Hacker News Reader

Really? It collapsed in April, and again in December, but it doesn't seem to be doing it now.

pgon Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups

No, Sam and I had already agreed by then that he'd take over. We just hadn't announced it yet. I do remember thinking though that this was going to be one of the things I missed least.

pgon Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups

I didn't say we can always tell within minutes, just that we sometimes can. Also, the interview is not the only information we get. We've also read the application.

pgon PG at Launch [video]

Each one has 2 or 3 partners and 20-something startups. The startups do group office hours with those partners, and when they request individual office hours those are the partners they get by default. Startups can also request office hours with any partner if they need some special expertise that only they have. E.g. Geoff knows a lot about music startups, Sam is the expert on fundraising, I'm the one with a knack for thinking of new domain names.

I'm not one of the group partners. I try to meet with all the startups, but obviously not as frequently as the group partners.

pgon A Statistical Analysis of All Hacker News Submissions

Unfortunately like most of our anti-abuse measures it's surprisingly simple and would be easy to circumvent.

pgon A Statistical Analysis of All Hacker News Submissions

There was a point when we figured out how to stop spam submissions almost completely. That was probably what happened at the end of 2011. That would have been about the right time.

pgon Homejoy (YC S10) Opens An Office In New York City

I recently visited Homejoy's SF office and it was the social equivalent of drinking a double espresso. I've visited a lot of startup offices but I've seen few to match this one for concentrated energy.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

I haven't noticed any change. We've always hoped people would at least make some sort of prototype. That's how one explores ideas, or at least ideas about software.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

If you asked permission then it was fine. But some groups do it without asking, and if everyone came every day, we'd be out of space.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

Sure.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

We tell the alumni explicitly that they're obliged not to disclose what they see in applications, and that if they see an application that competes with them they should click on the "skip" button provided for this purpose. We can't watch over their shoulder as they do it, but we're careful about which alumni we pick as reviewers, and there has never been any problem so far.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

Sure. We have founders from I believe 22 different countries in the current batch.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

There's a well known and clearly visible trend that more institutional (i.e. not friends and family) investment is moving later stage for "normal" software businesses.

Actually the trend in the venture business is actually the opposite. The biggest change in the last few years has been the increase in pre-series A investments, both by "super-angels" (which are structurally mini VC funds) and existing VC firms.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

We've had already launched companies applying almost since the beginning of YC. Airbnb, which was in the winter 2009 batch, had been launched for over a year.

We make a conscious effort not to be influenced by early progress though, because there is no correlation between how far along a company is when they apply to YC and how well they end up doing.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

Yeah. There weren't many no-idea applications and on the whole they weren't good. One batch I forgot to enable them, and we just let them stay dead.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

We don't recommend applicants do this. Though we don't say anything when it happens, we do notice, and it makes us slightly less likely to accept such groups.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

Fixed, thanks.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

We should probably retire RFS 3.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

No, we stopped taking those several batches ago.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

Yes.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

The YC FAQ answers the first three: http://ycombinator.com/faq.html

As for the fourth, of course not.

pgon Applications open for the summer 2014 YC batch

No African countries have applied or been accepted, but we've accepted several people from them. IIRC none were making things for specifically African markets though.

We're certainly willing to fund companies building stuff for their home country and that will return to it after YC. GoCardless is probably the most prominent.

pgon Sam Altman Taking Over As President Of Y Combinator

No. We didn't manipulate the scores of these (or any other) posts. Presumably the reason Sam started writing a lot in 2012 was the same reason I started trying to recruit him then: he was finished working for Green Dot.

pgon Sam Altman for President

It's not the only motivation. It really will be better for YC to have someone running it who is actually interested in running an organization.

I have a whole bunch of ideas for essays I'd like to write, but I almost never pick a topic. The way I decide which one to write is that one starts to write itself in my head.

pgon Sam Altman for President

Probably not. But though it's an impressive feat of standing, the stuff that comes up then is so basic (slow down, look at the audience, etc) that any YC partner could make those sorts of comments.

I'll still talk about pitches individually with startups at office hours.

pgon Sam Altman for President

http://paulgraham.com/essay.html

pgon Sam Altman for President

I'm going to continue doing office hours with startups in future batches. And since office hours are the main way founders interact with me, YC should feel the same to companies we fund. It will feel a lot different to me though. Not so much because I'll have more time as more attention to spare. For years now YC has been the thing in the top of my mind. That has made it hard to write essays. Now I'll be able to focus most of my attention on writing again.

pgon Gobble (YC W14) Automates Your Dinner With A Subscription Meal Delivery Service

We've been using Gobble lately and I would recommend it to any family with small children. This is one of those things you don't realize till you have kids, but 4 year olds don't want to eat the same things you do. Eventually your kids' tastes may converge sufficiently with yours, but till then you either have to (a) not eat together, (b) cook two different dinners simultaneously, (c) eat hot dogs yourself, or (d) have endless fights.

Gobble has given us a fifth and better option, and I think that will be the cornerstone of its appeal to customers.

pgon Source of the recent outagelet

That is hilarious. That one will be hard to resist.