[HN Gopher] Ways YC has changed in the last year ___________________________________________________________________ Ways YC has changed in the last year Author : yimby Score : 129 points Date : 2023-09-23 21:24 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (twitter.com) (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com) | lolinder wrote: | Was this resurrected? Algolia had this as posted 19 hours ago | [0], and I swear I remember reading some of these comments last | night. | | [0] | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... | version_five wrote: | Yes. I posted in it yesterday, in my own "threads" I see the | posts' age reflecting that, when I look at this thread they are | now only a few hours old. | lolinder wrote: | Oh, interesting, this shows up in the second chance pool: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/pool | | I knew this was a thing, but I didn't realize it worked by | messing with timestamps. | dang wrote: | Yes, sorry, I know that timestamp business is confusing but | it's the least confusing of the options I know of. | | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&qu | e... | enumjorge wrote: | This is off topic, but it's crazy to me that the current | incarnation of Twitter still seems to be the communication | platform of choice for a good portion of the tech community. | Presumably Jared still considers it to be the best way to share | this information despite the fact that the app is so user | hostile. Even using nitter to bypass these restrictions, we're | still breaking a paragraph into separate posts, as if sharing | text longer than a sentence on the intent is a something we need | to handle in a piecemeal fashion. | | At a time when I can use ML algorithms to create beautiful images | from a simple description, Twitter feels positively prehistoric. | And yet the people investing in the bleeding edge continue using | smoke signals to reach their audience. It's remarkable. | tomp wrote: | > we're still breaking a paragraph into separate posts | | Um,... just because OP does that, doesn't mean it's necessary. | | Here's an example of a long-form post, with embedded images: | https://twitter.com/myles_cooks/status/1689022160780791812 | matsemann wrote: | Only available for those paying. And since paying means you | get a badge and thus grouped together with cryptobros and | rightwing nutjobs and gave Musk money, few people pay for it | even when they might have wanted to. | loloquwowndueo wrote: | More tweets (one per paragraph) drives more engagement. | gochi wrote: | Reminds me of those tedious recipe blogs that require so much | scrolling, but even worse since there's no easy print on X. | tomp wrote: | The _" tedious recipe blogs that require so much | scrolling"_ usually first start with an emotional story | about how the dish reminds the author of their childhood, | which is included (presumably) to milk SEO and also annoy | readers, followed by a recipe with maybe one photo. | | This is a recipe with short (but not one-liners) yet | helpful instructions, including images of how the cooking | process would work. | | Do you have an example of a better recipe post? | bbarnett wrote: | There was some guy here a year ago, who made a simple, | easily searchable recipe site, but I don't know the link. | | It was just recipes. | talkingtab wrote: | Twitter is an anti-democratic platform. No one should be using | it, period. Twitter acts as a megaphone for sensationalism, | extremism and other click-bait ism's. If there is no | alternative, just don't use it. | | As for bleeding edge people using it, if someone is still using | this platform they lose all credibility with me. | | If (you are democrat ) read above post If (you are not democrat | ) Twitter is great! If (you are female ) Twitter is sexist If | (well you get the picture ) ... | pixl97 wrote: | Ok, then suggest some other platform that has the network | effects of an existing large audience? | | Technology matters far less than network effects. Not saying it | doesn't matter at all, but you have to overcome the audiences | stickiness to a platform first. | lbotos wrote: | One tweet link to a blog post on the YC blog? Yeah, sure, | there will be some drop off bc people don't click out of the | app, but most people _not_ on twitter can 't even read this | content anymore without workarounds. | [deleted] | jeffbee wrote: | The YC leaders spend half of their time fawning over Elon Musk, | so it makes sense that they are captive on his platform. | 4death4 wrote: | People like to complain about X's (nee Twitter) format, but | isn't it possible that X is a good medium _because_ of the | restrictions put on the format? Each paragraph needs to make a | salient point in 280 characters or less. Personally, I like the | direct prose that results from this restriction. | Retric wrote: | No, I've seen paragraphs and even single sentences split | across multiple posts. | | It's literally just bad UI. | richbell wrote: | I think they're referring to the aggressive rate-limiting | that prevents people from reading tweets/threads without an | account. | seabass-labrax wrote: | It's a risky investment strategy to put so much emphasis on AI | startups. Not only do you have the already volatile nature of | early-stage software companies (which YC is of course used to), | but this is a bet on whether machine learning, chiefly LLMs, are | going to continue to outperform other technologies and become | sustainable to run. | | There's no question in my mind that 'Open'AI is subsidizing the | vast majority of LLM research and use today. If the efficacy of | LLaMA and its derivatives actually start to approach GPT4+ in any | meaningful way, there is quickly going to be a shortage of | suitable compute that will completely dwarf the now-subsided | Bitcoin mining craze. Plus, untainted training data is going to | be harder to find amongst the text contaminated with mountains of | early LLM drivel. | | As a technology expert, I couldn't in all honesty say that I | would want to have money in the YC fund right now. But if it pays | off, it could be the biggest software windfall since social | networking took off at the beginning of the 2010s. | [deleted] | Izikiel43 wrote: | I guess what you are saying is buy calls for Nvidia | epolanski wrote: | Please don't turn HN in low effort WSB-like comments. | steveBK123 wrote: | Precisely - when there's a gold rush, sell shovels. | seabass-labrax wrote: | Quite possibly; I'm not sure why calls would be better than | straight-up buying the stock, but I am certain that Nvidia is | going to have a pretty good time of the LLM hype. | | Nvidia seem to me to have been consistently competent in | improving their product lines. Perhaps my only criticism | would be of their artificial hampering of some of their | products, which they do in order to appease certain PC gamers | by excluding the gaming market from usual supply/demand | effects. This has the knock-on effect of severely reducing | the compatibility of the hardware with Linux, which of course | is by far the most sensible option for cloud computing hosts | right now. | coffeebeqn wrote: | Nvidia is specifically not on the LLM train - almost all | possible forms of AI can use parallel compute chips to | great effect. Their own AI products like DLSS have nothing | to do with LLMs | __jonas wrote: | > Perhaps my only criticism would be of their artificial | hampering of some of their products, which they do in order | to appease certain PC gamers by excluding the gaming market | from usual supply/demand effects | | Can you elaborate what you mean by this? I thought Nvidia | is outpricing their PC gamer customers because of their | focus on AI? I'm curious how they have hampered their | products in your opinion. | seabass-labrax wrote: | Here's one reference: | https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-Lock-Broken | | My reading of the saga is that the cryptocurrency mining | bubble was causing huge demands for Nvidia GPUs as | parallel processors (with ASICS for mining only starting | to appear at this point). This meant that GPUs were being | priced-out of the market for most PC gamers, as it was | always profitable for cryptocurrency miners to buy more | of them. | | Nvidia introduced a lock on 'non-professional' cards | which prevented alternative firmware from being loaded on | them, effectively splitting the market into two, one for | 'gamers' and the other for 'miners'. That lock interferes | with the open source driver for Linux, Nouveau, meaning | that normal things like CUDA (and not least running | games!) couldn't be done on Linux without a labyrinthine | network of proprietary drivers that, for instance, | couldn't be updated automatically. | | It seems as if Nvidia succeeded, because from my passive | awareness of the PC gaming world, people seem very happy | with their new GPUs. But for those using Linux for | servers, at home or for AI research, it has been an | ongoing nightmare. | latchkey wrote: | That lock was broken with the NVIDIA leak. | | H100's were not used for mining. | | Regardless, in general, there is little demand for GPUs | for mining any longer after ETH switched to PoS. | tayo42 wrote: | Don't calls increase potential gains through leverage? With | the usual high risk downside of the option ending up | worthless. | version_five wrote: | If this was NFTs, what would the winning strategy have been? | Strike when the iron is hot and hype is at the maximum and hope | to get some exits or subsequent rounds asap, or draw it out. | From a portfolio perspective, it's just one batch, might as | well go all in and maximally capitalize on hype, no? | voytec wrote: | NFT strategy was rather simple: hire so called celebrities to | advertise the scam, profit from suckers, pull the rug. | version_five wrote: | Sure, and the faster you did that the more you would have | made. I don't think AI is equivalent, the emperor has some | clothes on here, they're just not quite as nice as he's | been led to belive, but the same principle applies. Move | fast, break stuff, sell while the cat's still in the bag. | seabass-labrax wrote: | These gigantic valuations for AI startups are only there | because the startups aren't choosing to exit yet - big | demand, low supply. Whilst acknowledging my lack of a crystal | ball, I would imagine that once the few biggest companies | have had their fill of acquiring AI startups for billions at | a time, the remaining startups won't be so desirable any | longer. | | YC needs to make sure they actually have a market to sell | these startups to before their valuation starts dropping | again. Predicting that requires a certain kind of intuition, | whereas 'traditional' software startups have a more | predictable lifecycle. I'm not the 'hype type' myself - I | don't really trust stocks without intrinsic value behind them | :) | seabass-labrax wrote: | I'm really curious to know why my root comment saying 'this | investment strategy is very risky and would make me | nervous' has loads of upvotes, but my parent comment here - | which I think has broadly the same message phrased in a | different way - has three downvotes. Please enlighten me :) | ignoramous wrote: | > _It 's a risky investment strategy to put so much emphasis on | AI startups._ | | At some level, YC is a marketplace for VCs. One'd think that | this over-emphasis (it was crypto, b2b SaaS, mobile app | startups before this) is YC working as it is supposed to be? | http://paulgraham.com/herd.html / https://archive.is/vkzMd | yuvadam wrote: | Bitcoin hash rate is steadily growing no matter which time | frame you look at [1], what do you mean by "craze"? | | [1] - https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/charts/hash-rate | r_singh wrote: | The adjacent possible theory comes to mind | steveBK123 wrote: | On the other hand, there's probably some sort of reasonable | business model or two that will come out of the AI/LLM boom. So | casting a wide net and hoping your accelerator will catch one | of them is a decent play. | slg wrote: | Jared made the comparison to S06 and it might be interesting to | note that was the worst performing class in YC history in terms | of percentage outcomes for each company. 73% of those companies | are dead, 9% are still alive, and 18% got exits[1]. Although YC | almost certainly cares more about money than percentage | outcomes and one of those exits was Zynga buying OMGPop, so YC | probably views that class as a success. Seems like they are | taking on more risk for greater upside. | | [1] - https://www.ycdb.co/ | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | S06 was also the --first batch-- (Edit: I was mistaken, S05 | was the first batch, but the rest still stands), well before | YC was the "hit maker" its known as today, so it's not | surprising that class didn't do as well as subsequent ones. | The acceptance rate for startups into YC now is miniscule | compared to what it was in 2006. | slg wrote: | >so it's not surprising that class didn't do as well as | subsequent ones | | But it also didn't do as well as the previous ones. I don't | know when exactly YC got that "hit maker" reputation you | are talking about, but S06 is an outlier regardless. The | class directly before and directly after had failure rates | of 29% and 38% compared to S06's 73%. The only classes | coming close to the failure rates of S06 were in the lead | up to the 2008 financial crisis. | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | Haven't done the math on this, but those early batches | were so small - S06 only had 11 companies - so I think | that statistically it's probably not that significant in | any case, especially since there are huge grades of | "success" even within the 3 categories of "alive", | "dead", or "exit" on ycdb.co. | | For example, in S06 there was one big exit (OMGpop), one | company still alive and very well known today (Scribd), | and one what I'd call "failure with an exit" - Xobni sold | for a relatively low 60 million to Yahoo and was then | shutdown. | | Compare that with the batch directly after that, W07, | which had 13 companies. Of those 13, it had one smash hit | (Twitch) and one other relatively big success (Weebly). | While it may have a lot fewer overall "dead" markers than | S06, a lot of its exits look like acqui-hires or "OK buy | our IP before we die" type exits. Better than an outright | "dead" score I guess, but from the perspective of a VC | like YC it hardly makes any difference. Point being I | think it's a stretch to say there were really much | significance in the "success difference" between S06 and | W07 despite the differences in dead counts (with the | possible exception that Twitch ended up being _such_ a | home run, but those are so rare they average 1 or fewer | per batch anyway). | quadcore wrote: | Friendly reminder: the strategy here is to invest in the | founders, not the ideas. So great founders right now create AI | startups. So either AI solves problems or they arent great | founders. | bdjcvuy wrote: | [dead] | snowmaker wrote: | That's exactly right. When people see YC funding a lot of AI | startups, a lot of them think it must be because YC has some | thesis about AI. | | Actually, it says something much deeper about the world than | whatever YC's partners' opinions are. YC funds founders, not | ideas, so the reason that so many companies in S23 are AI | startups is that that's what founders want to work on right | now. It's an emergent phenomenon, like stock prices in the | market. | | One thing that's interesting is that there have been many | hype cycles between 2006 and now (chatbots, several waves of | crypto, VR, online-to-offline, etc). YC funded a few | companies in each of those hype cycles but never anything | like the current %. | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | The underlying assumptions in this post don't really make sense | for an organization like YC. | | It's probably a good idea for YC to have _some_ thesis about | which technologies will be big, and "AI" is probably a good | bet. The entire point of investing in so many AI startups is | that I'm quite sure YC expects the vast, vast majority to fail | (for various definitions of "fail"). But I think most people | believe that there will be very few winners in the AI space | (like pretty much all the other tech spaces over the past 20 | years), so the biggest fears of someone like a YC is _not_ | getting in in those one or two AI companies that made it big. | gxs wrote: | You are being luddites. | | COVID having forced you to be remote is not enough to validate | this constant preaching from SV leadership (and only leadership - | no one without millions in equity ever lobbies for this) that | nothing can replace in person. | | The fact that Paul Graham compares it to communism is fitting for | so many reasons. | pgwhalen wrote: | Without commenting on all the complex dynamics of WFH vs the | office, I can say that I, personally, enjoy working in the | office more. I am an individual contributor software engineer, | without millions in equity in anything. | Terr_ wrote: | I often highlight that every claim of +X% "productivity" with | RTO is based on an implicit assumption that the commute is | _uncompensated_ , and that employees will eat all the costs | (man-hours, fuel) of coming into the office.... At least for a | few quarters, until angry people leave for closer or better- | paying jobs. | | So we've got (A) a misleading "productivity" metric sometimes | being used to rationalize (B) one-sided policies which are (C) | not sustainable in the long term anyway. | MisterBastahrd wrote: | My company has instituted a 3 day RTO policy. | | First week? Had a fever, didn't go in. Second week? Went in 2 | days. Had too much shit to do to worry about office crap. | Third week? Also 2 days. There were less than 10% of the | desks filled on both days I went. | | Going real smooth. And I guarantee you that every single | person who is actually going into the office is counting | commute time against their working hours. | Plasmoid wrote: | I've always wondered how modern cities would look if | employers had to bear partial responsibility for the commute. | Would we see a lot more mixed housing around the place? Would | transit be much better? | yimby wrote: | https://nitter.net/snowmaker/status/1705643839443403263 | carabiner wrote: | Wow, even the bleeding edge, move fast and break things, | disruptive crowd has reaffirmed one tradition: "in-person is the | best." I think this settles it. WFH is less productive. | vikramkr wrote: | Maybe it's the best for that crowd. The stable edge slow moving | corporate world isn't obligated to have the same things work | for them | epolanski wrote: | No, it only reaffirms, if anything, that fast moving startups | benefit from in-person relationship, guidance and communication | with peers more than they would over Teams. | adamiscool8 wrote: | Not really. It doesn't tell us anything except the opinion of | a partner. Has S23 resulted in more successful startups, | happier founders, higher valuations than W19, S20, W20, S21, | W21, S22, and W22? There's no elaboration. | xwdv wrote: | Based on what data exactly? Gut feelings? What could be | faster than communications across vast distances at the speed | of light? | epolanski wrote: | I mean that's not my point, but the guy on Twitter, I was | merely answering the previous poster who far fetched it. | airstrike wrote: | Nonverbal and unstructured, unplanned communication don't | really translate well to the digital world (yet) | xwdv wrote: | So the secret to working effectively is passive | aggressive nonverbal cues and interrupting people | frequently who may be busy doing something else and | weren't expecting an impromptu meeting? | | Has the physical world discovered how to replay past | conversations where important decisions were made? Has it | become socially acceptable to have long silences of 5-10 | minutes while people formulate thoughtful replies in a | conversation? | airstrike wrote: | > Has the physical world discovered how to replay past | conversations where important decisions were made? | | Yes, they're called "minutes", memos or simply taking | notes in meetings. | | > Has it become socially acceptable to have long silences | of 5-10 minutes while people formulate thoughtful replies | in a conversation? | | Yes, you can always say "let me think about that for a | minute" | erik_seaberg wrote: | I've literally never seen a meeting grind to a halt like | that. Instead, meetings are full of half-baked ideas, and | I sometimes notice show-stoppers hours later when it's | quiet. | cpursley wrote: | Let me introduce you to Slack and cell phone calls. | RestlessMind wrote: | Let me introduce you to body language, tone, facial | expressions and personal energy, which are simply not | captured in slack or zoom or phone calls. | airstrike wrote: | those don't convey nonverbal communication, and they are | so unstructured that they interrupt too frequently | | there's something positive about setting time on the | calendar and then sitting down with someone (or a group | of people) to talk about a specific subject that we've | all prepared for. yes, you can do that with Zoom, but | then you miss the ability to speak simultaneously and the | body language / nonverbal. | | not everything should be a meeting, but not everything | should be IM / phone calls either. being able to mix and | match is what makes in-person somewhat positive (even if | I personally prefer a hybrid model) | jmye wrote: | For some problems? 15 minutes with a whiteboard. There's no | good e-replacement. | | For other problems? Sure, slack and zoom are perfectly | adequate to preferable. | eropple wrote: | _> For some problems? 15 minutes with a whiteboard. | There's no good e-replacement._ | | People say this, but FigJam or even Microsoft Whiteboard | work fantastically for this if you've equipped your team | with the right hardware. I often sit down with people and | noodle through problems on an iPad (and for me at least | the Pencil is required) with FigJam in a low-friction | manner. | RestlessMind wrote: | I have really tried many different tools since 2020 and | none of those worked as well as an in-person whiteboard | sessions with 3-4 colleagues. | jmye wrote: | I really disagree. Figjam is mildly ok, though I suppose | if my company had been willing to give the team better | tools it might have worked better? I still think there's | something irreplaceable about standing around the board | in person to discuss/draw. Even the hovering | pencil/cursor stuff just doesn't work as well, IMO, as | standing there and pointing at things/connections. | | I'm certainly not going to make my team move to my city | and rent an office for those meetings, but getting | together a few times a year can allow for solving some | tough/intractable problems much more easily/efficiently. | eropple wrote: | _> Figjam is mildly ok, though I suppose if my company | had been willing to give the team better tools it might | have worked better?_ | | I think FigJam is pretty bad with a mouse and keyboard, | honestly. It wasn't until I started using it with an iPad | that it made sense to me and it wasn't until I got other | people doing it that it was actually any good at all. It | also suffers if you have the sort of group that needs a | facilitator for these kinds of processes--I had a PM who | had formerly been at Figma and their process for trying | to get people to use it at the new job hurt me | physically. | | (The funny thing is, while I do like FigJam I don't like | Figma at all; I am an Illustrator man and will be until I | blow away like dust in the wind.) | | _> I'm certainly not going to make my team move to my | city and rent an office for those meetings, but getting | together a few times a year can allow for solving some | tough /intractable problems much more | easily/efficiently._ | | I agree with this, FWIW, but not for the problem-solving | aspect at a whiteboard. I use it for the sticky, annoying | people-y problems where you _do_ lose something over a | teleconference connection when dealing with most people. | (Some folks I 've worked with, like me, have an on-camera | background and can project effectively over | teleconferences; most can't.) | xwdv wrote: | We don't have "whiteboard" type problems anymore, past a | certain level of experience. Are you a junior? | jmye wrote: | Believe it or not, I may work on different problems and | in different areas than you do. | molly0 wrote: | The way Twitter has changed in the last year is so I can no | longer read threads since I don't have an account. | smcin wrote: | (The equivalent nitter.net or nitter.it links allow non-users | to read. See above.) | debacle wrote: | @dang, please change the root link to the nitter thread. | dang wrote: | We want the canonical URL at the top. Alternate sources, so | that more people can read ab article, are welcome as links from | the thread. | | We detached this subthread from | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37627964. | voytec wrote: | On one hand, this suggestion stands in opposition to HN rules | (link to source) but on the other is more reasonable as linking | nitter provides viewer with more information, as an addition to | single post that non-registered Twitter users would be able to | see. | dehrmann wrote: | Considering HN is a YC thing, the useful feedback at this | point might be that X isn't the best outlet to reach | audiences anymore, and maybe they should post it somewhere | else. | shkkmo wrote: | It is like suggesting that the link on a paywalled article be | changed to an archive link without the paywall. That isn't | the way HN has decided to operate. | | Instead, users get taught to visit the comments first and | upvote a comment with that link. | joeconway wrote: | I'm a huge fan of remote first companies, but when Jared speaks, | I listen. I'd love to know more of any specific lessons learned | or observations made that lead to this conclusion | Topgamer7 wrote: | Twitter is such a garbage way to convey this kind of information. | Mistletoe wrote: | It's ridiculous how long a character limit based on text | messaging has persisted on that platform and also helped ruin | human communication across the globe. It's just one of those | weird butterfly effect moments that aliens would shake their | heads at. | [deleted] | epolanski wrote: | It also limits the audience to people with Twitter, I can only | see the first post. | xypage wrote: | Hop on over to nitter, just replace twitter in the url with | nitter and you get | https://nitter.net/snowmaker/status/1705643839443403263 which | works without an account or anything. | gumballindie wrote: | Well then, i suppose our overlords have decided we must be in | person. But since they will "free" us with ai soon what's the | point? | j7ake wrote: | _I wondered what was the last time you could say that "half the | YC batch is working on an X startup", for any value of X._ | | When did this pseudo math talk creep into normal speech? | | It reeks of charlatans pretending to be technical when there is | no need to be technical. | steve_adams_86 wrote: | It reads fine to me. Is it really all that technical? It's just | a variable. People with basic math skills with figure out what | this means easily. Even if it was technical, the author is also | working in a technical space, so technical speak seems par for | the course. | jeffbee wrote: | > It's a beautiful space with an incredible history - it's where | the US built battleships for WWI and WWII. | | Pretty sure this plays fast and loose with the history of | American naval warfare. The only battleship built in San | Francisco, that I can think of, is the 19th-century relic USS | Ohio. | rgbrenner wrote: | http://pier70sf.org/history/shipsBuilt/ShipsBuiltAll.html | solardev wrote: | That seems to list a bunch of destroyers and other vessels, | but not "battleships". | | Probably the tweeter was just using that term colloquially, | like "ship of war", rather than as a classification of size | and function. | mentos wrote: | Would have liked to read why in person is better. | | I imagine the biggest reason is it raises the sense of commitment | for everyone involved. | steveBK123 wrote: | In person is better because the latent bid for tech workers has | gone down, and now they feel comfortable demanding we all come | back to the office. It's as simple as that. | mentos wrote: | When you get married are you going to do it over Zoom or have | everyone show up in person? | steveBK123 wrote: | Wasn't aware I needed to marry my coworkers. Most companies | I've worked at have strong HR policies around that. | mentos wrote: | These aren't coworkers they're cofounders. | steveBK123 wrote: | Still wouldn't mix business with pleasure, but that's | just me. | mentos wrote: | Didn't stop the founders of YCombinator ha | steveBK123 wrote: | LOL I didn't realize that until you mentioned & I looked | it up. Nice. | RestlessMind wrote: | Since you don't seem to be getting the point, let me | break it down to you - you seem to realize that a | marriage needs regular in-person interaction to make it | work. Also, co-founding a company is another relationship | where regular in-person interaction is needed to make it | work. YC data seems to indicate that. | nzoschke wrote: | This is my hypothesis too. | | I participated in YC S15. | | We all quit our jobs, and my co-founders moved to from Atlanta | to SF for the summer, we rented a big house as a live/work | space, and drove together to Mountain View the required few | times a week. We went to a lot of optional things together like | additional office hours, parties, meetups, together and in | person. | | That level of commitment and pretty much daily face to face | working time is powerful. | | It's not possible for everyone given circumstances, and its not | sustainable forever. But that means that the teams that can and | do opt into a summer like this are very committed to their | idea. | | So it's not hard to imagine it's "better" to relocate for a | stretch of something hard like getting a business off the | ground than doing it all fully distributed. | ilrwbwrkhv wrote: | This. People underestimate physical proximity while doing | challenging things together. This has been a core human glue | for millenia. One of the reasons I still recommend people to | go to university. There is simply no substitute for this. | bsder wrote: | The primary (maybe only?) value of YC is the networking. | | Networking is fundamentally an in-person thing. The remote-only | people can whine all they want, but that is simply an immutable | fact. | | Building a startup requires most of your time on _non-coding_ | tasks. | no_wizard wrote: | They don't have to be. This is all about setup. | | It's harder to do because we aren't used to it but I attended | a really well done Zoom mixer in 2021 that was absolutely | amazing and didn't great job. It almost felt like I was in | person honestly. | | People aren't used to changing their norms so quickly. This | is what the real issue is | version_five wrote: | Right, look at conferences, MBA programs, etc. There are/were | "remote" options but they essentially have no value, it was | just a placeholder we tried. Some kinds of work can be remote | of course. But learning and networking only really works in | person. | [deleted] | ShamelessC wrote: | > Before covid, founders often asked us to run YC remotely so | that they would't have to move to SF to participate. We never | did...[we feel justified in our decision] | | Completely ignoring the founders who still have to move, | apparently? | jacquesm wrote: | And not the most elegant display of the power dynamic between | investors and founders, to put it mildly. Note that this self | selects for people able _and_ willing to jump through hoops for | their investors. | eropple wrote: | Having a family or a house or a dog simply means you are _not | hardcore enough_ , woo. | startupsfail wrote: | YC is a one-trick-pony. If you have a simple product, it can | guide you to get users, investors and to scale it up. | | But don't expect anything else. It would not help, if you are | outside of that scenario. It easily can screw you, by using any | product ideas that you've refined and sharing these freely with a | relevant startup in the batch. | debacle wrote: | > by using any product ideas that you've refined and sharing | these freely with a relevant startup in the batch. | | Do you have an example of this happening in the past? | startupsfail wrote: | Yes. Took the idea, website, etc, down to the name. Planted | on a team of "founders", who grabbed 10M from VCs. They took | it to some place in Texas to die. | | Was pretty annoying to watch, because it was quite clear that | the idea was too early to try productizing YC-style at the | time. It was essentially "code understanding" with early | transformers, buck in 2017. But YC tried turning this into a | product, while it was time to do foundational research. | satvikpendem wrote: | You're saying you were in YC and then they took your idea, | website etc and gave it to another YC team? Or were you | unrelated to anyone in YC? | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: | One trick pony? They have created 5-10% of all unicorns in | existence | dehrmann wrote: | This can still be true with the original point. There might | be a certain type of startup they're very good a nurturing, | but not others. | jabradoodle wrote: | Source? | officialchicken wrote: | Be honest about winner's bias... there are a lot of dead | horses in their graveyard too. | coffeebeqn wrote: | That's literally the VC business model? | vikramkr wrote: | They lose less money on the losers than they make on the | winners. The whole game is about maximizing the number of | wins, not necessarily percentage. | 7e wrote: | Huh? The founders created these companies. YC just convinced | these founders to give away a big share of their companies | for almost nothing, in return for cult lulz. Accelerators are | exploitative. | asah wrote: | strong language, but there's a mathematical proof against: | | - company X raises at $Y valuation before YC | | - company X raises at $Z valuation after YC | | - if Z / Y > YC dilution then YC is a good value | | Z/Y > dilution in virtually all cases. | | Sorry, but life isn't fair. | neilv wrote: | > _We 've now tried every point on the spectrum: fully remote, | hybrid and fully in-person. So now we don't have to worry if | we're being luddites: in-person YC just really is the best._ | | How was this determined to be best? | | (Obviously, they haven't controlled for variables like the switch | to 4 smaller batches, and the high percentage of startups all | doing one exciting thing (AI). And do they realize the costs. And | is it best for some people, and not for others.) | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | YC doesn't exactly need to do double-blinded controlled studies | to come to some conclusions. | | I'm sure they get lots of feedback from the companies in a | batch, not to mention the partners' own assessments of how | things work. It seems entirely reasonable to me then, after | they _did_ have different sessions with different | configurations, to point to particular points and say "in- | person just worked way better". | hackernewds wrote: | > YC doesn't exactly need to do double-blinded Controled | studies to come to some conclusions. | | Why not? There is a barrage of companies touting the benefits | of in person collaboration, thinly veiled to just being | "surveil the workers" | stanleydrew wrote: | > Why not? | | Is this a serious question? For one thing, every founder | will obviously know whether they are in-person or not, so | it's not even possible to do a single-blind study. | hackernewds wrote: | My point is there are other statistical techniques, none | of which seems to be utilized against #vibes let's go | #RTO | steveBK123 wrote: | It was determined the same way FAANG, Banks, and others have | determined in-person is best: "haha, the economy is slowing, | get back to the office you F*(&# losers". | | Absolutely breathtaking level of cynicism from executive class | that as soon as interest rates went up, hiring market cooled, | and the power balance between workers & bosses swung back their | way, suddenly in-office was "most productive". | | 100% vibes and "because we say so / we can get away with it". | ajkjk wrote: | I imagine the actual reason is the complete opposite of | everything you said except for 'vibes'. | | Just cause you can't imagine why anyone would care about | being in person doesn't mean the only remaining reason is a | greedy powertrip. You're just not being sufficiently | imaginative. | steveBK123 wrote: | Sure for a bootcamp or intensive project or whatever, in- | person can have benefits. For juniors and mentorship and | whatever, sure helps there too. | | But the lingering question is... Why is it that everyone | was super cool with hybrid & remote, even past COVID | danger, but as soon as FAANG had massive layoffs we went | from 2days to 3days to majority back in office at many tech | companies? | | And the east coast bank/fund/finance tech companies quickly | dragged everyone else back to the office as soon as we all | stopped quitting for FAANG jobs? | | Hard to tell what the cause could possibly be. | | Correlation, causation.. who knows! | ajkjk wrote: | I can think of plenty of decent reasons that might be | true? For instance perhaps over time a fully remote | company, unless it employs mostly a certain type of very | driven self motivated person, slows down and loses any | semblance of a culture the longer it works remotely? That | was certainly my experience. | | Or perhaps all the managers, typically fairly extroverted | people, get more depressed over time the longer their | daily social interactions are just on video calls. | | Or perhaps over time it's found that new hires do worse | and worse without an office to bond with others in and a | culture to absorb. | | Etc. No shortage of plausible reasons. | | Perhaps these companies were remote for a while because a | lot of people were loud and annoying about it, and now a | lot of them are quietly backpedaling to avoid offending | the people who love it while reclaiming the benefits of | an office? | | Perhaps! I don't know. You'd have to ask them. One thing | is for sure: there are a lot of plausible reasons besides | 'evil'. | steveBK123 wrote: | I didn't use the word evil though you may have read it | that way. | | Simply stating that tech employers have the power back | and now they are using it. | dilyevsky wrote: | Because zirp was over | ajkjk wrote: | What is zirp? | reducesuffering wrote: | > Absolutely breathtaking level of cynicism | | Umm? Pot meet kettle | dehrmann wrote: | You didn't actually give an alternative reason for why FAANGs | and banks are doing this. Some also obviously don't hold for | YC (real estate losses). | VirusNewbie wrote: | It's easier to make blanket rules than do performance mgmt | for _managers_. | | If data shows some % of the company has been completely | slacking off with WFH (or over employed etc) you could | either hold mgmt accountable (but how? Fire all VPs for | letting that happen? Fire all line managers?) or just make | blanket policies... | steveBK123 wrote: | That line of management of management is allowing | incompetence to fester. | | My spouse is at a shop that keeps ratcheting up the RTO | days "because people aren't abiding by the current RTO | days". | | This of course is idiotic because the shirkers don't get | punished and everyone ends up worst off. In fact the | people already complying are worst effected. | | If you can't count on managers to enforce rules then why | have managers or rules? | VirusNewbie wrote: | I agree your question is relevant, but the problem is do | directors want to acknowledge that the level below them | is incompetent at performance mgmt at a small | granularity? Because what does that say about them? | steveBK123 wrote: | On this thread - there's a VC guy I follow on twitter who | otherwise sounds like a decent guy, but as the tech job | market was collapsing ~9 months ago was literally posting | "suits suits suits". | | Aka - the old Wall St saying that when the economy turns | and labor loses power, casual Fridays go out the window and | everyone is back to wearing suits. | | So I do think that the debate is all kayfabe. There is no | data. | | They really see remote/hybrid as just an accommodation like | allowing jeans, paying for your lunch, or having yoga | classes on site... and look forward to cutting it at any | time of their choosing, when they can get away with it. | sobellian wrote: | The dynamic at YC isn't even remotely close to partners | lording over the co-founders. It's not the employment | relationship you seem to imagine. | xkr wrote: | I can't speak for YC or FAANG management but as a regular | software engineer I totally get where they're coming from. I | worked at a FAANG company through and after covid, the | difference in teams productivity was noticeable. Not in the | remote working favour. | | I understand some people are more productive at home but I'm | yet to see a _team_ that is more productive being remote. I | lack the experience working in remote-first companies like | gitlab though. | hackernewds wrote: | I see the opposite. My team was vastly more productive | remote, and gained 2 hours of commute time per day. | | Your anecdata vs mine? ;) | steveBK123 wrote: | Depends on the project type and part of the lifecycle. Also | depends on the team composition and office structure. | | In my career I've generally been on teams spread across 3 | continents and sit in open floorplan offices surrounded by | other loud teams. So I commute into the office to be | collocated with at-best 1/3 of my team, surrounded by | unrelated noise. | | In some ideal state where we were 100% in the same city, | sat in a dedicated pod area without so much commotion & | distraction, in-office might be great. I've never | experienced this. | | Even in that ideal state, it may likely turn out ideal team | productivity happens at 3-4 days in-office, as there's time | for coordination and then time for deep quiet work. | | The top-down, C-suite level dictates are not based on | what's most productive. | armchairhacker wrote: | I don't know much about YC but I do know it isn't a regular | working environment. It's a lot more intense and hands-on, | qualities which indeed tend to be better in-person. | | It's also for only 11 weeks. Other companies probably want to | be always be intense and hands-on and have the YC atmosphere, | but that's actually a terrible way to manage a company, a | recipe for getting everyone to burnout and quit, and even if | people stay after awhile the intensity _will_ cool off. | | I don't doubt YC is better in-person, but also that your | typical boring company is better remote. | erik_seaberg wrote: | I can believe that seeking advice from angels works better in | person, but it's not evidence that writing code works better | in person than on the Maker's Schedule. | | http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html | snowmaker wrote: | A lot of the comments in here are about the debate on whether | companies should be remote or in-person. | | That's an important debate but orthogonal to what I wrote. The | YC batch is not a company. It doesn't really have a close | analogue, but if you forced me to choose, I'd say that doing YC | is more similar to going to college than working at a company. | And as all we all know, while many companies are staying fully | remote, hardly any university is. | | Having now done this back-to-back, I can tell you exactly the | ways in which in-person YC turned out to be better than remote | YC. | | 1). Most founders in remote YC didn't make strong connections | with their batchmates. When I ask founders from remote batches | "how many founders in your batch are you still close with?", | they typically give an answer that's 0-3. When I ask founders | from in-person batches the same question, it's 10+. | | 2). When YC really works, it's because it not only conveys some | factual advice, but changes the way founders think and behave. | | When founders go through in-person batches, they're usually | significantly different by the end of the batch - tougher, | savvier, and more formidable. Whatever causes that did not | translate well to zoom. | | 3). In-person YC is simply more fun. YC has always been in part | about being fun experience, because startups need to be fun or | they'd be too difficult and demoralizing. Zoom is very | effective for communicating information, but no one has fun at | Zoom parties. | RestlessMind wrote: | I am not surprised by that. Fully remote zoom based interaction | only works for those who work in a silo and do not need much | social interaction to get their job done. Some like a mid- | senior software engineer. But many other roles really need | social interactions and in-person time. | | I have family members in SV who have started their own startup. | Talking to them, "founder" seems to be a roll which needs a lot | of social interactions and they are constantly networking. | Right from raising money to making the first hires to finding | the first customers. So no wonder YC batch finds in-person to | be the best experience. | eikenberry wrote: | They are not saying it is best in all circumstances. They are | strictly saying it is best for a small startup. IE. it is best | for the short term, sloppy business of getting a tech startup | off the ground. This makes some sense to me as everything is | less structured in a startup and remote work really does better | when there is more structure in place and quality is more | important. | | To put it another way... In-person is best for the business in | the short term and detrimental to their long term but it is a | sacrifice startups make as they have no long term without the | short term success so just punt all the long term stuff until | they've made it that far. | necubi wrote: | I did YC in w23 which was a hybrid batch (talks and office | hours on zoom with weekly SF events). Speaking for myself, most | of the value was in the in-person events and not the zoom | talks. Talking to alumni from the fully remote batches, it's | clear that they missed out on a big part of the YC experience. | pyrophane wrote: | Whereas in any thread about WFH it seems that 95% of HN has | concluded that remote just really is the best. Case close. No | further study needed. The only reason to think otherwise is | corporate greed. | Eumenes wrote: | Pre-covid, and this WFH/RTO conversation, the focus was on | hating the open office floor plan, which does suck, I agree | ... The most repeated anecdote was how you're coding, in zen, | and someone taps you on the shoulder or starts talking, and | the entire day is lost. Thus, the alternative was to have | your own office, like at Stack Overflow. | neilv wrote: | I suspect that people in both the main "sides" have decided | what they'd prefer, either for their own individual | interests, or some gut feel about what's better for the | organization. And people feel threatened by moves against | what they've decided. | | (Disclosure: I'm pro-WFH overall, or, ideally, my own version | of hybrid. I can see some benefits to some uses of in-person. | I can also see WFH problems that still need creative | solutions. I'm also aware that, in dialogue around this, some | other people might not be playing the same game of nuance and | problem-solving.) | gopher_space wrote: | Asking me to come into the office extends my workday by three | or four hours, and when I'm at the office and not | collaborating it's just a stream of distractions; constant | motion in my peripheral vision, people on calls, it's a busy | place! | | From my perspective WFH saves me so much time, money, and | stress that I'd be _insane_ to not insist on it. Why would I | read a study that doesn't take my perspective into account? | | WFH saves me tens of thousands a year. Any conversation that | ignores the financial impact of return to office from my | point of view is worthless. | eikenberry wrote: | Given that it is a personal preference and that you are | saying that 95% share that preference... it does seem like | case closed. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-09-24 23:00 UTC)