When formulating this elaborate theory, did you stop to ask yourself why it would be in our interest to fund shitty startups when all the returns are concentrated in the most successful ones?
If you're actually willing to engage in this discussion, then here's
your answer.
YC and (other "incubators" like it) are basically opportunistically
exploiting cheap/free labor of thousands of naive (mostly) young
developers to play the lotto on the cheap. You throw in a laughably
small amount of money for a good chunk of equity, encourage your young
charges to go forth on a steady diet of ramen noodles and ketchup --
burning through 100 hour weeks to experiment with 100's of
different(mostly bullshit) trendy catchwords of the day.You only need
to get lucky to be able to flip a few of these companies to the next
level of VC's or acquirers to make back your money multiple times
over. Rest of the blood, sweat, lost sleep and trashed health of the
thousand of other fools that failed is no sweat off your back.
Care to publish aggregate statistics on the percentage of yc backed startups became profitable businesses compared to rest of the industry?
EDIT: Apparently I was mistaken. He's not actually looking to engage in a real discussion of yc's business model.
When you talk about flipping a company to VCs, it tells me you know nothing about this business. VCs don't acquire the stock of earlier investors; they just come in later and dilute you. But for the sake of completeness I'll address your point about acquirers. Stock in a company like Dropbox or Airbnb is worth literally a thousand times more than stock in a company that gets acquired early. If there is one type of company that generates 1000x higher returns than another, why would we spend our time focusing on the latter?
PG, I'm glad to see you're at least willing to engage in the discussion.
The main point was not what end-point you're aiming (large exits, which btw, are yet to be realized for either airbnb or dropbox) or merely progressively higher valuations in further rounds of funding (let's not argue over how those are beneficial to earlier investors, shall we.)
The point was that hordes of fresh graduates are working their asses off for peanuts with minuscule probability of making up for lost time and income. (That's not even including possible losses to health and any conception of what the real world looks like). Mass incubators like yc and it's ilk are rolling the dice and the invested amounts are so tiny that the only substantial losses are those incurred by the founders.
The counter-argument of course is that the founders are adults and are entering into these agreements of their own volition. That's where the whole issue of cult-like mentality and the callow youth of most of these founders comes into play. The asymmetry in knowledge and power between these founders and investors is vast.
That's why I cheer the writer of the original post for bringing the ridiculousness of the whole situation into the open. Lord knows techcrunch and other tabloids like it are not going to publish anything like that. And that's why you personally applying the kill switch on that post is so distasteful.
What are the so-called "substantial losses" that you are talking about? May be you have some insider info that I don't but in my intimate conversations with dozens of fellow YC founders, I haven't run into anyone who wished they didn't do YC. I don't think you are being evil here but rather just have a belief that isn't based in reality.
Same thing for suggesting YC is all about freshly minted grads. A significant percentage of founders are in their late 20s and older making that assumption of yours inaccurate.
Frankly your post is offensive for painting founders as brainwashed dudes making terrible life decisions as they go about joining this imaginary cult. Do you really believe this?
its a long read, but worth it. it basically covers and expounded.upon the ideas you presented in your comment, that the incubators are exploiting the entrepreneurs
Just read Parts I and II of that article. Really interesting perspective. I've been talking to some recent YC "grads" in the valley and the amount of brainwashing they seem to have undergone is just shocking. And yet, so many more keep flocking to them year after year like lambs to the slaughter. Amazing.
in theory, what YC does is good for our society. they provide mentorship and opportunity to new companies and help lead them to success. I have no problem whatsoever with YC's existence nor with the people they fund. I just don't want to be involved. they don't offer very much money at alli and they get too much influence and power over the start up for my tastes. I realized by pg's response that it wasn't for me. I wrote up why, and posted it. I was honestly not expecting him to respond.
but than again I also agree with the original articles premise that there is another tech bubble of stupid companies and it is about to go bust. and I think YC actively contributes to the problem by funding companies with terrible ideas. they want their funded companies to be aquihires because than they get their return. YC doesn't care if the business is sustainable or not as long as it gets bought. that's their schtick: they do the training instead of the universities.
this will affect me if and when I decide to get outside funding because investors won't be willing to invest as much. it will be exactly like after the internet bubble where there is no market to sell investors on the company. that is what concerns me. I'm not looking for an aquihire. I'm not looking for an exit. I'm looking to build a sustainable company that brings value to my customers.
note: not trolling you, these are my actual concerns.
I won't give out specific names of course. The brainwashing is mostly around the cult of personality around pg. Everything he writes or espouses becomes gospel. Now, we all know he can write intelligently and with research on some things he knows well. But he can also sound equally confident spouting utter bullshit about stuff he knows nothing about (e.g. http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm ). Listening to ultra confident blowhards and separating bullshit from reality is a skill people tend to learn as they grow into the adult world.
But these are mostly people in their early to mid twenties who have little to no actual experience in the real world. They seem to believe startups and entrepreneurship was invented by this one man. The fact that after almost 200 investments, there are a sum total of two possibly viable businesses that may end up coming out of this enterprise seems to have no effect on that conviction (and one of them (airbnb) is teetering really close to edge of being unsustainable (pending the question of legal liabilities of renters as well city ordinances etc.)).
It really is a cult of personality with all connotations of the word "cult" coming into play.
because the bubble hasn't popped yet. you fund start ups for the same reason people bought houses a few years ago: the market is still willing to pay ridiculous prices for things with little to no actual value. and the fact that you.have reduced your funding to 80k per start up and also reduced the number of companies you are funding to, what, about 64 or something?, only confirms this theory. you are reducing your risk as well as your market exposure. the problem.is.that you can't get completely out.of the game because.if you did then investors would see that the market is collapsing.and.there would be no liquidity for the.startups you've already funded. you are too high profile to just stop.funding.new companies. its a catch 22. you aren't getting the quality of startups you want, but you have to fund something (that's what YC does), so you just find the best you can find.. you are essentially polishing.turdps and passing them off as gold.
edit: I just realized, there is no way that pg can respond to this. he cant confirm my ideas, because that would admit that there is a bubble and would be very much against his personal long term interests. he also can't deny my arguments because by responding to some random troll on the internet ( me), he lends credibility to what I'm saying, which would only confirm that I am at least partially right, which would, again, be against his long term personal interests. his only winning play is to not respond at all. but crazily, now that I've said this, I've essentially tipped his hand. the non response response is now considered a response because I called him out on it. by not responding he is saying that my arguments hit too close to home to respond to. they are not easily dismissed by a flipant comment.
I suppose he could always hide behind saying that he didn't see my response to his response.
... fuck it, pg, don't respond. I hereby declare that you not responding means that my arguments are wrong. I concede.
I also hereby declare that I am just a random troll on the internet and my ideas should not be taken seriously. this is especially true on hacker news because they break the standard circle jerking that goes on. you guys just keep living in your fantasy world, and ill keep on living in mine.
It's one of the ideals of this site that we "don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation". But in threads like this, you're kind of glad that things like this could only be said here, if only so you don't have to wipe little flecks of spit off your face.
Given opportunities, I disagree with our site's owner probably more often than not, and even I think this site would be better if it was moderated more aggressively and less transparently by him, at least with regards to submissions. This was a stupid story and it produced a stupid thread and everyone can see that, and yet 'pg can't suggest the obvious and react to it without being beset by anonymous Internet trolls, all of whom have valiantly set aside the billions of dollars their intimate knowledge of the tech product market should be making them in order to spend their time here educating us on how exploited YC founders must be.
Stop being such a wuss, Paul, and start torching these threads. Burn them with fire.
two things: 1) I would say all of this to pgs face if we were discussing this. he is a man, not a god, and if he can't handle criticism than he should do some personal reflection and work on that. disagreements are not necessarily bad. 2) you obviously can't counter my argument, otherwise you would have done so. you have added nothing to.this discussion except tried to debase my arguments and ideas by essentially calling me rude. who cares if my presentation is rough if the ideas are good? idiots, that's who. this is life, not preschool.
edit: you edited your comment after I posted. I respond.to your edits by saying that pg doesn't need you to white.knight for.him and you should stop being such a brown noser.
He could point out that the meta-comment-game wherein any response whatsoever is considered to "lend credibility" is a silly game, and that in reality, whether or not he chooses to respond to you says nothing about your credibility. Then he could agree or disagree with your actual point, and either confirm or challenge your credibility with facts, instead of engaging in the silly distraction of a side-game.
Your arguments must stand or fall on their own merit.
On their own merit, I find your arguments lacking. In particular, you are lacking concrete examples. The list of YC companies is known (http://yclist.com/ and http://ycuniverse.com/ycombinator-companies). Surely if pg was getting "ridiculous prices for things with little to not actual value" you could identify some specific companies the market overpaid for, and the effect that overpayment had on overall yc returns.
I actually agree with you. honestly I was surprised pg even responded to my first comment! I was like a dog who caught a car: I didn't know what to do with it. so I went meta (probably unsuccessfully) to see if he would respond again. I think I flubbed it, but than again you responded, so who knows? I guess ill find out tomorrow when I wake up and check. really, I'm not good at this.
