Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

Re:Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram by tlrobinson on Thursday May 03, 2018 @03:58PM (#16989348)

Y Combinator's motto is literally "Make something people want."

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Re:Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram by jiveturkey on Thursday May 03, 2018 @04:15PM (#16989500)

isn’t there an implied, “in order to generate revenue”?

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Re:Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram by tlrobinson on Thursday May 03, 2018 @04:22PM (#16989568)

Maybe so, but that's very different than "Beat the system and make tons of money".

See some of pg's early essays:

http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

http://paulgraham.com/good.html

Entrepreneurship is one of the least zero-sum activities you can participate in.

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Re:Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram by gowld on Thursday May 03, 2018 @06:12PM (#16990485)

http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html

It's literally on the YC application form.

"He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications."

The part about "make tons of money" isn't there, but I don't think anyone disagrees with that part -- YC recently launched a separate branch to handle nonprofit ventures.

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Re:Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram by dublinben on Thursday May 03, 2018 @04:18PM (#16989522)

If there were, why would they accept non-profits, which they have done so since 2013?[0]

[0]https://www.ycombinator.com/nonprofits/

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Re:Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram by asdsa5325 on Thursday May 03, 2018 @04:38PM (#16989717)

> Since some people were confused when we funded Watsi, I’d better clarify that the money we’re putting into the nonprofits will be a charitable donation, rather than an investment in the narrow sense. We won’t have any financial interest in them.

For good vibes, tax credits, & marketing

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Re:Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram by ugh123 on Thursday May 03, 2018 @04:25PM (#16989595)

I always assumed every YC startup is "non profit" for the first 5 years of life... ;)

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