. | | Soviet Workers were exploited and underpaid by state, | there was no private property and almost no private | sector. | | Soviet Union employed highly educated PhD rocket | scientists and paid everyone minimum wage, because there | was no alternative. | | Literally every scientist family had to grow their own | potatoes and veggies at home/dachas in order to survive. | | Can you imagine Harvard dean growing potatoes just to | survive in cold winter months? | | Cars were not available, you had to wait for 7 years to | be allocated a slot to purchase a vehicle. | | Almost no selection of consumer products, everything was | DIY, because the only good thing Soviet State was capable | of - is building tanks and rockets (that are currently | being destroyed by Ukraine Armed Forces) | whitemary wrote: | My parents both grew up in the Soviet Union. Of course | there was private property haha. Individuals, mostly | farmers, could even own land! | | Your comment is a laundry list of fun talking points, but | I couldn't care less. This debate concerns families | having reliable material sustenance. | slt2021 wrote: | you should move back to soviet union if you like it so | much. Get a real taste of communism. | | "Capitalist West is bad, communism good" (C) | UncleOxidant wrote: | I worked with a guy who came up as an engineer in the Soviet | Union. Back around 2014 he was laid off from a US tech | company that had moved him over from Russia. He couldn't wrap | his head around it. Said that in the Soviet Union there was | no such thing as a layoff. If they needed to shut down some | program they'd move you to another one. The whole layoff was | just extremely disorienting for him - especially since the | company had moved him over here only a few years prior. | slt2021 wrote: | highly educated engineers were paid like 100 rubles/mo, | which is slightly above minimum wage. | | Why lay off people, when state can afford to keep them on | minimum wage? and reap the benefit of their work (rockets, | weapons, tanks, nukes, etc) | fnordpiglet wrote: | That's true. They gave the platitudes as millions starved | while Stalin exported food and established the gulags and lay | waste to civil society. Yay! | | The religion bit is really off kilter, unless you think the | impermanence of all things is merely a religious idea and not | a fundamental aspect of all reality. After all impermanence | didn't apply in Soviet Russia? Oh yeah, it too passed. Guess | not. | whitemary wrote: | All modern societies implement brutal exercises in | primitive accumulation. Capitalist nations just exported | their brutality to the 3rd world. Was that noble of them? | I'm not seeing your point. (See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org | /wiki/Primitive_accumulation_of_ca...) | | "Impermanence" is not a religious concept, but the vagaries | in these platitudes are. Nobody in a capitalist society can | rationalize layoffs. The best we can do is rationalize not | thinking about them, which is the purpose actually served | by the platitudes. Religion does the same. | | An actually scientific perspective would be far more useful | and actionable. There is a good book on this topic: https:/ | /www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Engels_... | tick_tock_tick wrote: | Well since by and large you weren't allowed to not work in | the Soviet Union being "laid off" normally meant you were | being shipped off to a labor camp or being executed. | | Lets not pretend they didn't have millions in the gulags.... | ModernMech wrote: | Unless you're rich, you're not allowed to not work in | America either. Go ahead and try, you won't last long. Even | social support programs come with work requirements in some | places [1]. | | Let's not pretend America doesn't currently imprison over | two million people [2]. That's where you end up if you're | poor and unlucky enough in America (being homeless is also | criminalized in many places [3]). | | [1] https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/health-policy- | center/pr... | | [2] https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states- | america | | [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeseq/2022/01/01/how- | the-us-... | CyberDildonics wrote: | You realize they can get a different job right? | whitemary wrote: | The question is whether all families can sustain healthy | and dignified livelihoods. And the answer is in fact they | cannot. | | By definition, a capitalist economy has a hard dependency | on labor surplus. Remember when the Federal Reserve | literally said they were raising interest rates to increase | unemployment? That's why. | fnordpiglet wrote: | They couldn't in Soviet Russia either. I also don't | consider livelihood synonymous with dignity. If you're | going to advocate, I'd fall on the UBI side before I fall | on the "meaningless command economy labor for the sake of | laboring" | slt2021 wrote: | Have you actually ever lived in Soviet Union? or just read | Lenin's books? | aketchum wrote: | where did this come from? The person you are responding to | didn't say anything about Soviet workers. Also, having | recently visited Cuba, while workers in a Communist society | may not worry about layoffs, they still need second jobs in | the black market to earn a living wage. I'm far from an | expert in the Soviet Union but it seems crazy to use this as | an excuse to shill the USSR | UncleOxidant wrote: | Heard a story on NPR about someone who recently went home | to Cuba from Spain. Said that in the past people in Cuba | would ask him to bring electronics (stuff they couldn't get | in Cuba), but this time when he asked family back in Cuba | what they wanted him to bring they said "Food". When he got | there he picked up a hitch hiker on the drive from Havana | to his home town (in the past this was very common and very | safe). The woman advised him that really shouldn't pick up | hitch hikers because they tend to rob you. She was a | healthcare professional of some sort and said she had to do | several side jobs just to survive. | robomartin wrote: | Just so that it is clear: How does YC define "late stage"? | | I ask because the opening line is: "YC is known primarily as a | place where very early founders create something from nothing" | | Does this mean that, going forward, startups that start with | something need not apply? For example, a product and, say, one or | many customers? Some revenue? | | Or does YC want to focus on the "something from nothing" | category? | cm2012 wrote: | Late stage means series B+ usually | cheeze wrote: | Weak wording the same as every other company | | > Unfortunately, this means we will no longer need some of the | roles | | > Seventeen of our teammates are impacted | [deleted] | everybodyknows wrote: | Is "impacted" the euphemism of the 2020's? In the past I've | seen "affected", but maybe that's passe now. So hard to keep up | with all the progress in our language ... | layer8 wrote: | I mean, aren't founders always touting that they want to have | an impact in the world? ;) | epicureanideal wrote: | I'm surprised that even an innovative, creative organization like | YC wasn't able to create other positions for these folks. I guess | that just shows how hard business is even for people who are good | at it. | Tade0 wrote: | When I saw the March "Who is hiring?" I couldn't help but think | "truly, who is?". | | My friend is on the lookout for a new role and his experience | so far is that it's mostly CV hoarders who approach him on | LinkedIn. One case we all but confirmed because I used to work | for the company which was supposedly hiring, but I asked a | person from there and nope, not very actively, no. | devmor wrote: | Creating a position for employees that aren't needed is | generally not a business priority. | | Besides, it's likely that this is primarily a cost-cutting | measure given similar industry trends at the moment. | epicureanideal wrote: | > Creating a position for employees that aren't needed is | generally not a business priority. | | Sure, I guess I was using too much of a shorthand in my | comment. What I meant was, I'm surprised a company with such | a high talent density didn't generate enough new business | quickly enough to be able to anticipate near future needs for | these folks so that it would make sense to keep them. | | I would think YC would have a lot of opportunities to deploy | capital, and so a lot of opportunities to gain value from a | variety of employee types. | | If I knew more about the internals of YC I might be able to | make more specific suggestions. | | By the way, any company out there, I'd be willing to | brainstorm (for free) about how you can repurpose and keep | your people, or find other creative solutions. I'll check for | replies to this comment later today and tomorrow, and maybe | I'll edit it to add a throwaway or alternate email shortly. | | Email: jmorrow977 at gmail. I'll check tonight and daily for | the next couple days or week. | jll29 wrote: | > Creating a position for employees that aren't needed is | generally not a business priority. | | You are describing the status quo quite correctly. | | That is probably consistent with the textbook form of | capitalism. | | However, it does not HAVE to be this way. If you have smart, | well-educated, experienced staff in roles that are no longer | needed, how about thinking hard about how you might deploy | them in new beneficial ways? The result could be increased | loyalty and a new line of business, a social (yet still | profitable) venture. Does anyone have examples? | barbariangrunge wrote: | Many Japanese companies have worked hard over the last | several decades to find new positions for people who would | have been laid off. The result: they dominate a lot of | international industries in manufacturing and certain kinds | of high tech | | Eg, I'm buying a Japanese car this week because I don't like | the reliability of most North American brands | | > Toyota continues tradition of a 'No-Layoff' policy for its | full-time workers | | https://ilssi.org/toyota-continues-tradition-of-a-no- | layoff-... | [deleted] | opportune wrote: | What does this mean for the MFN SAFE terms that YC founders | receive in the standard deal? | | Does that change if YC doesn't plan to make as many late stage | investments? | halfmatthalfcat wrote: | PG and crew have been very proud of the way they've been able to | scale YC. This seems to be one of the first times where YC has | failed to scale? | tylermenezes wrote: | There have been plenty of scaling problems (my batch, S12, has | been publicly referred to a few times as "the batch that broke | YC" for example). | | Scaling is an iterative process :) | tempsy wrote: | I'm not sure why YC is an example of something that has scaled | well. There's so many companies now in each batch with 95%+ | never amounting to much success. It's not clear how the scale | is helping anyone. | garry wrote: | I will say that large % of the batches turn out to still be | good companies later, sometimes much later. The journey of | being a founder sets people up to do a lot more: YC alums are | often great C-level executives at other fast growing | startups, and/or just because their first startup doesn't | work doesn't mean they don't go on to create great companies | later. | | The key thing about networks is Metcalfe's law: the power of | a network is the square of its nodes. This is also what makes | the Internet more and more valuable over time. | | Those things together mean scale increases value for | founders, and what we've learned is those effects are most | potent early. | pbreit wrote: | Or perhaps writing pro rata checks doesn't require that many | people? | dvt wrote: | [flagged] | Zetice wrote: | Literally none of the investors in SVB were bailed out, as you | cannot bail out a failed bank. | [deleted] | [deleted] | kgwgk wrote: | The investors in depositor companies were (indirectly) bailed | out (if there is indeed a shortfall). | Zetice wrote: | "indirectly bailed out" is not "bailed out". The US economy | as a whole was "bailed out" by not having a cascading | effect of bank failures, does that mean _you_ were "bailed | out" too? Are we just devaluing the term entirely? | dvt wrote: | Imagine thinking that billionaires actually bought SVB stock | or held cash in there. Protip: their capital is tied up in | dozens of companies, which were, indeed, bailed out. | Zetice wrote: | "Their capital" is _vastly_ different from "them", as it | has been given out for others to use, so again no, they | were _not_ bailed out. | dvt wrote: | > it has been given out for others to use, so again no, | they were not bailed out | | Uh, that's what wealthy people _do_ -- they give money to | other people to make them even more money. This was so | transparently a billionaire bailout (Gary Tan & David | Sacks were _literally_ on a press tour), I fail to | understand how people are so mesmerized by the shell game | here. | Zetice wrote: | ...that's not what "bailout" means, a "bailout" can only | happen before a bank collapses; SVB already collapsed, it | _cannot_ be bailed out, definitionally. | | It's not a shell game, it's a fundamentally different | situation where _real_ people who are _not_ billionaires | are directly and immediately effected. | | Further, there is not financial assistance in the form of | "free money"; at _best_ what will happen are loans to | cover the difference between the available liquidity and | the withdraws. The assets SVB once had will, upon | maturity, pay for those loans with interest, and only | _then_ will investors be given a chance to recoup some of | their investment. | | I'm frankly fascinated by the abject cynicism by way of | ignorance people think they can get away with on the | Internet. Unreal... | chernevik wrote: | The timing and optics on this are just awful. | ftxbro wrote: | [flagged] | Kwpolska wrote: | That's still too long and flowery. You | probably know what YC is. We were recently doing | late-stage investing, but we're mostly giving up on that now. | We're firing 17 people who were involved in late-stage | investing. You won't notice their disappearance. | | There, four sentences, and no AI involved. | mhb wrote: | Even just excising the godawful "impacted" is a massive | improvement. | [deleted] | ftxbro wrote: | Oh they flagged my post. Does that mean no one can see it | anymore? Anyway I was curious how GPT expands your four | brutally raw sentences into a press release (everything it | made is fake including a fake quote): | | Y Combinator Announces Changes in Late-Stage Investing and | Workforce | | Mountain View, CA - Y Combinator, the renowned startup | accelerator, announced today that it will be shifting its | focus away from late-stage investing. As part of this | strategic pivot, the company will be letting go of 17 | employees who were involved in late-stage investing. | | This decision comes after a thorough review of YC's | investment strategy and long-term goals. While late-stage | investing has been a successful part of the company's | portfolio, YC has decided to double down on its core mission | of helping early-stage startups grow and succeed. | | "We are grateful for the contributions of our late-stage | investing team, but we believe that this change will allow us | to better serve our early-stage companies and continue to | drive innovation in the startup ecosystem," said YC | President, Sam Altman. | | The 17 affected employees have been notified and will be | provided with severance packages and support during their | transition. YC remains committed to its mission of supporting | and investing in the most promising startups and looks | forward to continuing to work with entrepreneurs from all | over the world. | | For more information, please contact Y Combinator's media | relations team at press@ycombinator.com. | | ### | beavis000 wrote: | Here's a question: Whose capital does YC invest? Only partner | capital? Do they have outside investors? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-03-13 23:00 UTC)