The brilliance of YCombinator, IMO, is HackerNews. It's turned YC into a self-perpetuating machine by getting smart people to congregate and talk about news YC itself partially generates.
I heard about YC, PG, and sama all through this outlet.
I heard about YC, PG, and sama all through this outlet.
Also a lot of the times the solutions given or explanations are amazingly good and entertaining. Thanks to YC I've become a better person I'd say.
I couldn't agree more, on both counts. It's such a thrill seeing a link to a research paper or exceptionally well written essay, and have the author answering questions in the comments. I can't even estimate how much general science, history, and literary education I've received this way, almost by accident. No doubt I am a much more well rounded person as a result.
I rarely read TFA. I'm here for the discussion, and if the discussion is extraordinarily interesting, I'll read the article for clarification. To me, HN is the "guild" that teaches fundamentals, and keeps me abreast of the state of the industry (and many, many unrelated topics that are equally interesting!). Normally this level of access to illuminating dialog would be restricted to universities, but I can get it here for free, in my underwear. I've spent a good part of my life geographically isolated from centers of learning and industry, and being able to remain in the loop is priceless. I doubt my personal and professional growth over the last 10 years would be a fraction of what it is if I hadn't had this resource. Yes, I am a fanboy.
Specifically I have become a better writer. The HN crowd is a tough but fair audience when it comes to upvotes on comments.
The strength of YC is the relatively large value they provide in exchange for your equity. Their "price" is still excellent and continues to clear the market. This becomes rapidly obvious if you attempt to raise early stage funding and start comparing options.
Aside from the actual cash and the famous network, YC and its partners have earned a reputation for sticking with their investments through tough times instead of writing them off. This seems relatively rare amongst early stage investors, especially outside the US. In my relatively few years of experience in business, I've learnt to value people in the "cooperate cooperate" quadrant of the Prisoner's Dilemma very highly, and it's not a reputation you can "buy" quickly.
HN is a place to have civilised discussions thanks to both a seed of core tech personalities for historical reasons drawing a network of quality, and thorough and active moderation. I think "self-perpetuating machine" is harsh and not quite representative of most of the value derived by those of us who are not part of the YC ecosystem and unlikely ever to be (and yes, I haven't read the original article).
PS: nice site! Light, fast and with just one tracker (but "old geeks" would crunch web logs, surely?)
And, thanks for the feedback OldGeekJobs. It's been making rounds on HN over the last two weeks.
This is a great way to put it. People who act in good faith are the only people I'd want to do business with, and YC has (rightfully IMO) earned a reputation for being a partner you can trust.
Edit: Getting downvoted, but these resources are really great, so I'm not sure what's going on. I just added links in case people are unfamiliar.
Before HN there was PG's blog.
Before pg's blog, there was /.,
before /. there was Carmack's .plan file ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12575501