Re:YC Annual Letter 2017
by ridruejo on Thursday February 16, 2017 @12:47PM
(#13661954)
"Our mission is to enable the most innovation of any company in the world in order to make the future great for everyone." I know many people will read that and roll their eyes back and believe it is just a marketing gimmick for the gullible and like most investors YC just cares about the money. The thing is that they do deeply care about founders and making things better in the world, as naive as that may sound to outsiders.
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Any evidence of this ?
Re:YC Annual Letter 2017
by nicholasjbs on Thursday February 16, 2017 @01:25PM
(#13662246)
YC continues to support my company nearly seven years after our batch, even though we're still tiny and have no plans to exit (and thus will likely never give them any financial return).
Sorry for not having mentioned this explicit (it is in my profile) but this is from first-hand experience from being a founder and having going through YC with Bitnami
love bitnami - you guys have helped me so much on AWS!
I'm pretty sceptical that the phrase isn't a bit of marketing to some extent, but one thing (among many) that earns YC a ton of respect in my mind is YC Research. The research projects truly seem geared toward working for a better world as their first goal.
Interesting that you chose to post this proactively.
Even if you know the truth behind a statement like that, it's hard to read something that earnest and not have an initial eye roll in response. As someone who doesn't know the YC team's motivations, it's nice to know that at least someone thinks that some of the earnestness is real.
Maybe I'm a fool then because I would read that and take it in earnest as I read and take much of the HN community in earnest. I have a great deal of respect for YC and the HN community - I guess the point of my original post was it's a little disappointing that isn't the case.
Maybe you just haven't watched the show "Silicon Valley" ;). It's all about "making the world a better place." ;)
Whenever I talk to other founders about YC, encouraging them to apply they are often asking about "what the catch is", "yeah, yeah, but how are they really?" because they don't believe it is really like that. It has become kind of a joke the phrase "making the world a better place" but YC is one of the few places where they mean it
It's funny you say this—the first thing I did, even before reading the article, was search for "Thiel." It's going to be hard for me to take this sort of thing seriously, this telegraphing of benevolence which is so central to YC's branding, until they address the fact that one of their "partners" is such an obviously destructive force within society. They don't even have to do anything but say goodbye, and they won't.
Re:YC Annual Letter 2017
by purple-again on Thursday February 16, 2017 @02:43PM
(#13662914)
While I disagree with many of Trumps beliefs and by proxy probably many of Thiels as well the fact that they refused to further the division of our country by excommunicating him for his beliefs is a huge pro in my book.
The founder of Rails saying he would fire any of his employees that supported Trump was sickening and that kind of attitude will never allow us to move from bloodshed and war to one people.
Actually, the fact that they have not bowed to the pressure to "disavow" Peter Thiel merely for his political views in one of the things that makes me think highly of YC.
Yes, that sounds much more useful to the world than, you know, not partnering with people that are happy to harm it.
Re:YC Annual Letter 2017
by angry-hacker on Thursday February 16, 2017 @05:12PM
(#13664049)
That is just your opinion and echo chamber. I give a lot of respect for them for not doing so.
Of course, it's because of money, since Thiel is powerful -- any other guy would have kicked out immediately, but nevertheless considering SV is a liberal echo chamber I give them some respect.
Now only if they has protested against Obama wiretapping the whole world as well...