[HN Gopher] Michael Seibel is leaving Y Combinator
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Michael Seibel is leaving Y Combinator
Author : khaledg
Score : 62 points
Date : 2025-03-20 14:10 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| light_triad wrote:
| Big fan of Michael's content over the years - will miss his
| videos with Dalton.
|
| One incredible thing about Michael is behind every sentence you
| can hear the amount of pain he had to endure to succeed. He's not
| just giving you startup advice, he's a lone survivor who's come
| back to tell the tale. The whole startup game is about extreme
| outliers and he's always been very real about this fact.
|
| Was re-reading his post on How to Pitch Your Company from 2016
| (The Seven Questions), it's a great read:
|
| https://www.michaelseibel.com/blog/how-to-pitch-your-company
| neilv wrote:
| > _He 's not just giving you startup advice, he's a lone
| survivor who's come back to tell the tale._
|
| Well put.
| otterley wrote:
| > The next adventure I'm excited to pursue (after taking the
| summer to relax) is how I can help government better serve its
| citizens. Thank you to the countless friends who have been
| pushing me in this direction for years. Government was the
| passion of my youth and I'm excited to reengage.
|
| Uhhh... why now? Right now, (at least the Federal) government is
| currently on a self-destruction spree. AFAICT, they're not really
| interested in help to improve itself and serve citizens better.
|
| Maybe in 4 years--if there's anything left of it--it might be a
| good opportunity.
| tptacek wrote:
| Most of the government that ordinary people interact with isn't
| federal.
| otterley wrote:
| He might also mean some other country's government, in which
| case, he might have better luck.
| covercash wrote:
| Or just local SF politics... the billionaire/VC obsession
| with SF politics is very odd and unhealthy from my outside
| perspective.
|
| It could also be related to the libertarian utopian startup
| cities VCs are funding.
| tptacek wrote:
| It's a deeply dysfunctional city with lots of low-
| hanging-fruit policy changes available, it's surprising
| there aren't _more_ VC people involved.
| otterley wrote:
| I'm not sure what special skills VCs have that would make
| their contributions more useful and valuable than those
| of other contributors. They have a certain perspective
| around improving the startup business climate, but cities
| aren't built and operated to serve them in particular.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't think they have any special skills, just that
| they're concentrated in one of the most dysfunctional
| cities in the country.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Maybe they're part of the problem?
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm not interested in litigating the merits of VCs, I was
| commenting positively and not normatively on the
| peculiarly small ratio of engaged financiers to obvious
| urban dysfunction in San Francisco.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| He's running (for something)
| nedwin wrote:
| Now is the perfect time for this.
|
| For starters it takes years to sell into government any way. If
| he writes his first line of code today they might have a
| sellable product ready in a year. Then getting FEDRAMP
| accredited and going through procurement cycles probably
| another year or so.
|
| I think the current administration is likely open to
| technology-first solutions to reduce friction in government,
| and the next administration is likely going to have to take a
| similar approach too.
| otterley wrote:
| He didn't say whether he working on a technology solution.
| That's possible, but I was assuming he was heading towards a
| more philanthropic approach (which is the ideal end state for
| a wealthy person).
| nedwin wrote:
| Maybe! Still a great time though my attitude is pretty much
| "any time is a great time" for starting something.
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| > I think the current administration is likely open to
| technology-first solutions to reduce friction
|
| The facts are they are actively working to introduce more
| friction, red tape, waste, and dysfunction into the
| government. Making the government more effective and
| efficient is the opposite of their goals stated in Project
| 2025.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| Trump and Elon's entire plan is to make government more
| inefficient to convince people that giving large chunks of
| public funding to private business to run government is a
| good idea.
| kittikitti wrote:
| In his bio, "Before getting into tech, I spent 2006 as the
| finance director for a US Senate campaign in Maryland. In 2005,
| I graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in
| political science."
|
| The question can also be posed, why stay in big tech as it's
| also imploding?
| 9283409232 wrote:
| Big tech is not imploding.
| bayarearefugee wrote:
| True.
|
| It is going to be more of an explosion than an implosion
| when the "AI" bubble (that big tech is desperately using a
| smokescreen to hide the fact that they have nothing
| interesting to offer these days) bursts.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| Big tech is not exploding. I see a lot of wishful
| thinking when it comes to the bubble bursting but it is
| all just wishful thinking and not actually happening.
| dmazin wrote:
| I remember going to some sort of BBQ YC hosted years ago. Michael
| went up on stage and talked, with exasperation, about their
| heroic efforts to keep Socialcam up as it skyrocketed.
|
| Seems like a good guy.
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| Michael is one of the most positive founder champions around. His
| positivity is infectious.
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(page generated 2025-03-20 23:02 UTC)