geoff

Funding founders building safe and secure AI

These are just leftovers from the first batch Qi ran, which was under the YC name. We're still in the middle of the transition. As we noted, Qi is taking over and will run under the MiraclePlus brand. We'll both make that clear on our websites. Other than that first batch, there is no commercial relationship between YC and MiraclePlus.

Your personal comments don't match my experience at all. I have known Qi for many years and have always found him to be extremely high integrity and trustworthy.

My first immediate priority is to make sure the summer 2019 batch operates smoothly. We kick off in just a couple of weeks. Similarly, we are just working on launching YC China and I'll work hard to make sure Qi Lu has everything he needs to make that go well.

Thanks! My immediate goal is to ensure that the Summer 2019 batch is fantastic and I'll be working closely with Michael on that. Besides that I think it'll take some time to figure things out.

Thanks!

YC's core program will still be run out of Mountain View this summer. We'll all look hard at what that will look like in the future. No firm plans to discuss yet except, of course, YC China.

I love the fact that we are finding ways to work with more and more founders around the world, both in our core accelerator and with programs like Startup School. I believe the more entrepreneurship becomes a viable career option the more exciting the world gets.

Well said, Michael. It has been my good luck to work with Sam for years. He has an incredible combination of big ideas and the ability to get them done. Sam's power of intellect and his ability to communicate his thoughts clearly and concisely make him a great leader.

Sam has done so much for YC and I know is doing and will do amazing things with OpenAI.

I will continue to lean on him for his insight and advice.

No! I love tennis too much and it is such an amazing workout and stress relief. I will keep on playing!

Hey everyone, thanks for the comments. I'll be around to answer questions as best I can.

Yes, that's about right. Companies which were intended to be placed in an audit-only track were accepted.

yes, in that neighborhood.

We had originally accepted about 4000 - although our goal has always been to make our MOOC as much about "open" as we possibly can. Our own misstep has caused us to accelerate things.

We did! The session taught by Daniel Gross: "Life as a Founder" will largely be focused on this.

YC's Kirsty Nathoo gave a great summary of startup mechanics here: https://www.startupschool.org/previous

This might be true if this were the sort of advice that argued that startups should always swing for the fences, or always take unreasonable risks, in the hopes that a portfolio of such startups will result in one or more big winners. In fact, this is not the case. Our advice is intended to increase the chances that every startup that follows it will be successful. Like any advice, you can surely find counterexamples where the advice will not be a good fit, but we would argue those cases are rare.

This is actually reasonable advice. For clarity: our motivation is because we want to see more successful startups in the world. We also believe and hope that some of those startups will be funded by YC.

Imagine K12 and YC have always used nearly identical criteria for whether we would fund companies. In this case, the rules have not changed, the outcomes have. They will be better, we think. We want the edtech companies we fund to have the greatest chance of success and that's why we've teamed up with YC.

It turns out that it is hard to be specific, other than the longer you have that sort of growth, the better. Also, it is, perhaps, obvious that large percentage growth beginning from very small numbers is not as impressive as sustained growth even as the numbers get larger. Impressive / interesting growth is very much in the eye of the beholder, and most investors will just say they know impressive when they see it. This being said, I take the point that more discussion around this point would be helpful (unfortunately, this is true about much of the guide and I was trying to keep it reasonably short).