Of these, I'm definitely most interested in Chase Adam. It'll be very interesting to hear the lessons from YC's first non-profit, particularly as the winter round will likely include many more.
I feel like Evan's story is too early to tell? As a founder I'd love to hear some of the ups and downs (lots-o-ups,) but if I was on their board or their corporate counsel, I would be having a coronary right about now.
What an amazing lineup. The big selling point in attending this talk is the sheer number of perspectives the audience will be fortunate to hear about, not to mention in a more personalized setting than normal.
I'm really excited to see Balaji (BSS) on the list. I didn't really know what "scary smart" meant until I joined Counsyl and talked with him.
Fun anecdote: One of my first interactions with BSS was when I was driving him and a friend shortly after I joined Counsyl. He was talking about future plans for Counsyl and other great startup ideas with such enthusiasm, speed, and depth that it took most of my mental energy just to listen to him talk. As soon as I started to think of a response or a question, he had already brought up and thoroughly explored a new idea. Twenty minutes later and my gas light had been on for 10 miles without realizing it because I was so engrossed in listening to him talk.
That sounds about right. The Startup Engineering course he taught on Coursera was incredibly well researched and packed with information and he ran out of time, he only got half way through everything he wanted to cover! The guy is a great asset to the community I'm glad he's speaking.
This is a great list of speakers. I think it'd also be amazing to add an Office Hours session to the event, similar to how it was done at TC Disrupt in the past. There's probably no better intro into how to think about a startup than to see how YC does.
I can't speak for '12 but I know in '11 there was an Office Hours session where PG and Harj 'grilled' some of the applicants to the winter batch. I throughly enjoyed it.
Does anyone know if any of those who got up on stage actually made it into the program?
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[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 48.2 ms ] threadFun anecdote: One of my first interactions with BSS was when I was driving him and a friend shortly after I joined Counsyl. He was talking about future plans for Counsyl and other great startup ideas with such enthusiasm, speed, and depth that it took most of my mental energy just to listen to him talk. As soon as I started to think of a response or a question, he had already brought up and thoroughly explored a new idea. Twenty minutes later and my gas light had been on for 10 miles without realizing it because I was so engrossed in listening to him talk.
Does anyone know if any of those who got up on stage actually made it into the program?