It's likely because the landscape is not what it was years ago when design mattered less and people shied away from pursuing hardware startups. Design today is becoming as essential a competitive advantage as tech, and we're seeing a surge in hardware companies that require electrical/mechanical/etc engineering abilities (Oculus, MYO, Amulyte, to name a few).
pg, thanks for making this simple yet powerful distinction. The airbnb guys are a great example on why this mindset change is welcomed. Designer founders can also be relentlessly resourceful and create game changing startups.
This is great. I was a programmer--and though I still understand code--I define myself more as a product manager. As I explore my own start up idea, it'll be great to meet others who don't count themselves as "hackers".
Why are you asking for age? As the leader in the space of incubator you're setting the stage for age discrimination and you're making it acceptable. I'm very disappointed!
>> There's more value in educating and pumping enthusiasm into a 16 year
Why is there more value? What if the 50 year old is an accomplished artist, or a 50 year old doctor or other types of experience. BTW, thanks for validating the age discrimination.
What happens to these 16 year olds when they get to be 30, 40, 50. Do they think they are no longer able to start new things or they are less valuable? Because this is the message we are sending.
If they haven't "made it" by middle age, hopefully they have found a stable life situation and aren't playing startup roulette anymore.
Nobody is saying you can't start new things. I'm saying the game is creating new experiences on hardware that didn't exist a year ago for, usually, a demographic of people under 30. Trying to break into that world as a nobody outside of that demographic and life experience is a long shot. Not impossible, but energies are better spent fueling people who have an actual chance at changing the world (and an entire lifetime ahead of them to do it).
It's disappointing that you think the game is only about software for people under 30. There's so much more to entrepreneurship, but you're blinded by media attention and low hanging fruit.
No, it is not- read the parent comments. The message we are sending is that 50 year olds have had ample opportunity to do something impressive whereas we expect far less of 16 year olds.
As a YC alum (and thus someone who's experienced the folks involved, though I'm not an expert on this), I think it's much more likely it's mostly used to gauge demographics or potentially to increase diversity rather than reduce it as seiji suggests below.
Edit: to clarify, I think you incorrectly assume they're asking for age to filter for candidates that are younger. I don't think they use to filter at all, but even if they do, I would consider it highly improbable that it is to target a specific range.
When I open the form in Safari and the window is shorter than the length of the form, the portion of the form below the bottom of the window isn't always rendering when I scroll or expand the window. This may be hiding the rest of the questions for you. To fix, just expand the window and hit refresh.
>>Because we have higher standards for achievement for a 30 year old than a 20 year old.
Then your form doesn't really allow for that. You're only asking to list the coolest thing someone has built. Why not change the form to: List the coolest thing you have built (maximum of three).
This enables the 30+ year crows to show their broader list of accomplishments and not artificially tilt it toward the younger audience.
You say you have higher standards but then you don't allow the higher standard to show. What if someone has consistently hit singles (to use a baseball metaphor) and a rookie has one home run. You're rewarding the onetime home run over consistent delivery. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but you need diversity and your system discriminates against that.
Hey, this is your show and you're going to run it the way it fits your need. However, with risk of blacklisting my name, I feel it's important for someone to speak out and help you see it from another perspective.
But I feel both pg and yc have been quite consistent about this: They're not trying to optimize for proven consistently good performance, they're looking for potential to be great. They're trying to discover the next Einstein, not merely put together a decent physics faculty.
Would you not have filtered out the novice Larry Ellison through this standard? He started Oracle when he was 33 and I can't find anything substantial he did prior to that.
Yea, the age box is insulting. Even when I was younger, I
never saw the need to ask about a person's age. I had
a few young friends in the 90's go into game design. They
were excited to be doing something they loved, but all
eventually felt their youth, and naivety were exploited
by older white men. I still remember how impressed they
were by free sodas, and snacks. Anyway, I used to think
Thoreau was right. He said, 'I've never learned anything remotely useful from anyone my senior!', or something like that, but age does bring some useful knowledge; especially about human nature, and how unforgiving the
legal system can be.
Conveniently missing from that list are those with strong accents [0].
Anyway, thanks for hosting these. Really loved the first one I went to years ago. The atmosphere is awesome. Really energetic and inspiring. I encourage everyone to apply. Plus, you might get to see me.
Can I apply for virtual attendence? Is there gonna be an option to attend via G+? I'm a graduate student based in Auburn, AL and it's would not be feasible for me to attend physically.
Looks like FLINT center has a higher seating capacity. Startup School was pretty packed last year, so I am glad they are increasing the seating capacity.
My only guess would be since they don't need a venue on Stanford's campus, they don't need help from BASES anymore, but I was just looking for someone to confirm.
PG should think about 'franchising' his operation. By that, I mean creating a systemic process for accrediting founders, choosing franchisees in big cities around the world, and a webapp to manage this all. He could scale the YC startup process to thousands of startups per batch. In fact, it might become a sign of failure to not be accredited by YC when seeking first round VC.
Speaking as a member of the the "batch that broke YC (s12)", I think YC's resources are best utilized by continuing to improve the quality of the program at its current size. Read: http://ycombinator.com/w13smaller.html
Obviously the quality is already very high, but still quite a ways to go for each batch consist of "50 AirBnBs", which to me is a far more impressive goal than having 1000s of lower quality startups. It's also better that YC is a signal of success than "not-YC" being a signal of failure. Franchising would dilute the brand and more importantly be a distraction from (as YC would always say) making and improving something people want.
YC is relatively "open-sourced" and there's nothing to stop others from creating accelerators with similar models around the world (and in the valley). There are already hundreds of imitators and these catch many of those that YC misses.
I'm saying this politely - so don't bite my head off - but
a.) you would say that, wouldn't you, you'd like as much of PG's attention as possible
b.) it's quite presumptious to state that the 1000s of others would be lower quality. Are the less than 1000, mid 20s, mostly male, mostly american, applicants to YC the best candidates on earth?
There are probably 1000x, if not more, capable founders of all age groups, nationalities, and genders that PG could get a slice of. He's built a brand and should seek to capitalize on it before someone establishes a superior brand.
Off course, this all about what PG does for fun, he's already rich enought to never work again. It might be that he enjoys mentoring a few founders a couple of times a year and doesn't have global ambitions.
b.) The startups being of "lower quality" has only to do with a watered down selection process. If you were to go to a YC dinner or demo day it would be immediately obvious that while there are plenty of mid-20s, male, american founders there are also plenty that don't fall into those categories.
Harvard "built a brand", but I don't see Harvard establishing franchises around the world to capitalize and satisfy it's "global ambitions". It's satisfied with trying to be a better Harvard, which is why it's brand persists.
In the same sense, YC could scale by getting more of those 1000x capable founders to apply the regular way and continue to improve on picking the best of them.
I see your point, PG could focus on relentlessly increasing the quality of each batch - if his aim is too just establish a high quality brand for no other reason than he likes to (the elite college model).
However, from a purely profit perspective, PG would stand to make a lot more profits from scaling. After all, Walmart is younger than Harvard by hundreds of years, but makes a lot more money.
YC's biggest benefits - the network and the credibility with investors - is somewhere between hard and not possible to replicate everywhere under a franchise model. Lots of incubators all over the world based themselves on what YC pioneered mostly with lackluster results.
If there was a YC here in Costa Rica the startups would be heading to SV to raise money. Multiply that by dozens of other countries that can't provide the complete ecosystem and the name becomes worthless and the network no more beneficial than HN.
Well, I don't know about that. A lot of that is based on the PG brand, which the other incubators don't have. PG and Buchheit's connections come in to play when selling shares at first round and after. Their handshakes count more than whether the startup's based in beijing, boston, or bangalore.
My argument was against "franchising" in the sense that the franchises would be top-level equivalents of YC, a demand on the time of YC partners and a dilution of the network.
I think YC does extend its' brand in a different way: by funding companies that create new avenues for startup funding/networking such as FundersClub.
YC already has the ability to accept more startups from the thousands of applications it gets. Most high-quality startups are applying to YC even if they apply to other incubator/accelerator programs and the number of high-quality startups that apply to incubator/accelerator programs but don't also apply to YC is going to be fairly small.
I always look forward to the Startup School talks and interviews that get streamed and posted on the web. Would love to see DHH and especially Andrew Mason again.
I went to the first (?) one of these back in 2005 at Harvard. I really, really wish there was one on the east coast to complement the SV one. It was a great experience and I think there are a ton of up-and-coming entrepreneurs fresh out of school (or still in it) in Boston and New York who would benefit from the experience.
Well, Alexis Ohanian (a YC partner) lives here in Brooklyn. Maybe we can plead and twist his arm to help us put something similar together here? I'm not really impressed with the meetups we have here in NYC. NYTM (arguably the largest startup conference in NY) is underwhelming.
That looks awesome. Unfortunately at 9 I'll be teaching Lean 101 for Lean Startup Challenge nearby, or I'd come check it out!
We really do have a lot of startup events in Boston, and I try to do my part to help, but nothing matches having a bunch of experienced, awesome people give talks in an auditorium.
I still treasure my recordings of all the talks at the 2005 Startup School (especially Olin Shivers). I hope MIT records these talks and makes them all available for those of us who can't make it!
Soon every child will be born with its own "startup".
I've come up with a formula...
<large font><made up word - typically something like boopnik, slurpio, cloppertrin, etc>Do <something that has been done 5,000 times>, <faster, better, more, gooder, bestester, more better, simply, less hard, more easier></large font>
blah blah blah blah blah, here's a picture of us sailing and helping the homeless, because we're unique. Give us money. Thx.
...because in order to really protect your customers' data, you should share it with more clueless children who think javascript should be used for everything.
I have a couple of questions for those who have gone before.
I'm currently building a smaller business. Decent recurring revenue, very unlikely to scale to big proportions. Basically aiming for financial freedoms. Not technical, but learning to make websites for what I'm working on.
Is this worth my while to apply for? My time is flexible, so I'd just be looking at cost of flight + booking to attend.
What about opportunities to network, brainstorm ideas, and start conversations with interesting people before the event beside Hacker News?
I always met great people at the day of the event but I had the feeling that I may have missed some important connections with people that may have similar interests and/or complementary skill set to mine.
68 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] threadThere's more value in educating and pumping enthusiasm into a 16 year old than a 65 year old.
What happens to these 16 year olds when they get to be 30, 40, 50. Do they think they are no longer able to start new things or they are less valuable? Because this is the message we are sending.
Nobody is saying you can't start new things. I'm saying the game is creating new experiences on hardware that didn't exist a year ago for, usually, a demographic of people under 30. Trying to break into that world as a nobody outside of that demographic and life experience is a long shot. Not impossible, but energies are better spent fueling people who have an actual chance at changing the world (and an entire lifetime ahead of them to do it).
Edit: to clarify, I think you incorrectly assume they're asking for age to filter for candidates that are younger. I don't think they use to filter at all, but even if they do, I would consider it highly improbable that it is to target a specific range.
You also wrote this [1] back in 2007. Have your views changed since then?
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html
Edit: As mentioned in a sibling comment, This appears to be an issue with Safari where items 'below the fold' don't render. Strange.
Then your form doesn't really allow for that. You're only asking to list the coolest thing someone has built. Why not change the form to: List the coolest thing you have built (maximum of three).
This enables the 30+ year crows to show their broader list of accomplishments and not artificially tilt it toward the younger audience.
You say you have higher standards but then you don't allow the higher standard to show. What if someone has consistently hit singles (to use a baseball metaphor) and a rookie has one home run. You're rewarding the onetime home run over consistent delivery. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but you need diversity and your system discriminates against that.
Hey, this is your show and you're going to run it the way it fits your need. However, with risk of blacklisting my name, I feel it's important for someone to speak out and help you see it from another perspective.
Anyway, thanks for hosting these. Really loved the first one I went to years ago. The atmosphere is awesome. Really energetic and inspiring. I encourage everyone to apply. Plus, you might get to see me.
[0] A joke.
My only guess would be since they don't need a venue on Stanford's campus, they don't need help from BASES anymore, but I was just looking for someone to confirm.
Obviously the quality is already very high, but still quite a ways to go for each batch consist of "50 AirBnBs", which to me is a far more impressive goal than having 1000s of lower quality startups. It's also better that YC is a signal of success than "not-YC" being a signal of failure. Franchising would dilute the brand and more importantly be a distraction from (as YC would always say) making and improving something people want.
YC is relatively "open-sourced" and there's nothing to stop others from creating accelerators with similar models around the world (and in the valley). There are already hundreds of imitators and these catch many of those that YC misses.
a.) you would say that, wouldn't you, you'd like as much of PG's attention as possible
b.) it's quite presumptious to state that the 1000s of others would be lower quality. Are the less than 1000, mid 20s, mostly male, mostly american, applicants to YC the best candidates on earth?
There are probably 1000x, if not more, capable founders of all age groups, nationalities, and genders that PG could get a slice of. He's built a brand and should seek to capitalize on it before someone establishes a superior brand.
Off course, this all about what PG does for fun, he's already rich enought to never work again. It might be that he enjoys mentoring a few founders a couple of times a year and doesn't have global ambitions.
Harvard "built a brand", but I don't see Harvard establishing franchises around the world to capitalize and satisfy it's "global ambitions". It's satisfied with trying to be a better Harvard, which is why it's brand persists.
In the same sense, YC could scale by getting more of those 1000x capable founders to apply the regular way and continue to improve on picking the best of them.
However, from a purely profit perspective, PG would stand to make a lot more profits from scaling. After all, Walmart is younger than Harvard by hundreds of years, but makes a lot more money.
If there was a YC here in Costa Rica the startups would be heading to SV to raise money. Multiply that by dozens of other countries that can't provide the complete ecosystem and the name becomes worthless and the network no more beneficial than HN.
I think YC does extend its' brand in a different way: by funding companies that create new avenues for startup funding/networking such as FundersClub.
http://paulgraham.com/hubs.html
http://startupbootcamp.mit.edu/
(so am I)
We really do have a lot of startup events in Boston, and I try to do my part to help, but nothing matches having a bunch of experienced, awesome people give talks in an auditorium.
I still treasure my recordings of all the talks at the 2005 Startup School (especially Olin Shivers). I hope MIT records these talks and makes them all available for those of us who can't make it!
I've come up with a formula...
<large font><made up word - typically something like boopnik, slurpio, cloppertrin, etc>Do <something that has been done 5,000 times>, <faster, better, more, gooder, bestester, more better, simply, less hard, more easier></large font> blah blah blah blah blah, here's a picture of us sailing and helping the homeless, because we're unique. Give us money. Thx.
...because in order to really protect your customers' data, you should share it with more clueless children who think javascript should be used for everything.
I'm currently building a smaller business. Decent recurring revenue, very unlikely to scale to big proportions. Basically aiming for financial freedoms. Not technical, but learning to make websites for what I'm working on.
Is this worth my while to apply for? My time is flexible, so I'd just be looking at cost of flight + booking to attend.
Error Console shows "Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 (Not Found) https://news.ycombinator.com/sus.css"
http://bambax.smugmug.com/Other/2012-10StartupSchool/2708004...
Flint Center 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd, Cupertino, CA
I always met great people at the day of the event but I had the feeling that I may have missed some important connections with people that may have similar interests and/or complementary skill set to mine.