Ask HN: What percent of YC companies had former YC-mafia connections?

7 points·dfnord··6 comments

Just wondering how many of the companies that have been accepted in the last few years (2008+) that were introduced by former YC members. Trying to measure how much of a referral thing it actually is.

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Maybe 10 or 15%.

Thanks for the reply.

It isn't like its hard to reach out to YC startups, they are generally, almost by definition, easy to contact.

Yeah, I know. I meant more like personal, face to face connection. One conversation on a coffee shop is ok, but 5 emails back and forth, not really what I meant (not to dismiss the founders who sent 5 emails back and forth to me, you were really helpful, but this is not what I'd like to measure here).

I think using the term 'mafia' is pushing it.

Having connections never hurt anybody, I'd assume that having YC connections doens't hurt either. Being on HN already gives you an 'in' with plenty of YC alumni and current start-up operators so by that definition pretty much everybody has a YC connection.

You'd have to be pretty specific about what kind of connection you mean and I think you should probably try to leave references to criminal organizations out of it.

In the startup context, I don't see it as having particularly negative connotations or referring directly to the criminal organization. After the "PayPal Mafia", it's become a fairly common term for just alumni of a particular startup/incubator/whatever. See e.g., this aggregator of Boston-area startup tweets: http://bostonstartupmafia.com/

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