[HN Gopher] Ways YC has changed in the last year
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Ways YC has changed in the last year
Author : yimby
Score : 129 points
Date : 2023-09-23 21:24 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| lolinder wrote:
| Was this resurrected? Algolia had this as posted 19 hours ago
| [0], and I swear I remember reading some of these comments last
| night.
|
| [0]
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| version_five wrote:
| Yes. I posted in it yesterday, in my own "threads" I see the
| posts' age reflecting that, when I look at this thread they are
| now only a few hours old.
| lolinder wrote:
| Oh, interesting, this shows up in the second chance pool:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/pool
|
| I knew this was a thing, but I didn't realize it worked by
| messing with timestamps.
| dang wrote:
| Yes, sorry, I know that timestamp business is confusing but
| it's the least confusing of the options I know of.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&qu
| e...
| enumjorge wrote:
| This is off topic, but it's crazy to me that the current
| incarnation of Twitter still seems to be the communication
| platform of choice for a good portion of the tech community.
| Presumably Jared still considers it to be the best way to share
| this information despite the fact that the app is so user
| hostile. Even using nitter to bypass these restrictions, we're
| still breaking a paragraph into separate posts, as if sharing
| text longer than a sentence on the intent is a something we need
| to handle in a piecemeal fashion.
|
| At a time when I can use ML algorithms to create beautiful images
| from a simple description, Twitter feels positively prehistoric.
| And yet the people investing in the bleeding edge continue using
| smoke signals to reach their audience. It's remarkable.
| tomp wrote:
| > we're still breaking a paragraph into separate posts
|
| Um,... just because OP does that, doesn't mean it's necessary.
|
| Here's an example of a long-form post, with embedded images:
| https://twitter.com/myles_cooks/status/1689022160780791812
| matsemann wrote:
| Only available for those paying. And since paying means you
| get a badge and thus grouped together with cryptobros and
| rightwing nutjobs and gave Musk money, few people pay for it
| even when they might have wanted to.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| More tweets (one per paragraph) drives more engagement.
| gochi wrote:
| Reminds me of those tedious recipe blogs that require so much
| scrolling, but even worse since there's no easy print on X.
| tomp wrote:
| The _" tedious recipe blogs that require so much
| scrolling"_ usually first start with an emotional story
| about how the dish reminds the author of their childhood,
| which is included (presumably) to milk SEO and also annoy
| readers, followed by a recipe with maybe one photo.
|
| This is a recipe with short (but not one-liners) yet
| helpful instructions, including images of how the cooking
| process would work.
|
| Do you have an example of a better recipe post?
| bbarnett wrote:
| There was some guy here a year ago, who made a simple,
| easily searchable recipe site, but I don't know the link.
|
| It was just recipes.
| talkingtab wrote:
| Twitter is an anti-democratic platform. No one should be using
| it, period. Twitter acts as a megaphone for sensationalism,
| extremism and other click-bait ism's. If there is no
| alternative, just don't use it.
|
| As for bleeding edge people using it, if someone is still using
| this platform they lose all credibility with me.
|
| If (you are democrat ) read above post If (you are not democrat
| ) Twitter is great! If (you are female ) Twitter is sexist If
| (well you get the picture ) ...
| pixl97 wrote:
| Ok, then suggest some other platform that has the network
| effects of an existing large audience?
|
| Technology matters far less than network effects. Not saying it
| doesn't matter at all, but you have to overcome the audiences
| stickiness to a platform first.
| lbotos wrote:
| One tweet link to a blog post on the YC blog? Yeah, sure,
| there will be some drop off bc people don't click out of the
| app, but most people _not_ on twitter can 't even read this
| content anymore without workarounds.
| [deleted]
| jeffbee wrote:
| The YC leaders spend half of their time fawning over Elon Musk,
| so it makes sense that they are captive on his platform.
| 4death4 wrote:
| People like to complain about X's (nee Twitter) format, but
| isn't it possible that X is a good medium _because_ of the
| restrictions put on the format? Each paragraph needs to make a
| salient point in 280 characters or less. Personally, I like the
| direct prose that results from this restriction.
| Retric wrote:
| No, I've seen paragraphs and even single sentences split
| across multiple posts.
|
| It's literally just bad UI.
| richbell wrote:
| I think they're referring to the aggressive rate-limiting
| that prevents people from reading tweets/threads without an
| account.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| It's a risky investment strategy to put so much emphasis on AI
| startups. Not only do you have the already volatile nature of
| early-stage software companies (which YC is of course used to),
| but this is a bet on whether machine learning, chiefly LLMs, are
| going to continue to outperform other technologies and become
| sustainable to run.
|
| There's no question in my mind that 'Open'AI is subsidizing the
| vast majority of LLM research and use today. If the efficacy of
| LLaMA and its derivatives actually start to approach GPT4+ in any
| meaningful way, there is quickly going to be a shortage of
| suitable compute that will completely dwarf the now-subsided
| Bitcoin mining craze. Plus, untainted training data is going to
| be harder to find amongst the text contaminated with mountains of
| early LLM drivel.
|
| As a technology expert, I couldn't in all honesty say that I
| would want to have money in the YC fund right now. But if it pays
| off, it could be the biggest software windfall since social
| networking took off at the beginning of the 2010s.
| [deleted]
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| I guess what you are saying is buy calls for Nvidia
| epolanski wrote:
| Please don't turn HN in low effort WSB-like comments.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Precisely - when there's a gold rush, sell shovels.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Quite possibly; I'm not sure why calls would be better than
| straight-up buying the stock, but I am certain that Nvidia is
| going to have a pretty good time of the LLM hype.
|
| Nvidia seem to me to have been consistently competent in
| improving their product lines. Perhaps my only criticism
| would be of their artificial hampering of some of their
| products, which they do in order to appease certain PC gamers
| by excluding the gaming market from usual supply/demand
| effects. This has the knock-on effect of severely reducing
| the compatibility of the hardware with Linux, which of course
| is by far the most sensible option for cloud computing hosts
| right now.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| Nvidia is specifically not on the LLM train - almost all
| possible forms of AI can use parallel compute chips to
| great effect. Their own AI products like DLSS have nothing
| to do with LLMs
| __jonas wrote:
| > Perhaps my only criticism would be of their artificial
| hampering of some of their products, which they do in order
| to appease certain PC gamers by excluding the gaming market
| from usual supply/demand effects
|
| Can you elaborate what you mean by this? I thought Nvidia
| is outpricing their PC gamer customers because of their
| focus on AI? I'm curious how they have hampered their
| products in your opinion.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Here's one reference:
| https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-Lock-Broken
|
| My reading of the saga is that the cryptocurrency mining
| bubble was causing huge demands for Nvidia GPUs as
| parallel processors (with ASICS for mining only starting
| to appear at this point). This meant that GPUs were being
| priced-out of the market for most PC gamers, as it was
| always profitable for cryptocurrency miners to buy more
| of them.
|
| Nvidia introduced a lock on 'non-professional' cards
| which prevented alternative firmware from being loaded on
| them, effectively splitting the market into two, one for
| 'gamers' and the other for 'miners'. That lock interferes
| with the open source driver for Linux, Nouveau, meaning
| that normal things like CUDA (and not least running
| games!) couldn't be done on Linux without a labyrinthine
| network of proprietary drivers that, for instance,
| couldn't be updated automatically.
|
| It seems as if Nvidia succeeded, because from my passive
| awareness of the PC gaming world, people seem very happy
| with their new GPUs. But for those using Linux for
| servers, at home or for AI research, it has been an
| ongoing nightmare.
| latchkey wrote:
| That lock was broken with the NVIDIA leak.
|
| H100's were not used for mining.
|
| Regardless, in general, there is little demand for GPUs
| for mining any longer after ETH switched to PoS.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Don't calls increase potential gains through leverage? With
| the usual high risk downside of the option ending up
| worthless.
| version_five wrote:
| If this was NFTs, what would the winning strategy have been?
| Strike when the iron is hot and hype is at the maximum and hope
| to get some exits or subsequent rounds asap, or draw it out.
| From a portfolio perspective, it's just one batch, might as
| well go all in and maximally capitalize on hype, no?
| voytec wrote:
| NFT strategy was rather simple: hire so called celebrities to
| advertise the scam, profit from suckers, pull the rug.
| version_five wrote:
| Sure, and the faster you did that the more you would have
| made. I don't think AI is equivalent, the emperor has some
| clothes on here, they're just not quite as nice as he's
| been led to belive, but the same principle applies. Move
| fast, break stuff, sell while the cat's still in the bag.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| These gigantic valuations for AI startups are only there
| because the startups aren't choosing to exit yet - big
| demand, low supply. Whilst acknowledging my lack of a crystal
| ball, I would imagine that once the few biggest companies
| have had their fill of acquiring AI startups for billions at
| a time, the remaining startups won't be so desirable any
| longer.
|
| YC needs to make sure they actually have a market to sell
| these startups to before their valuation starts dropping
| again. Predicting that requires a certain kind of intuition,
| whereas 'traditional' software startups have a more
| predictable lifecycle. I'm not the 'hype type' myself - I
| don't really trust stocks without intrinsic value behind them
| :)
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| I'm really curious to know why my root comment saying 'this
| investment strategy is very risky and would make me
| nervous' has loads of upvotes, but my parent comment here -
| which I think has broadly the same message phrased in a
| different way - has three downvotes. Please enlighten me :)
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _It 's a risky investment strategy to put so much emphasis on
| AI startups._
|
| At some level, YC is a marketplace for VCs. One'd think that
| this over-emphasis (it was crypto, b2b SaaS, mobile app
| startups before this) is YC working as it is supposed to be?
| http://paulgraham.com/herd.html / https://archive.is/vkzMd
| yuvadam wrote:
| Bitcoin hash rate is steadily growing no matter which time
| frame you look at [1], what do you mean by "craze"?
|
| [1] - https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/charts/hash-rate
| r_singh wrote:
| The adjacent possible theory comes to mind
| steveBK123 wrote:
| On the other hand, there's probably some sort of reasonable
| business model or two that will come out of the AI/LLM boom. So
| casting a wide net and hoping your accelerator will catch one
| of them is a decent play.
| slg wrote:
| Jared made the comparison to S06 and it might be interesting to
| note that was the worst performing class in YC history in terms
| of percentage outcomes for each company. 73% of those companies
| are dead, 9% are still alive, and 18% got exits[1]. Although YC
| almost certainly cares more about money than percentage
| outcomes and one of those exits was Zynga buying OMGPop, so YC
| probably views that class as a success. Seems like they are
| taking on more risk for greater upside.
|
| [1] - https://www.ycdb.co/
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| S06 was also the --first batch-- (Edit: I was mistaken, S05
| was the first batch, but the rest still stands), well before
| YC was the "hit maker" its known as today, so it's not
| surprising that class didn't do as well as subsequent ones.
| The acceptance rate for startups into YC now is miniscule
| compared to what it was in 2006.
| slg wrote:
| >so it's not surprising that class didn't do as well as
| subsequent ones
|
| But it also didn't do as well as the previous ones. I don't
| know when exactly YC got that "hit maker" reputation you
| are talking about, but S06 is an outlier regardless. The
| class directly before and directly after had failure rates
| of 29% and 38% compared to S06's 73%. The only classes
| coming close to the failure rates of S06 were in the lead
| up to the 2008 financial crisis.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Haven't done the math on this, but those early batches
| were so small - S06 only had 11 companies - so I think
| that statistically it's probably not that significant in
| any case, especially since there are huge grades of
| "success" even within the 3 categories of "alive",
| "dead", or "exit" on ycdb.co.
|
| For example, in S06 there was one big exit (OMGpop), one
| company still alive and very well known today (Scribd),
| and one what I'd call "failure with an exit" - Xobni sold
| for a relatively low 60 million to Yahoo and was then
| shutdown.
|
| Compare that with the batch directly after that, W07,
| which had 13 companies. Of those 13, it had one smash hit
| (Twitch) and one other relatively big success (Weebly).
| While it may have a lot fewer overall "dead" markers than
| S06, a lot of its exits look like acqui-hires or "OK buy
| our IP before we die" type exits. Better than an outright
| "dead" score I guess, but from the perspective of a VC
| like YC it hardly makes any difference. Point being I
| think it's a stretch to say there were really much
| significance in the "success difference" between S06 and
| W07 despite the differences in dead counts (with the
| possible exception that Twitch ended up being _such_ a
| home run, but those are so rare they average 1 or fewer
| per batch anyway).
| quadcore wrote:
| Friendly reminder: the strategy here is to invest in the
| founders, not the ideas. So great founders right now create AI
| startups. So either AI solves problems or they arent great
| founders.
| bdjcvuy wrote:
| [dead]
| snowmaker wrote:
| That's exactly right. When people see YC funding a lot of AI
| startups, a lot of them think it must be because YC has some
| thesis about AI.
|
| Actually, it says something much deeper about the world than
| whatever YC's partners' opinions are. YC funds founders, not
| ideas, so the reason that so many companies in S23 are AI
| startups is that that's what founders want to work on right
| now. It's an emergent phenomenon, like stock prices in the
| market.
|
| One thing that's interesting is that there have been many
| hype cycles between 2006 and now (chatbots, several waves of
| crypto, VR, online-to-offline, etc). YC funded a few
| companies in each of those hype cycles but never anything
| like the current %.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The underlying assumptions in this post don't really make sense
| for an organization like YC.
|
| It's probably a good idea for YC to have _some_ thesis about
| which technologies will be big, and "AI" is probably a good
| bet. The entire point of investing in so many AI startups is
| that I'm quite sure YC expects the vast, vast majority to fail
| (for various definitions of "fail"). But I think most people
| believe that there will be very few winners in the AI space
| (like pretty much all the other tech spaces over the past 20
| years), so the biggest fears of someone like a YC is _not_
| getting in in those one or two AI companies that made it big.
| gxs wrote:
| You are being luddites.
|
| COVID having forced you to be remote is not enough to validate
| this constant preaching from SV leadership (and only leadership -
| no one without millions in equity ever lobbies for this) that
| nothing can replace in person.
|
| The fact that Paul Graham compares it to communism is fitting for
| so many reasons.
| pgwhalen wrote:
| Without commenting on all the complex dynamics of WFH vs the
| office, I can say that I, personally, enjoy working in the
| office more. I am an individual contributor software engineer,
| without millions in equity in anything.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I often highlight that every claim of +X% "productivity" with
| RTO is based on an implicit assumption that the commute is
| _uncompensated_ , and that employees will eat all the costs
| (man-hours, fuel) of coming into the office.... At least for a
| few quarters, until angry people leave for closer or better-
| paying jobs.
|
| So we've got (A) a misleading "productivity" metric sometimes
| being used to rationalize (B) one-sided policies which are (C)
| not sustainable in the long term anyway.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| My company has instituted a 3 day RTO policy.
|
| First week? Had a fever, didn't go in. Second week? Went in 2
| days. Had too much shit to do to worry about office crap.
| Third week? Also 2 days. There were less than 10% of the
| desks filled on both days I went.
|
| Going real smooth. And I guarantee you that every single
| person who is actually going into the office is counting
| commute time against their working hours.
| Plasmoid wrote:
| I've always wondered how modern cities would look if
| employers had to bear partial responsibility for the commute.
| Would we see a lot more mixed housing around the place? Would
| transit be much better?
| yimby wrote:
| https://nitter.net/snowmaker/status/1705643839443403263
| carabiner wrote:
| Wow, even the bleeding edge, move fast and break things,
| disruptive crowd has reaffirmed one tradition: "in-person is the
| best." I think this settles it. WFH is less productive.
| vikramkr wrote:
| Maybe it's the best for that crowd. The stable edge slow moving
| corporate world isn't obligated to have the same things work
| for them
| epolanski wrote:
| No, it only reaffirms, if anything, that fast moving startups
| benefit from in-person relationship, guidance and communication
| with peers more than they would over Teams.
| adamiscool8 wrote:
| Not really. It doesn't tell us anything except the opinion of
| a partner. Has S23 resulted in more successful startups,
| happier founders, higher valuations than W19, S20, W20, S21,
| W21, S22, and W22? There's no elaboration.
| xwdv wrote:
| Based on what data exactly? Gut feelings? What could be
| faster than communications across vast distances at the speed
| of light?
| epolanski wrote:
| I mean that's not my point, but the guy on Twitter, I was
| merely answering the previous poster who far fetched it.
| airstrike wrote:
| Nonverbal and unstructured, unplanned communication don't
| really translate well to the digital world (yet)
| xwdv wrote:
| So the secret to working effectively is passive
| aggressive nonverbal cues and interrupting people
| frequently who may be busy doing something else and
| weren't expecting an impromptu meeting?
|
| Has the physical world discovered how to replay past
| conversations where important decisions were made? Has it
| become socially acceptable to have long silences of 5-10
| minutes while people formulate thoughtful replies in a
| conversation?
| airstrike wrote:
| > Has the physical world discovered how to replay past
| conversations where important decisions were made?
|
| Yes, they're called "minutes", memos or simply taking
| notes in meetings.
|
| > Has it become socially acceptable to have long silences
| of 5-10 minutes while people formulate thoughtful replies
| in a conversation?
|
| Yes, you can always say "let me think about that for a
| minute"
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| I've literally never seen a meeting grind to a halt like
| that. Instead, meetings are full of half-baked ideas, and
| I sometimes notice show-stoppers hours later when it's
| quiet.
| cpursley wrote:
| Let me introduce you to Slack and cell phone calls.
| RestlessMind wrote:
| Let me introduce you to body language, tone, facial
| expressions and personal energy, which are simply not
| captured in slack or zoom or phone calls.
| airstrike wrote:
| those don't convey nonverbal communication, and they are
| so unstructured that they interrupt too frequently
|
| there's something positive about setting time on the
| calendar and then sitting down with someone (or a group
| of people) to talk about a specific subject that we've
| all prepared for. yes, you can do that with Zoom, but
| then you miss the ability to speak simultaneously and the
| body language / nonverbal.
|
| not everything should be a meeting, but not everything
| should be IM / phone calls either. being able to mix and
| match is what makes in-person somewhat positive (even if
| I personally prefer a hybrid model)
| jmye wrote:
| For some problems? 15 minutes with a whiteboard. There's no
| good e-replacement.
|
| For other problems? Sure, slack and zoom are perfectly
| adequate to preferable.
| eropple wrote:
| _> For some problems? 15 minutes with a whiteboard.
| There's no good e-replacement._
|
| People say this, but FigJam or even Microsoft Whiteboard
| work fantastically for this if you've equipped your team
| with the right hardware. I often sit down with people and
| noodle through problems on an iPad (and for me at least
| the Pencil is required) with FigJam in a low-friction
| manner.
| RestlessMind wrote:
| I have really tried many different tools since 2020 and
| none of those worked as well as an in-person whiteboard
| sessions with 3-4 colleagues.
| jmye wrote:
| I really disagree. Figjam is mildly ok, though I suppose
| if my company had been willing to give the team better
| tools it might have worked better? I still think there's
| something irreplaceable about standing around the board
| in person to discuss/draw. Even the hovering
| pencil/cursor stuff just doesn't work as well, IMO, as
| standing there and pointing at things/connections.
|
| I'm certainly not going to make my team move to my city
| and rent an office for those meetings, but getting
| together a few times a year can allow for solving some
| tough/intractable problems much more easily/efficiently.
| eropple wrote:
| _> Figjam is mildly ok, though I suppose if my company
| had been willing to give the team better tools it might
| have worked better?_
|
| I think FigJam is pretty bad with a mouse and keyboard,
| honestly. It wasn't until I started using it with an iPad
| that it made sense to me and it wasn't until I got other
| people doing it that it was actually any good at all. It
| also suffers if you have the sort of group that needs a
| facilitator for these kinds of processes--I had a PM who
| had formerly been at Figma and their process for trying
| to get people to use it at the new job hurt me
| physically.
|
| (The funny thing is, while I do like FigJam I don't like
| Figma at all; I am an Illustrator man and will be until I
| blow away like dust in the wind.)
|
| _> I'm certainly not going to make my team move to my
| city and rent an office for those meetings, but getting
| together a few times a year can allow for solving some
| tough /intractable problems much more
| easily/efficiently._
|
| I agree with this, FWIW, but not for the problem-solving
| aspect at a whiteboard. I use it for the sticky, annoying
| people-y problems where you _do_ lose something over a
| teleconference connection when dealing with most people.
| (Some folks I 've worked with, like me, have an on-camera
| background and can project effectively over
| teleconferences; most can't.)
| xwdv wrote:
| We don't have "whiteboard" type problems anymore, past a
| certain level of experience. Are you a junior?
| jmye wrote:
| Believe it or not, I may work on different problems and
| in different areas than you do.
| molly0 wrote:
| The way Twitter has changed in the last year is so I can no
| longer read threads since I don't have an account.
| smcin wrote:
| (The equivalent nitter.net or nitter.it links allow non-users
| to read. See above.)
| debacle wrote:
| @dang, please change the root link to the nitter thread.
| dang wrote:
| We want the canonical URL at the top. Alternate sources, so
| that more people can read ab article, are welcome as links from
| the thread.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37627964.
| voytec wrote:
| On one hand, this suggestion stands in opposition to HN rules
| (link to source) but on the other is more reasonable as linking
| nitter provides viewer with more information, as an addition to
| single post that non-registered Twitter users would be able to
| see.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Considering HN is a YC thing, the useful feedback at this
| point might be that X isn't the best outlet to reach
| audiences anymore, and maybe they should post it somewhere
| else.
| shkkmo wrote:
| It is like suggesting that the link on a paywalled article be
| changed to an archive link without the paywall. That isn't
| the way HN has decided to operate.
|
| Instead, users get taught to visit the comments first and
| upvote a comment with that link.
| joeconway wrote:
| I'm a huge fan of remote first companies, but when Jared speaks,
| I listen. I'd love to know more of any specific lessons learned
| or observations made that lead to this conclusion
| Topgamer7 wrote:
| Twitter is such a garbage way to convey this kind of information.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| It's ridiculous how long a character limit based on text
| messaging has persisted on that platform and also helped ruin
| human communication across the globe. It's just one of those
| weird butterfly effect moments that aliens would shake their
| heads at.
| [deleted]
| epolanski wrote:
| It also limits the audience to people with Twitter, I can only
| see the first post.
| xypage wrote:
| Hop on over to nitter, just replace twitter in the url with
| nitter and you get
| https://nitter.net/snowmaker/status/1705643839443403263 which
| works without an account or anything.
| gumballindie wrote:
| Well then, i suppose our overlords have decided we must be in
| person. But since they will "free" us with ai soon what's the
| point?
| j7ake wrote:
| _I wondered what was the last time you could say that "half the
| YC batch is working on an X startup", for any value of X._
|
| When did this pseudo math talk creep into normal speech?
|
| It reeks of charlatans pretending to be technical when there is
| no need to be technical.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| It reads fine to me. Is it really all that technical? It's just
| a variable. People with basic math skills with figure out what
| this means easily. Even if it was technical, the author is also
| working in a technical space, so technical speak seems par for
| the course.
| jeffbee wrote:
| > It's a beautiful space with an incredible history - it's where
| the US built battleships for WWI and WWII.
|
| Pretty sure this plays fast and loose with the history of
| American naval warfare. The only battleship built in San
| Francisco, that I can think of, is the 19th-century relic USS
| Ohio.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| http://pier70sf.org/history/shipsBuilt/ShipsBuiltAll.html
| solardev wrote:
| That seems to list a bunch of destroyers and other vessels,
| but not "battleships".
|
| Probably the tweeter was just using that term colloquially,
| like "ship of war", rather than as a classification of size
| and function.
| mentos wrote:
| Would have liked to read why in person is better.
|
| I imagine the biggest reason is it raises the sense of commitment
| for everyone involved.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| In person is better because the latent bid for tech workers has
| gone down, and now they feel comfortable demanding we all come
| back to the office. It's as simple as that.
| mentos wrote:
| When you get married are you going to do it over Zoom or have
| everyone show up in person?
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Wasn't aware I needed to marry my coworkers. Most companies
| I've worked at have strong HR policies around that.
| mentos wrote:
| These aren't coworkers they're cofounders.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Still wouldn't mix business with pleasure, but that's
| just me.
| mentos wrote:
| Didn't stop the founders of YCombinator ha
| steveBK123 wrote:
| LOL I didn't realize that until you mentioned & I looked
| it up. Nice.
| RestlessMind wrote:
| Since you don't seem to be getting the point, let me
| break it down to you - you seem to realize that a
| marriage needs regular in-person interaction to make it
| work. Also, co-founding a company is another relationship
| where regular in-person interaction is needed to make it
| work. YC data seems to indicate that.
| nzoschke wrote:
| This is my hypothesis too.
|
| I participated in YC S15.
|
| We all quit our jobs, and my co-founders moved to from Atlanta
| to SF for the summer, we rented a big house as a live/work
| space, and drove together to Mountain View the required few
| times a week. We went to a lot of optional things together like
| additional office hours, parties, meetups, together and in
| person.
|
| That level of commitment and pretty much daily face to face
| working time is powerful.
|
| It's not possible for everyone given circumstances, and its not
| sustainable forever. But that means that the teams that can and
| do opt into a summer like this are very committed to their
| idea.
|
| So it's not hard to imagine it's "better" to relocate for a
| stretch of something hard like getting a business off the
| ground than doing it all fully distributed.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| This. People underestimate physical proximity while doing
| challenging things together. This has been a core human glue
| for millenia. One of the reasons I still recommend people to
| go to university. There is simply no substitute for this.
| bsder wrote:
| The primary (maybe only?) value of YC is the networking.
|
| Networking is fundamentally an in-person thing. The remote-only
| people can whine all they want, but that is simply an immutable
| fact.
|
| Building a startup requires most of your time on _non-coding_
| tasks.
| no_wizard wrote:
| They don't have to be. This is all about setup.
|
| It's harder to do because we aren't used to it but I attended
| a really well done Zoom mixer in 2021 that was absolutely
| amazing and didn't great job. It almost felt like I was in
| person honestly.
|
| People aren't used to changing their norms so quickly. This
| is what the real issue is
| version_five wrote:
| Right, look at conferences, MBA programs, etc. There are/were
| "remote" options but they essentially have no value, it was
| just a placeholder we tried. Some kinds of work can be remote
| of course. But learning and networking only really works in
| person.
| [deleted]
| ShamelessC wrote:
| > Before covid, founders often asked us to run YC remotely so
| that they would't have to move to SF to participate. We never
| did...[we feel justified in our decision]
|
| Completely ignoring the founders who still have to move,
| apparently?
| jacquesm wrote:
| And not the most elegant display of the power dynamic between
| investors and founders, to put it mildly. Note that this self
| selects for people able _and_ willing to jump through hoops for
| their investors.
| eropple wrote:
| Having a family or a house or a dog simply means you are _not
| hardcore enough_ , woo.
| startupsfail wrote:
| YC is a one-trick-pony. If you have a simple product, it can
| guide you to get users, investors and to scale it up.
|
| But don't expect anything else. It would not help, if you are
| outside of that scenario. It easily can screw you, by using any
| product ideas that you've refined and sharing these freely with a
| relevant startup in the batch.
| debacle wrote:
| > by using any product ideas that you've refined and sharing
| these freely with a relevant startup in the batch.
|
| Do you have an example of this happening in the past?
| startupsfail wrote:
| Yes. Took the idea, website, etc, down to the name. Planted
| on a team of "founders", who grabbed 10M from VCs. They took
| it to some place in Texas to die.
|
| Was pretty annoying to watch, because it was quite clear that
| the idea was too early to try productizing YC-style at the
| time. It was essentially "code understanding" with early
| transformers, buck in 2017. But YC tried turning this into a
| product, while it was time to do foundational research.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| You're saying you were in YC and then they took your idea,
| website etc and gave it to another YC team? Or were you
| unrelated to anyone in YC?
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| One trick pony? They have created 5-10% of all unicorns in
| existence
| dehrmann wrote:
| This can still be true with the original point. There might
| be a certain type of startup they're very good a nurturing,
| but not others.
| jabradoodle wrote:
| Source?
| officialchicken wrote:
| Be honest about winner's bias... there are a lot of dead
| horses in their graveyard too.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| That's literally the VC business model?
| vikramkr wrote:
| They lose less money on the losers than they make on the
| winners. The whole game is about maximizing the number of
| wins, not necessarily percentage.
| 7e wrote:
| Huh? The founders created these companies. YC just convinced
| these founders to give away a big share of their companies
| for almost nothing, in return for cult lulz. Accelerators are
| exploitative.
| asah wrote:
| strong language, but there's a mathematical proof against:
|
| - company X raises at $Y valuation before YC
|
| - company X raises at $Z valuation after YC
|
| - if Z / Y > YC dilution then YC is a good value
|
| Z/Y > dilution in virtually all cases.
|
| Sorry, but life isn't fair.
| neilv wrote:
| > _We 've now tried every point on the spectrum: fully remote,
| hybrid and fully in-person. So now we don't have to worry if
| we're being luddites: in-person YC just really is the best._
|
| How was this determined to be best?
|
| (Obviously, they haven't controlled for variables like the switch
| to 4 smaller batches, and the high percentage of startups all
| doing one exciting thing (AI). And do they realize the costs. And
| is it best for some people, and not for others.)
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| YC doesn't exactly need to do double-blinded controlled studies
| to come to some conclusions.
|
| I'm sure they get lots of feedback from the companies in a
| batch, not to mention the partners' own assessments of how
| things work. It seems entirely reasonable to me then, after
| they _did_ have different sessions with different
| configurations, to point to particular points and say "in-
| person just worked way better".
| hackernewds wrote:
| > YC doesn't exactly need to do double-blinded Controled
| studies to come to some conclusions.
|
| Why not? There is a barrage of companies touting the benefits
| of in person collaboration, thinly veiled to just being
| "surveil the workers"
| stanleydrew wrote:
| > Why not?
|
| Is this a serious question? For one thing, every founder
| will obviously know whether they are in-person or not, so
| it's not even possible to do a single-blind study.
| hackernewds wrote:
| My point is there are other statistical techniques, none
| of which seems to be utilized against #vibes let's go
| #RTO
| steveBK123 wrote:
| It was determined the same way FAANG, Banks, and others have
| determined in-person is best: "haha, the economy is slowing,
| get back to the office you F*(&# losers".
|
| Absolutely breathtaking level of cynicism from executive class
| that as soon as interest rates went up, hiring market cooled,
| and the power balance between workers & bosses swung back their
| way, suddenly in-office was "most productive".
|
| 100% vibes and "because we say so / we can get away with it".
| ajkjk wrote:
| I imagine the actual reason is the complete opposite of
| everything you said except for 'vibes'.
|
| Just cause you can't imagine why anyone would care about
| being in person doesn't mean the only remaining reason is a
| greedy powertrip. You're just not being sufficiently
| imaginative.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Sure for a bootcamp or intensive project or whatever, in-
| person can have benefits. For juniors and mentorship and
| whatever, sure helps there too.
|
| But the lingering question is... Why is it that everyone
| was super cool with hybrid & remote, even past COVID
| danger, but as soon as FAANG had massive layoffs we went
| from 2days to 3days to majority back in office at many tech
| companies?
|
| And the east coast bank/fund/finance tech companies quickly
| dragged everyone else back to the office as soon as we all
| stopped quitting for FAANG jobs?
|
| Hard to tell what the cause could possibly be.
|
| Correlation, causation.. who knows!
| ajkjk wrote:
| I can think of plenty of decent reasons that might be
| true? For instance perhaps over time a fully remote
| company, unless it employs mostly a certain type of very
| driven self motivated person, slows down and loses any
| semblance of a culture the longer it works remotely? That
| was certainly my experience.
|
| Or perhaps all the managers, typically fairly extroverted
| people, get more depressed over time the longer their
| daily social interactions are just on video calls.
|
| Or perhaps over time it's found that new hires do worse
| and worse without an office to bond with others in and a
| culture to absorb.
|
| Etc. No shortage of plausible reasons.
|
| Perhaps these companies were remote for a while because a
| lot of people were loud and annoying about it, and now a
| lot of them are quietly backpedaling to avoid offending
| the people who love it while reclaiming the benefits of
| an office?
|
| Perhaps! I don't know. You'd have to ask them. One thing
| is for sure: there are a lot of plausible reasons besides
| 'evil'.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I didn't use the word evil though you may have read it
| that way.
|
| Simply stating that tech employers have the power back
| and now they are using it.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Because zirp was over
| ajkjk wrote:
| What is zirp?
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > Absolutely breathtaking level of cynicism
|
| Umm? Pot meet kettle
| dehrmann wrote:
| You didn't actually give an alternative reason for why FAANGs
| and banks are doing this. Some also obviously don't hold for
| YC (real estate losses).
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| It's easier to make blanket rules than do performance mgmt
| for _managers_.
|
| If data shows some % of the company has been completely
| slacking off with WFH (or over employed etc) you could
| either hold mgmt accountable (but how? Fire all VPs for
| letting that happen? Fire all line managers?) or just make
| blanket policies...
| steveBK123 wrote:
| That line of management of management is allowing
| incompetence to fester.
|
| My spouse is at a shop that keeps ratcheting up the RTO
| days "because people aren't abiding by the current RTO
| days".
|
| This of course is idiotic because the shirkers don't get
| punished and everyone ends up worst off. In fact the
| people already complying are worst effected.
|
| If you can't count on managers to enforce rules then why
| have managers or rules?
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| I agree your question is relevant, but the problem is do
| directors want to acknowledge that the level below them
| is incompetent at performance mgmt at a small
| granularity? Because what does that say about them?
| steveBK123 wrote:
| On this thread - there's a VC guy I follow on twitter who
| otherwise sounds like a decent guy, but as the tech job
| market was collapsing ~9 months ago was literally posting
| "suits suits suits".
|
| Aka - the old Wall St saying that when the economy turns
| and labor loses power, casual Fridays go out the window and
| everyone is back to wearing suits.
|
| So I do think that the debate is all kayfabe. There is no
| data.
|
| They really see remote/hybrid as just an accommodation like
| allowing jeans, paying for your lunch, or having yoga
| classes on site... and look forward to cutting it at any
| time of their choosing, when they can get away with it.
| sobellian wrote:
| The dynamic at YC isn't even remotely close to partners
| lording over the co-founders. It's not the employment
| relationship you seem to imagine.
| xkr wrote:
| I can't speak for YC or FAANG management but as a regular
| software engineer I totally get where they're coming from. I
| worked at a FAANG company through and after covid, the
| difference in teams productivity was noticeable. Not in the
| remote working favour.
|
| I understand some people are more productive at home but I'm
| yet to see a _team_ that is more productive being remote. I
| lack the experience working in remote-first companies like
| gitlab though.
| hackernewds wrote:
| I see the opposite. My team was vastly more productive
| remote, and gained 2 hours of commute time per day.
|
| Your anecdata vs mine? ;)
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Depends on the project type and part of the lifecycle. Also
| depends on the team composition and office structure.
|
| In my career I've generally been on teams spread across 3
| continents and sit in open floorplan offices surrounded by
| other loud teams. So I commute into the office to be
| collocated with at-best 1/3 of my team, surrounded by
| unrelated noise.
|
| In some ideal state where we were 100% in the same city,
| sat in a dedicated pod area without so much commotion &
| distraction, in-office might be great. I've never
| experienced this.
|
| Even in that ideal state, it may likely turn out ideal team
| productivity happens at 3-4 days in-office, as there's time
| for coordination and then time for deep quiet work.
|
| The top-down, C-suite level dictates are not based on
| what's most productive.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| I don't know much about YC but I do know it isn't a regular
| working environment. It's a lot more intense and hands-on,
| qualities which indeed tend to be better in-person.
|
| It's also for only 11 weeks. Other companies probably want to
| be always be intense and hands-on and have the YC atmosphere,
| but that's actually a terrible way to manage a company, a
| recipe for getting everyone to burnout and quit, and even if
| people stay after awhile the intensity _will_ cool off.
|
| I don't doubt YC is better in-person, but also that your
| typical boring company is better remote.
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| I can believe that seeking advice from angels works better in
| person, but it's not evidence that writing code works better
| in person than on the Maker's Schedule.
|
| http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
| snowmaker wrote:
| A lot of the comments in here are about the debate on whether
| companies should be remote or in-person.
|
| That's an important debate but orthogonal to what I wrote. The
| YC batch is not a company. It doesn't really have a close
| analogue, but if you forced me to choose, I'd say that doing YC
| is more similar to going to college than working at a company.
| And as all we all know, while many companies are staying fully
| remote, hardly any university is.
|
| Having now done this back-to-back, I can tell you exactly the
| ways in which in-person YC turned out to be better than remote
| YC.
|
| 1). Most founders in remote YC didn't make strong connections
| with their batchmates. When I ask founders from remote batches
| "how many founders in your batch are you still close with?",
| they typically give an answer that's 0-3. When I ask founders
| from in-person batches the same question, it's 10+.
|
| 2). When YC really works, it's because it not only conveys some
| factual advice, but changes the way founders think and behave.
|
| When founders go through in-person batches, they're usually
| significantly different by the end of the batch - tougher,
| savvier, and more formidable. Whatever causes that did not
| translate well to zoom.
|
| 3). In-person YC is simply more fun. YC has always been in part
| about being fun experience, because startups need to be fun or
| they'd be too difficult and demoralizing. Zoom is very
| effective for communicating information, but no one has fun at
| Zoom parties.
| RestlessMind wrote:
| I am not surprised by that. Fully remote zoom based interaction
| only works for those who work in a silo and do not need much
| social interaction to get their job done. Some like a mid-
| senior software engineer. But many other roles really need
| social interactions and in-person time.
|
| I have family members in SV who have started their own startup.
| Talking to them, "founder" seems to be a roll which needs a lot
| of social interactions and they are constantly networking.
| Right from raising money to making the first hires to finding
| the first customers. So no wonder YC batch finds in-person to
| be the best experience.
| eikenberry wrote:
| They are not saying it is best in all circumstances. They are
| strictly saying it is best for a small startup. IE. it is best
| for the short term, sloppy business of getting a tech startup
| off the ground. This makes some sense to me as everything is
| less structured in a startup and remote work really does better
| when there is more structure in place and quality is more
| important.
|
| To put it another way... In-person is best for the business in
| the short term and detrimental to their long term but it is a
| sacrifice startups make as they have no long term without the
| short term success so just punt all the long term stuff until
| they've made it that far.
| necubi wrote:
| I did YC in w23 which was a hybrid batch (talks and office
| hours on zoom with weekly SF events). Speaking for myself, most
| of the value was in the in-person events and not the zoom
| talks. Talking to alumni from the fully remote batches, it's
| clear that they missed out on a big part of the YC experience.
| pyrophane wrote:
| Whereas in any thread about WFH it seems that 95% of HN has
| concluded that remote just really is the best. Case close. No
| further study needed. The only reason to think otherwise is
| corporate greed.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Pre-covid, and this WFH/RTO conversation, the focus was on
| hating the open office floor plan, which does suck, I agree
| ... The most repeated anecdote was how you're coding, in zen,
| and someone taps you on the shoulder or starts talking, and
| the entire day is lost. Thus, the alternative was to have
| your own office, like at Stack Overflow.
| neilv wrote:
| I suspect that people in both the main "sides" have decided
| what they'd prefer, either for their own individual
| interests, or some gut feel about what's better for the
| organization. And people feel threatened by moves against
| what they've decided.
|
| (Disclosure: I'm pro-WFH overall, or, ideally, my own version
| of hybrid. I can see some benefits to some uses of in-person.
| I can also see WFH problems that still need creative
| solutions. I'm also aware that, in dialogue around this, some
| other people might not be playing the same game of nuance and
| problem-solving.)
| gopher_space wrote:
| Asking me to come into the office extends my workday by three
| or four hours, and when I'm at the office and not
| collaborating it's just a stream of distractions; constant
| motion in my peripheral vision, people on calls, it's a busy
| place!
|
| From my perspective WFH saves me so much time, money, and
| stress that I'd be _insane_ to not insist on it. Why would I
| read a study that doesn't take my perspective into account?
|
| WFH saves me tens of thousands a year. Any conversation that
| ignores the financial impact of return to office from my
| point of view is worthless.
| eikenberry wrote:
| Given that it is a personal preference and that you are
| saying that 95% share that preference... it does seem like
| case closed.
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