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YCombinator has its biases, but I don't know of many other investment firms that have a university style, "application" process. It's almost always, warm-intros
by pj_mukh 8d ago
YCombinator has its biases, but I don't know of many other investment firms that have a university style, "application" process. It's almost always, warm-intros you need.
This Early access network is just an intro system once you get through the Application process (like Universities having a job fair).
- ModernMech 8d agoPretty much every incubator I've seen has an open application process.
- avaer 8d agoTBF YC has always said the value is in the network. What's interesting (alarming?) is them formalizing exclusion of access to technology via the network. It's explicitly ossifying an access control system over what used to be handshakes.
- pj_mukh 8d agoI don’t understand, Ycombinator company list is public information list, go buy from any one of them anytime? AFAICT, this is mostly a way for YC companies to get warm intros into potential customers. Almost exactly like a job fair at a university but for software contracts instead of jobs.
- avaer 8d ago> Ycombinator company list is public information list, go buy from any one of them anytime Unless this prototype model works out financially for the companies, and every AI company starts telling you to go through an (inevitably AI vetted) application process to get access. Decades ago, getting a Google account to use GMail wasn't seen as a problem because you could run your own mail server. Try getting your own mail server to deliver mail today.
- gxs 8d agoIt’s funny how we always celebrate (or at the very least don’t comment negatively) when someone/a startup sets out to build an ecosystem and then love punishing them after they succeed. How very American of us Just curious, how exactly do you propose they do this instead? Rent out a convention center, open invitation, and then still complain when all xxK slots are taken up? Or do it virtually and inundate these startups with thousands of requests and get mad when half don’t get responded to? Outlaw private capital altogether and force people to IPO to raise money? And then what, complain when only a fraction of those companies work out and the average guy with an E*trade account not in on the joke gets screwed over and over? At least YC takes applicants and the process is somewhat transparent Of course there’s a (prob big) element of who you know going on, but it seems to me like the least shitty approach if your goal is to make this at least somewhat accessible This aspect of yc is good - I know plenty of come from nowhere, unprivileged backgrounds who got into yc and were able to start a company Now, they fact a lot of them get super douchey once they are in is a different story
- popalchemist 8d agoDo not mistake any VC's eagerness to find fresh meat for the grinder for a philanthropic or otherwise virtuous motive. VC exists for one purpose only. Extract value from others.
- alansaber 8d agoThere are far worse gigs than VC backed founder.
- popalchemist 8d agoWhat I said was not a critique of founders, just the devil they make (sometimes necessary) deals with.