RRiccio

As explained on the other reply in this thread, because insurers pay to doctors a standardized amount based on the type of visit/exam/procedure. So doctors don’t accept insurance whenever they can make more money by charging the consumer directly.

The way it works in Brazil – maybe in other similar countries as well – is that insurance only covers specific doctors which have partnerships with the insurer. A common question when you're talking about a doctor or call his office is "which insurance plans does she accept?". Usually it's 2 or 3 plans, and thus you end up maintaining in your life a network of doctors that work with your specific insurance – so that whenever you have a problem you know where you can get treatment without spending extra.

This creates a relationship where doctors get paid much less than they would normally charge (e.g. $20 for an insurance-paid appointment vs. $100 for a customer-paid appointment). But this way they end up receiving a steady number of clients from the insurer. And in most cases doctors have to accept this deal because they don't have enough demand on their own.

Naturally, that's not the case for top neurosurgeons. They have way too much demand and can make only a few surgeries per week. So virtually none of the top ones agree to being "accredited". They make an order of magnitude more money by charging the customer directly.

If you decide to use a "non-accredited" doctor you have to pay out of your own pocket. Typical insurers won't reimburse you in this case, and even the high end ones will give you back only up to 10 or 15%. They do cover for hospital expenses (room, nurses, meals, etc.), but these are a small fraction of the cost of brain surgery.

There are some different insurance plans that will reimburse your customer-paid appointments/procedures, but – since the cost for these visits is way higher – these are plans that only multi-millionaires can afford.

Having gone through all of this recently with my little brother, I can definitely relate. Her account of the pre and post surgery are spot on, as well as the worries around this operation (will he survive? will his personality change? will the operation be a success? what will be the consequences?).

And I'm glad she had insurance, even more so considering she lives in the US. In our case he had it too, but where we live the top neurosurgeons unfortunately don't accept it – you need to pay the operation yourself. It can be incredibly expensive as she mentioned.

It's great to hear she's doing fine. I don't recall ever being so happy about the health situation of someone I didn't know 10 minutes before. What a beautiful video.

We applied and got in without any connections whatsoever to YC.

We hadn't ever been to Silicon Valley or to the United States, and no company from our country (Brazil) or even our continent had ever joined YC before us.

Having no connections is no reason not to apply.

Glio, Inc. (glio.com, YC S13) | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Onsite, Full Time | R$54k-R$96k, 0.1-0.5% equity

At Glio.com we're building the future of e-commerce in Latin America. We're a platform that connects buyers & sellers, using software to eliminate inefficiencies and provide the best shopping experience in LatAm at affordable prices.

We're looking for a front end engineer for onsite work in Rio de Janeiro. Experience in Javascript is a must. Ruby on Rails experience is a big plus, but not required.

Our stack includes Rails 4, Spree, RSpec, jQuery, Postgres, AWS, Jasmine & CircleCI.

Our main practices include:

* Continuous Integration, deploys all day long

* Hardcore A/B testing & data-driven decisions

* Shipping culture

* Peer code reviews

* Pair programming

* Tests coverage

* Weekly sprints

Glio is the 1st Latin American company to be backed by YCombinator. We're based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Our investors include, among others, Naval Ravikant, Ace & Co and FundersClub.

You will be hire #10 and join a hard-working, smart, ambitious team that aims at becoming the largest retailer in Latin America.

If this mission excites you please drop me a line at [email protected]. And feel free to send me any questions you might have.

Glio, Inc. (glio.com, YC S13) | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Onsite, Full Time | R$54k-R$120k, 0.5-3.0% equity

At Glio.com we're building the future of e-commerce in Latin America. We're a platform that connects buyers & sellers, using software to eliminate inefficiencies and provide the best shopping experience in LatAm at affordable prices.

We're hiring back-end and front-end software developers. Experience in Ruby on Rails & Javascript is a big plus, but not required.

Our stack includes Rails 4, Spree, RSpec, jQuery, Postgres, AWS, Jasmine & CircleCI.

Some of our main practices are:

* Continuous Integration, deploys all day long

* Hardcore A/B testing & data-driven decisions

* Shipping culture

* Peer code reviews

* Pair programming

* Tests coverage

* Weekly sprints

Glio is the 1st Latin American company to be backed by YCombinator. We're based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Our investors include, among others, Naval Ravikant, Ace & Co and FundersClub.

You will be hire #9 and join a hard-working, smart, ambitious team that aims at becoming the largest retailer in Latin America.

If this mission excites you please drop me a line at [email protected]. And feel free to send me any questions you might have.

Hard to say that cloud storage and travel accommodations are not real problems. The solutions created with YC's help have improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

And you're not considering the recent increased YC focus on startups from developing countries. Just from top of mind you have companies selling cheaper solar energy in Mexico, improving online payments in India, lowering interest rates in Africa, treating low-income patients in Central America, etc.

There are dozens of YC companies just getting started that will positively impact the lives of billions of people in the next 10+ years.

Glio, Inc. (glio.com, YC S13) | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Onsite, Full Time | R$54k-R$120k, 0.5-3.0% equity

At Glio.com we're building the future of e-commerce in Latin America. We're a platform that connects buyers & sellers, using software to eliminate inefficiencies and provide the best shopping experience in LatAm at affordable prices.

We're hiring back-end and front-end software developers. Experience in Ruby on Rails & Javascript is a big plus, but not required.

Our stack includes Rails 4, Spree, RSpec, jQuery, Postgres, AWS, Jasmine & CircleCI.

Some of our main practices are:

* Continuous Integration, deploys all day long

* Hardcore A/B testing & data-driven decisions

* Shipping culture

* Peer code reviews

* Pair programming

* Tests coverage

* Weekly sprints

Glio is the 1st Latin American company to be backed by YCombinator. We're based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Our investors include, among others, Naval Ravikant, Ace & Co and FundersClub.

You will be hire #9 and join a hard-working, smart, ambitious team that aims at becoming the largest retailer in Latin America.

If this mission excites you please drop me a line at [email protected]. And feel free to send me any questions you might have.

Glio (YC S13) | https://glio.com | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Full Time | Onsite

Want to build the future of Latin American e-commerce? Join us at Glio.com.

We're looking for software engineers experienced in Ruby on Rails and Javascript.

Our stack: Rails 4, Spree (experience not required, but a big plus), RSpec, jQuery, Postgres, AWS, Jasmine & CircleCI.

Our main practices include:

* Continuous Integration, deploys all day long

* Hardcore A/B testing & data-driven decisions

* Shipping culture (you will deliver to production on your first day)

* Everybody owns the code – code is peer reviewed

* Pair programming

* Tests coverage

* Weekly sprints

Glio is the 1st Latin American company to be backed by YCombinator. We're based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Our investors include, among others, Naval Ravikant, Ace & Co and FundersClub.

You will be hire #7 and join a hard-working, smart, ambitious team that aims at becoming the largest retailer in Latin America.

Remuneration involves a mix of salary and equity. If you're interested please email [email protected].

Agree. Same can be said about countries. Laws/incentives vary drastically and change what the "correct" strategy is from country to country.

Creating products for your own country while basing your company abroad seems likely to become a big trend among startups, as tech collides with archaic government regulators. It's already happening in many areas.

I'm surprised they didn't mention that this is due to Neapolitan geography, where the pizza was popularized in its current form.

The urban legend says that poor people just took the fresh/cheap ingredients they had available: flour, tomato sauce from the Vesuvio area tomatoes, mozzarella which is widely available in Campania along with olive oil and basil, also used in abundance locally.

Actually in Naples, worldwide capital of the pizza, they use Fior di Latte (cow-milk mozzarella) instead of buffalo mozzarella unless you specifically ask for it -- which usually costs more.

This is done both from a cost perspective and because the cow-milk mozzarella is not as fresh as the buffalo one (which in isolation of course tastes better). Since buffalo mozzarella is usually consumed within 24 hours of production, it liberates too much milk in the pizza.

If you're asking yourself whether to apply or not, do it. Going through YC changed my life.

I'm happy to review applications, especially from international founders. Roberto at Glio dot com.

Completely agree.

I've recently gone through a YC batch and Qasar was extremely helpful. Even though he was a part-time partner at the time, he was definitely the guy we spent the most time with at YC. I can't even begin to thank him.

Since the first time we spoke with Qasar, my co-founder and I realized how smart and knowledgeable he is. Then we spent the rest of the summer trying to learn as much from him as we could.

He knows everything about the local space, is an operations expert, helped us greatly improve our Demo Day presentation and coached me regarding how to approach our market opportunity among many other things.

I'm glad he's become a full-time partner. This is great news for YC.

The enthusiastic "GREAT!" responses were something I had to adapt to while in the US. In LatAm/Europe, even when great things have happened, the standard answer is "The company is ok, how about yours?" -- boasting about your successes isn't socially accepted.

As a young kid, Founders at Work was a great source of inspiration. After reading it, the dream of doing a startup was born.

When I actually started doing it – in Brazil, a place with not many startup role models – Mixergy became a guide on actual tactics to use. I would listen when commuting to/from work and this made the goal much more actionable. Hearing about other founder's stories – and, thanks to AndrewWarner's squeezing, every single detail of their stories – pushed me to go much much farther than I would've been able to go otherwise.

Thanks Andrew and congratulations!

Congratulations - this is a beautiful concept. Very inspiring.

Founder of Glio here (YC S13). In our case, yes. That's what we did.

We incorporated in the US, then came back to Brazil and created a new company owned by the American one.

While that might be worth experimenting, there's a high cost to it. Having high selection standards makes the network (YC's or any other) exponentially more valuable to those already in it. If you add a few not-so-good apples by mistake, there's no going back.

Also, you have to consider how much quantitative and qualitative experience YC has accumulated, the partners are pretty good at telling in a couple minutes conversation if you're a strong founder. This advantage would be lost with blind interviews.