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A comment on How Y Combinator Changed the World.

Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by new_realist on Friday December 31, 2021 @06:41PM (#29753717)
Y Combinator managed to convince startups that would have been founded anyway to give up expensive equity to them. I'm not sure they would have failed without YC.

Put another way, if you take a piece of every startup on the planet, can you claim influence if some of those startups eventually succeed?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by tomhoward on Friday December 31, 2021 @10:50PM (#29755338)
Airbnb was basically dead before they got into YC. They very likely would have quit, as they were heavily in personal debt and couldn’t find anyone to invest in them.

Reddit was pretty much PG’s idea, or at least an idea he helped Steve and Alexis come up with.

Stripe is hard to imagine getting started if PC hadn’t already had an exit with an earlier YC-funded startup.

I could go on and on, but the point is clearly false.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by ford on Friday December 31, 2021 @07:29PM (#29754080)
This is similar to the idea that it doesn't matter where you go to college - because the things that get you into top X schools are the same traits that correlate with success afterward. This paper is a study that makes that argument: https://www.nber.org/papers/w7322 (disclaimer - I only read the abstract)

Also - in fairness to YC - there are a staggering number of companies that are started every year. I don't have the stats but I would guess that YC outperforms the totality of the startup market.

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Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by ModernMech on Friday December 31, 2021 @08:09PM (#29754372)
Wait... how was the username "ford" never used on HN until now?
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Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by ModernMech on Friday December 31, 2021 @08:37PM (#29754561)
I was surprised at ford in particular because it's the name one of the main characters of a book that's very popular in this community.
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Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by AussieWog93 on Friday December 31, 2021 @08:42PM (#29754584)
This character?

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fordprefect

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Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by frosted-flakes on Friday December 31, 2021 @11:36PM (#29755558)
HN has polls? Is that an old feature that got removed or something noone uses anymore?
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Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by AussieWog93 on Friday December 31, 2021 @11:49PM (#29755619)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll

Go nuts

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Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by usually on Saturday January 01, 2022 @01:06AM (#29755961)
Surprised more of these haven't been snatched up yet, some of them are really pretty. Although tough has been registered for five years.
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Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by tough on Saturday January 01, 2022 @03:17PM (#29762232)
Usually, you'd be right, but actually, no it wasn't tough it seems that way now ;-)
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Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by daniel-cussen on Saturday January 01, 2022 @07:55AM (#29757920)
So you learn the same thing at every college?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Y Combinator Changed the World by trhway on Friday December 31, 2021 @08:56PM (#29754664)
It is more like investing a bit in good college students in exchange for the lifetime share of their earnings.
[ Parent | on HN ]