If you think LLMs are overhyped, the rational move is to start an LLM company, since it's practically the only way to obtain shares to sell.

Pure money stuff. He has said if you think something is over valued, short it. If you think the VC startup industry is overvalued the best way to do that is to start (and sell to VC) a startup. Enter adam neumann.

No, shorting is different; it's borrowing something you might not be able to pay back.

WeWork was signing leases - borrowing real estate. They went bankrupt from not being able to pay for it. This isn't the same as selling shares to VC's. Equity isn't debt.

Yes, his point in the newsletter is that if you want to short something you can’t borrow, then you should (cynically) make more of it.

Okay, I remember that. But I think this could more simply be seen as becoming a supplier, responding to temporary demand. This could be done well or fraudulently.

Somewhere between honest supplier and fraud is the land of wework…

If you think LLMs are overhyped, you likely expect a bubble burst when the "Emperor has no clothes!" moment happens - so it's rational to avoid the risk of being stuck holding the bag when that happens.

But with zirp you just borrow someone else's money to start the business and reap all the profits while the lenders suffer the losses! :-)

This could happen at any interest rate, or without borrowing at all, by selling stock instead. We might be seeing a bubble now?

They deleted a lot (all?) of the negative comments on that video too, hah. At one point this was their advice:

> We see this so commonly at YC that we have a term for it. It's called a "Solution In Search of a Problem," or a SISP. And these are usually not great, because usually, you never actually find the problem. You're much better off starting with a problem, and then looking for solutions.

https://www.ycombinator.com/library/8g-how-to-get-startup-id...

Very few people have a problem that AI can currently solve. It might not _stay_ that way... but man I wonder what kind of moat a startup could build when they're just wrappers around foundation models.

I think wrapper companies could do very well if AI does end up becoming having an impact near on the order of the internet or smartphones, which it may never.

A product that incorporates a foundation model could still require solving a hard engineering problem separately from the training and provision of said model. Someone who could, say, provide a reliable filter for copyrighted content from an LLM is providing real value and has a tangible moat.

speaking of the LLM hype-wagon or risk being left behind conundrum, is anyone surprised that Michael Saylor hasn't sold all his BTC, and used the proceeds to buy graphics cards?

> Rather than educating founders on more fundamental topics such as how to get from 0-1, how to hire, fostering positive culture etc.

My experience is that none of these things actually matter anymore. I wish they did, but my experience has been that getting any of these things right in today's environment is in the best case inconsequential to success and in the worse an actual determent.

I've worked at horrifically toxic startup cultures, but it never seemed to hurt them getting funding from outside teams that didn't care in the slightest how healthy the org was or even the product was even remotely good for customers.

I've worked at companies that literally did not know how they were every going to make a profit IPO, then continue to fail to figure this out and changed their strategy to shrug-your-shoulder-and-wait-for-the-return-of-zirp, with no observable consequences on their stock price or investor support for years. Maybe this will eventually catch up to them, but so far they've been quite successful burning a dollar to make $0.70.

I've worked at companies that hired hundreds of completely useless data scientist, filled management with toxic management consultants, driven out all the serious talent they had... with again, no real consequences.

And all of the companies I've known that checked all of your bullet points? Well they've mostly stayed small, saw revenue decline, and eventually start falling apart. All of the best companies I've worked for ended up having to get rid of all the things that made them good in order to appease investors and keep growing.

I wish that we lived in a world where your advice was correct, but I haven't seen any evidence that that is the world we actually inhabit.

I don't know about Twitter but I do know that what YC focuses on is founders. If most of the startups are working in some area, it's because that's what founders want to work on.

Maybe there's some link between the kind of founders that YC looks to fund, and the sort of things such founders want to work on, but as far as I know YC isn't pushing them in that direction.

Have often heard that YC picks the "best" founders and lets them work on whatever.

Which is interesting given that the last two batches had 90+% of founders being young and from SF.

So either international founders should quit running startups because they will never be great. Which is insulting.

Or YC is being a bit flexible with the truth and they do have a clear investment thesis.