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>What an incredible, amazing experience.

You realize you can do everything you said, without living in someone's closet, in 99% of the world, right?

YC is making billions and their workers are living in closets. That's insane.

Founders are not "workers" for YC. They're trying to do something exceptional with extremely scarce resources.

Founders are workers. They are the ones doing all the work and throwing years of their life away.

They are only workers if they do not to reap the benefits of their work 100%.

Indeed, they are not workers.

Workers get paid for their work. Founders don't get a paycheck.

Actually, they do. All employees of a company have to pay themselves a minimum wage, at least. Founders are employees in their own company. And they (usually) own majority stock in the company - if there is a payout for YC, founders make more money than YC does.

> Who wouldn't want to work on something awesome

There's "working on something awesome" and there's "working on something (I think is) awesome". I see a lot more of the latter, and much less of the former, and it's hard to tell the difference. But... when it's easy to tell the difference... it's hard to accept if you're in the latter camp.

To me it just sounds like actors in Hollywood, not doing the acting they want to do, but doing a lot of waiter work.

People do this because they want to earn equity and build a business from scratch. That's how wealth is built from nothing in a capitalist society.

The situation is that YC helps engineers and designers and product people build something from scratch and own it, instead of working for other people. The correct analogy would be actors who own the studio who are trying to make the next Disney. They get to act and own the means of production at the same time.

There is never a better time than now.

Actually yesterday is often a better time

> Are you kidding? I would do it in a heartbeat. I'm not joking. Who wouldn't want to work on something awesome with all their heart with their friends in East Palo Alto for a couple years?

Working on something awesome with friends should not, and in most cases does not, require living in a closet. In most cases it doesn't require being in the same room, city, state, or even country.

> Why not? What an incredible, amazing experience.

Haha. Looks like the punch bowl is empty. Somebody make another round of kool-aid!

> It was my dream since 17. It never came, because I never found anyone else in the midwest who was interested in starting anything. Everybody wants to work for someone else, or hates the VC ecosystem instead of playing the game. And what can you do alone? I should've moved to SF.

You can do plenty alone. Only way you'll know how much is if you start.

You'll also see how much easier it is for others to join you if you're already doing something. Sitting at home feeling sorry for yourself won't find you a co-founder, building something will.

Haha. Looks like the punch bowl is empty. Somebody make another round of kool-aid!

You know, I've heard this type of irritating comment so many times over the years. I've been on HN since day two of its public launch, back when it was called Startup News. It was a magical time, mostly because everyone was universally supportive. This isn't a rose-tinted view of the past, or selective memory. It was the reason I was blown away by this internet community.

The cynical comments would pop up on Reddit, mostly from pg's essay posts. I couldn't understand their point of view. Were they jealous? Did they care so much about what other people were doing with their lives that they would choose to mock them publicly? I didn't know, but I felt lucky that HN wasn't one of those places.

Then as HN grew, it started here. Mostly people remained supportive, but there was this undercurrent of negativity that kept creeping in, proportional to HN's size.

Now I wake up nearly a decade later to see many people who share your ideas, that only fools would dare gamble their youth, that taking anything but the safe and rational route is "drinking kool-aid," that pg's essays are manipulative, and so on.

And so I realize that YC founders now have their own community, separate from HN, and the electrifying experience of the early days of Startup News is no longer present.

But I was there. I saw it, I flew to SF and met a bunch of YC co's, I saw their optimism and courage, and you could not be more mistaken about the type of people they are.

I'm not saying that it's all wonderful, or that they're giants, or that there are "normal" people and "special" people interested in startups. I'm saying that startups are started by regular people, like you and me, and that without a supportive community, it's incredibly difficult to start anything.

I didn't even care about getting rich. I just wanted to help somehow. But I'm just happy that their community grows and grows and becomes stronger in spite of your negative voice, and all the negative voices across the internet. It seems like proof that you have to not care what people think to get things done.

I'm not saying that pursuing a startup is always a bad idea. I'm saying that romanticizing living in somebody else's closet as part of the startup journey is wrong.

Building something that people what is what counts. Getting customers to pay you for it is what counts. Having profits is what counts.

Software (and startups in general) doesn't get created because you're eating beans and rice, heated off a hot-plate, in the closet of your friends apartment. It gets created when you sit down to do real work.

> But I was there. I saw it, I flew to SF and met a bunch of YC co's, I saw their optimism and courage, and you could not be more mistaken about the type of people they are.

There's nothing courageous about taking unnecessary risks. That's called being foolish.

Again, I'm not saying don't take risks. To win big you have to bet big. But it's not the risks or bets that matter, it's the pay off. That's what has to make sense.

> But I'm just happy that their community grows and grows and becomes stronger in spite of your negative voice, and all the negative voices across the internet.

Reality always has a negative tone to it. If it didn't, we wouldn't need idealists.

> It seems like proof that you have to not care what people think to get things done.

Well this I can agree on.

This is exactly correct. Whats good about a startup is not living in a closet or getting to talk about how cool you are for living in a closet. That is exactly what is bad about the experience. Pretending it is good is roughly denial or some other similarly named vice.

Would you say the same thing about doing an Ironman, or climbing Mt Everest when you can just get helicoptered to the top?

Part of the attraction of doing things like these lies in proving to yourself that you can do it, and by doing this you fortify yourself mentally for the challenges that lie ahead.

Another result is that you become a "team" precisely because you have this shared experience. It's sort of like going through basic training in the military.

Software (and startups in general) doesn't get created because you're eating beans and rice, heated off a hot-plate, in the closet of your friends apartment.

I actually disagree with this. Living in near-poverty gives two distinct advantages:

- Reduced number of available ways to occupy your time.

- Visceral hunger to improve your situation.

I'm reminded of the Hikikomori thread here; these individuals withdraw from society because society gives them enough to survive and be entertained. If you withdrew their preferred method of passing the time -- say you can live alone, but no video games -- I suspect many would lead a different lifestyle.

So you could plot people on a graph of the ambitiousness of how they would ideally like to spend their time vs how badly they want to get there. For the sake of discussion, let's say one of the axes goes:

- Books

- Video Games

- Travel, sports, friends

- Yachting

- Going to Mars

For me personally, I enjoy books, video games, travel, and friends, but these in a way seem "not enough" for me to lead a fulfilling life. So I'm making plans to do more.

Yacht-class recreation wasn't enough for Elon Musk, so now he's going to Mars.

In a way, startup poverty is an interesting motivational hack -- living well below your earning potential gives you the hunger, but you apply that hunger to something with a higher potential rate of return, instead of just getting a market-rate job.

I'm not saying that pursuing a startup is always a bad idea. I'm saying that romanticizing living in somebody else's closet as part of the startup journey is wrong.

They are rational, intelligent adults, and they don't need or want anyone to be outraged on their behalf.

I'm not sure where you got the impression he was outraged on their behalf. Clearly they were ok with it, but the person's point seems to be "don't get the wrong idea that living like this is good"

Why tell anyone how they should be living? Or look down on them for it? Or advise people that they should keep their head down and not chase their dreams (as in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13900883)?

What exactly were you going to do with your youth that was so much more interesting that you'd do that instead of creating your own business while having the full force of YC alums pushing you on?

If you want to do something else, great. It's perfectly ok to spend your youth however you want. There's nothing wrong with choosing a safe path.

But if people want to chase their dreams in irrational ways, then cheer for them!

I didn't say to not chase ones dreams. I said don't be a fool about it. There's no need to live like this to pursue a startup and I'll call out anyone I see romanticizing it as wrong 7 days a week.

> But if people want to chase their dreams in irrational ways, then cheer for them!

Everybody loves rooting for the crazy underdog but that doesn't mean we want people we care about to be in their situation. In a sibling comment someone referenced being an actor/waiter in Hollywood. I think it's a great non-tech example of reality vs romanticized "follow your dream" stories.

I'd rather be a fool than a cynic.

Not being a romantic is not remotely the same as being a cynic dude. Its actually obnoxious of you to suggest that they are the same thing. Most functioning people are not particularly romantic in my experience. Similarly, most (and I would include myself here) are not cynics.

Whatsmore, being a cynic is something that is often appropriate, particularly when dealing with wild romantics.

> Its actually obnoxious of you

Please abide by the rules here and don't be uncivil.

People are free to make an informed decision in either way, if you think im suggesting coercion youre misreading me.

But the key word is informed. Suggesting that it is normal or even broadly considered acceptable to live in a closet is a lie.

Encourage people however you like but if you need to lie to them then I'm absolutely not ok with it.

Who cares what's normal or acceptable, short of illegal?

Why not be crazy in your youth? It's your youth! Spend it however you want. Spend it in ways that you look back and don't regret having taken a safe path.

I don't think anyone is lying about anything. Everyone is extremely quick to point out that living in a closet isn't normal.

But it's awesome. They actually had the courage to do that. And that is wonderful, and worth celebrating.

They didn't give a damn what was normal and did whatever was pragmatic. I'm glad there are places like that in the world.

You're certainly missing my point here.

I added a bit to the end of my comment. It sounds like you're worried that people are lying to others, or are somehow acting in ways that are malicious. But all that's happening here is cheering for founders.

From personal experience its very possible to believe you are obliged to sacrifice your own well being, and you are obliged to be passionate about something. This is my motivation here.

Ah. Yeah, I can see that.

If the pressures are aligned too strongly in the other direction, and someone is feeling squeezed, they should focus on themselves and act accordingly. As you say, it's easy to forget that.

Can we see eye to eye that my stance is the same thing, but from the opposite direction? It's very possible to believe you're obliged to do the safe thing, to worry about whether you're supporting yourself or living up to your parents' expectations, and to think that you should suppress your dreams to appease others.

It's the path that society pushes you into by default, which is why it's worth being keenly aware of it and triple checking that you're ok with choosing it. Because you only get to make that choice once or at most a few times, often when you don't know any better.

Sure I can see that I guess.

There are reasons for this. The community is no longer is a small upstart community, it represents the ruling class in our society, and people are literally terrified of how the tech sector is going to change their lives.

The most fundamental political and social issue of our entire generation is the rapidly accelerating rise in economic inequality. Huge swaths of our society feel, correctly, like they are being systematically excluded from even being able to participate in the culture they were born in.

They can't treat sick family members, they can't retire, they can't get jobs with paid time off and benefits. They, correctly, consider this community to be one of the forces causing these changes. Their lives are, literally, being disrupted.

Class resentment is arguably the most powerful force in politics and history, ever. It's the underpinning of ever major revolution and social upheaval. The YC founders are billionaires now. That matters.

Why can't we just keep eating cake, you say? Perhaps we should look out the window and past the gatehouse, as there are torches and pitchforks gathering.

Also you made an important point which I think has been completely overlooked by many here. HackerNews no longer has the regular presence of those involved in YC, because there's now BookFace which looks to have came about around 2015.

> "And so I realize that YC founders now have their own community, separate from HN, and the electrifying experience of the early days of Startup News is no longer present."

Which is called out in the article > "My first line of defense when encountering a problem is Bookface , a private forum for Y Combinator alumni."

Whenever there is adventure, there is a threshold guardian warning of the dangers. We would do well to remember that without the threshold guardian, there could be no adventure.

It's a pity they're on the adventurers' website though, while the adventurers have moved on...

Thumbs up. If this is getting down voted, all bets are off.

You can never start a successful startup without drinking the koolaid. Every single startup is a crazy impossible idea, until someone buckles down and grinds it out.

It's far easier to do this with a partner than alone. Self doubt is a killer and it's easy to lose motivation, but when you make a commitment to another person it will reinforce and motivate both of you.