Public office hours at startup school are unprofessional?
What we agree on:
- The partners genuinely want to help startups to succeed
- It's best to be completely honest and never sugar-coat things
- Public office hours was designed to be helpful to both attendees and the startup on stage
- The content of the office hours feedback was productive
What we disagree on:
- Qasar claims that if you can't handle public office hours onstage, you wouldn't cut it with a VC and you probably aren't the founder type. I disagree. Example: Mark Zuckerberg probably would have fumbled over a public office hours appearance early in his facebook days (he's since become a much better communicator).
- Qasar was not open to considering changing the public-only office hours format, even when I asked if I could send him a few ideas in an e-mail. He said YC has been doing this for 10 years and it won't change. Why refuse to even look at possible suggestions?
There are more professional ways to criticize a founder's idea or UI in front of thousands of people other than embarrassing them rapid-fire ambush style, regardless of whether or not the founders know exactly what they're getting into. For example, what about a public office hours that shows and explains the improvement from a previous office hours? This seems much more of a realistic scenario, given that YC office hours are periodic.
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