[HN Gopher] Want to start a startup? Meet all the YC partners in...
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Want to start a startup? Meet all the YC partners in Boston - Apr
20th
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 58 points
Date : 2024-03-27 20:24 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ycombinator.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ycombinator.com)
| Bostonian wrote:
| 'We're conducting in-person interviews for the Summer 2024 batch
| for current undergraduate or graduate students at universities in
| the northeastern US.'
|
| Why are recent BA/BS, MS, and PhD graduates excluded?
| ramijames wrote:
| Or those of us with no degrees and decades of experience?
|
| I'm in Boston.
| internetter wrote:
| Presumably because they want to work with students instead of
| people with decades of experience?
| beastman82 wrote:
| Or perhaps this is ageism
| internetter wrote:
| Forgive me as I have little sympathy for middle aged
| adults calling "agism!!!" whenever an opportunity is
| presented to a college student that wasn't also presented
| to them
| endisneigh wrote:
| I mean isn't that literally ageism? I don't have any
| opinion on whether it's acceptable or not here but come
| on...
| throwaway35777 wrote:
| Students are willing to work hard for free for the 0.001%
| chance that they'll be the next Mark Zuckerberg.
| internetter wrote:
| > Students are willing to work hard for free for the
| 0.001%
|
| The best startups run lean anyway. I'd argue this is the
| proper way to run one, as opposed to taking mountains of
| VC money and burning up in a year
| graiz wrote:
| Why assume that they are excluded?
| throwaway2016a wrote:
| Looks like it's a special opportunity for students to interview
| early and not excluding non-students from interviewing through
| the normal process. Maybe they are concerned the interviews may
| be overrun with professional founders and they only have 1 day?
| dang wrote:
| College outreach has been part of YC's recruiting efforts for
| years. It doesn't mean others are excluded. Certainly everyone
| who wants to should apply for Startup School!
| confoundcofound wrote:
| Can you all just be honest about your biases? You are pushing
| the narrative that YC is an accessible path for anyone, when
| your actions indicate otherwise.
|
| Where is the outreach to those outside of elite academic and
| professional circles?
|
| YC has historically branded itself as the anti-Harvard, but
| ask anyone and they'll tell you it has developed the
| reputation as being yet another elitist institution.
| somedumderp wrote:
| They won't be honest about their biases or their response.
| But appreciate the callout <3
| sctb wrote:
| It's not really about branding. YC's value relies on the
| application process being actually insightful about founder
| potential. Run-of-the-mill elitism would make less money.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Everyone has biases. They don't have to enumerate them at
| all times. What do you actually want?
| MontgomeryPi2 wrote:
| Maybe an end-around? Here are some Harvard summer courses... ht
| tps://courses.dce.harvard.edu/?srcdb=202403&summer_school=....
| (a long time ago now, I landed a job this way because I said I
| was "studying at Harvard")
| rabbits77 wrote:
| "We'll be chartering buses to travel to and from schools around
| the Northeast. Sign up early if you'd like a seat on one of the
| buses."
|
| Will they be doing that "roll call" song too?
| https://www.tiktok.com/@theoffice/video/7254560650909928750?...
| stewpy wrote:
| We only hire Americans from elite universities, but please come
| along and waste your time!
| dang wrote:
| Definitely not true! How did you get that impression?
|
| I wouldn't be here if it were--my cofounder Scott and I made it
| to YC from _way_ outside elite circles, US or otherwise. It 's
| really important not to go for these demoralizing assumptions,
| lest they become self-fulfilling prophesies.
|
| Here's some better information: if you can build, can make
| something people want, and are willing to be coached in the way
| that YC coaches founders, you have as good a chance as anyone
| at getting funded by YC. (And certainly a far better chance at
| not being overlooked for prejudicial reasons such as 'not from
| elite university'.)
|
| You may not be wrong in general--it's clear that class divides
| are increasingly organized around educational divides--but IMO
| this is less true of YC than society at large and it's a big
| part of YC's business for it to remain so.
|
| Edit: while I'm at it, something I wish more people would know
| is that if you apply to YC and get rejected, you should keep
| applying. Most YC startups didn't get in on their first try. If
| you do apply more than once, the key thing is to demonstrate
| progress since your previous application.
|
| So: don't give up, and definitely don't give up before you
| start!
| ethanwillis wrote:
| > but this is less true of YC than society at large, and it's
| a big part of YC's business for it to remain so.
|
| Are there collected statistics that showcase this?
| dang wrote:
| Good question. Probably? I imagine so. But I doubt the data
| is public. I'm just talking from my own observations in any
| case.
|
| Edit: i inserted an IMO into my comment to make that
| clearer
| abtinf wrote:
| You are too generous in your reply; the GP's position cannot
| be held honestly. Spending just a few minutes googling or
| searching HN would be enough.
|
| Just as a starting point, there's the ~quarterly immigration
| attorney AMA.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=proberts
| dang wrote:
| Peter will be doing another of those soon!
| ethanwillis wrote:
| It can be held honestly. I don't think it's productive to
| say another commenter can't possibly believe something I
| don't believe.
|
| In either case here's a better starting point. There are
| batch stats https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/yc-
| summer-2020-batch-stats
|
| that can be referenced against the founder directory.
| confoundcofound wrote:
| It has become a trope amongst many circles that the way to
| get into YC is to either come from an Ivy League school
| and/or "put a year in" at FAANG. I've heard it dozens of
| times over the past few years.
|
| YC outreach lately has seemed to be explicitly targeted to
| these demographics as well. I've seen posts by YC partners
| directed at MIT students and Big Tech employees, convincing
| them to apply to the program.
|
| For as long as I have followed and been a fan of YC, this has
| felt like a growing part of their strategy that they've been
| less honest about.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| 10x easier to raise capital from an elite university
| somedumderp wrote:
| Just drink the TESCRAEL koolaide and do an AI startup.
| freefruit wrote:
| Or apply with something they are looking to fund. Then change
| your idea to what you really want to do when you get in.
| (This is what Tiktok told me to do)
| throwaway35777 wrote:
| > Where did you get that impression
|
| Probably from Paul Graham:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39756865
| beastman82 wrote:
| Why do founders need to be in school?
| nodoodles wrote:
| Why do we need to meet YC partners to start a startup?
| cushychicken wrote:
| Why do fools fall in love?
| yashap wrote:
| It's worth noting that the main "startup school" doesn't have
| this limitation, neither does the core YC program. I'm guessing
| this specific event is just very targeted at a particular
| vertical - Boston area students. Talks that are very targeted
| towards student founders, trying to make connections between
| similar age/location entrepreneur types, etc.
|
| With that being said, I have zero association with YC, I could
| be wrong. But to me it just looks like a single event that's
| trying to be really specific and focused with their market.
| It's very common for meetups to have a very specific target
| market, it's more _uncommon_ to outright ban ppl outside the
| target market, but YC is so popular that if they didn't, they'd
| probably get a tonne of non-student, non-Boston-area ppl
| attending a meetup whose content is focused on Boston area
| students.
| fakedang wrote:
| And thus YC becomes a traditional company, let alone VC, with
| these campus placements from top schools. What happened to PG's
| mantras and vacillations about "The Reddits", and how they hired
| inexperienced founders from non target schools?
| somedumderp wrote:
| YC is TESCRAEL cultists and neofuedalist simps for folks like
| Sam Altman.
| Frummy wrote:
| So now that the recipe of "build stuff that people want" is
| so wildly successful, decentralised cults of near religious
| fear spring up that invent new categorisations of ideologies
| to criticise this simple recipe and its proponents. Dramatic,
| but inevitable? Googling TESCRAEL gives two results, an x
| thread and a blog post. Seems to be synthesis of internet
| tech optimism and acceleration and transhumanism. I will stay
| out of all the eventual madness apart from this small
| observation. Not reading the news, taking a walk in nature,
| yep, the world still exists outside of the internet...
| levocardia wrote:
| Will videos of the talks be recorded and posted to YouTube? I
| have really enjoyed the recordings of the older Startup School
| talks.
| sandslash wrote:
| Yes! It'll be recorded and put onto YouTube afterwards.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Should be a fun event with that date in Boston!
| ivan888 wrote:
| It seems like even the Startup School signup is limited to
| students. I applied anyway, and will comment again if I receive a
| response
| neilv wrote:
| Any chance it'll also be streamed live?
|
| I'm in Boston, but guessing 13 speakers is a long time to be in
| an event space with a lot of students bused in from various
| schools. (1-on-1 or few-on-few can be better in-person, but
| remote works a lot better for talks.)
|
| Also, Covid is going around the schools right now, and not
| everyone would let having Covid preclude a networking opportunity
| like this. Which would be a reason in favor of streaming (i.e.,
| lower the incentive to make a lot of people sick). And also a
| reason some people would opt to watch the stream.
| sandslash wrote:
| We're working with the venue to stream it. At the very least,
| we will be recording the entire event and uploading it to
| YouTube!
| canadiantim wrote:
| Funny they decided to do it on 420.
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(page generated 2024-03-27 23:00 UTC)