What we've more seriously considered is randomly funding some companies just below the threshold.
Also, we do look at our ranking to see how companies at the top vs companies near the cutoff do. It's rare (but not unheard of) for a company very near the cutoff to be one of our most successful companies.
Would you ever consider releasing anonymized data on companies that apply and are accepted along with those who apply but aren't accepted into a batch? That'd give future applicants much more insight into the process.
since yc is obviously not going to talk shit on their own applicants, i'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it's just like every other job application process when six figures (or more) of money is on the line. big paychecks attract plenty of, shall we say, 'aspirational' applicants.
1. apps where spelling and grammar is clearly not a priority (sure, i'll give you 5 figures a month to spell shit wrong) 2. the wrong kind of company will apply, i.e. a restaurant 3. bullshit artists gonna bullshit, even when they stink 4. people simply not smart enough to do the job. just plain dumb is a real thing, folks. 5. people with too little real world experience 6. really stupid ideas (who's to judge? well, the people with the money get to judge, that's sort of how applications work)
the fact that you can use the term 'anonymized data' in a sentence that actually makes sense is going to put you in the top 10% automatically - yes, the bar is that low when you're dealing with the general public. the trick is getting into the top 1% though. it's a power law distribution of difficulty.
every job advertisement attracts applications like these, and yc is basically just a really, really fancy and structured super-duper college/job application process combined, but for crazed entrepreneurs (like me). you are going to get a lot, maybe even mostly people on the left hand side of the normal distribution of iq, talent, and work ethic/experience. the easy thing is the dipshits and fakers are easy to spot-and-drop almost immediately. i can basically glance at a resume and disqualify it in 10-15 seconds if it's not good enough. you just can't bullshit someone far smarter, more experienced, and better at bullshitting than you. CAVEAT: there are extremely smart and experienced bullshitters out there though -- that's the real danger area. that's what you're really worried about.
basically the only thing you can count on is that they want your money!!
Edit: I still think the idea of Dropbox is pretty stupid and I wouldn't have given Drew Houston a penny if I was an investor. But I never thought the average application would be so far worse if Dropbox got funded and succeeded.
the most uncommon and valuable skill in the world is for a smart person to willingly put themselves in a position where they could easily fail, or be ridiculed. dumb people do this all the time. this is an advantage to being dumb. you have no ego to lose. nor much of anything else.
that is the cross-section of intelligence and success. just look in the mirror for an example.
and for what it's worth, if you think dropbox is a tepid idea, just consider slack. enterprise irc with history and attachments. worth billions. there's more to it than just a cool idea. the example i always use is: i've got a great idea. let's build a time machine. it'll be great!
but i can read a lot into sama's "not very good" understatement. for a yc (or vc) partner to say that in an actual post is pretty telling.
and of course, my statement about grammar is grammatically wrong. not much changes on forum banter through the decades, does it?
You don't want to fund a company that doesn't know what they are doing and needs a lot of help to get to that level where they do get funded.
But that is a startup opportunity to help these awful companies get better so they can get funded and then pay the mentors money for the training.
I'm sure they get coffee shops and pizza places apply as well that don't qualify but want to do some sort of cybercafe in their store.
The short version is that there is an inverse relationship between actual and perceived skill. In general, the better someone is at something, the less they rate themselves relative to their peers.
This is a big problem when recruiting people for skilled positions. The best applicants assume that they won't be good enough and don't apply. The newest applicants have no reservations about applying and assume that they are qualified for anything, kind of like someone who graduates with a BS in CompSci and thinks it means he knows everything about being a professional programmer before he's even ever held a real programming position.
Joel Spolsky discusses this too! I can't seem to find the post right now, though. The gist is that he was encouraging good developers to apply to Fog Creek, because he noticed that a lot of developers he would have liked to hire were intimidated about applying there, as he had previously discussed things like dismissing non-amazing candidates, how rare it is for good people to be on the market, and the extensive perks his company extended to its developers (like an office with a door that shuts). The good people read these posts and automatically filtered themselves out, no doubt comparing against their idealized version of what they'd like themselves to be, emphasizing the gaps and flaws that they know are in their resume, instead of the reality of the applicant field, the competence of which most good people grossly overestimate.
There's another cheesy colloquialism that I think encompasses this well: "you're comparing your behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel". We use ourselves as the reference point for understanding others, but the intimacy we have with our own thoughts and failings can cause us to forget that they're not as big as they seem. We should be cautious before allowing ourselves to be intimidated by others, bearing in mind that we only see a small snippet of the picture.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Even for less technical people it makes sense and it is easily explained. Put the files in this folder and they are safe.
You seem pretty sure about this. How would you validate that belief? What are the consequences if you're wrong?
> i can basically glance at a resume and disqualify it in 10-15 seconds if it's not good enough.
I'd suggest taking a more systematic approach. You may be rejecting some great candidates without decreasing the likelihood of false negatives.
> you just can't bullshit someone far smarter, more experienced, and better at bullshitting than you.
If you can't spot the fish, then ...
Also, why you no use capitalization? It makes your post read dumb.
The thing about saying no is that it's a lot less risky than saying yes, in terms of damage potential, not necessarily in terms of "lost upside" (which IMO is something that rarely merits consideration). If you pass on a good candidate, they will move on and find another home that works for them; no harm, no foul, so one doesn't need to feel bad about admitting that the person is skilled, but just not a good fit.
If you bring someone on board and they turn out bad, they can and often do cause substantial harm to the company/org. Once they're there, they have access to everything they need to wreak havoc, and as I'm sure you know, malicious intentions unfortunately aren't really necessary to cause problems. Big issues for your company can be caused by simple incompetence.
Joel Spolsky discusses this in his essay on interviewing [0]. It's just much safer to let the candidates that aren't enthusiastic yesses go than take a gamble and lose.
>Also, why you no use capitalization? It makes your post read dumb.
I don't really mind this, but I do think this is noteworthy since he specifically called out spelling and grammatical errors as disqualifiers. I assume in reality, he's forgiving of personal quirks or typos, and means that he rejects candidates out of hand who appear genuinely unable to spell or properly utilize much of the industry's vernacular.
[0] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing...
My guess would be that applicants to Y-Combinator are probably along the same spectrum–some great ideas, some decent ideas, and a lot of junk inbetween.