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Comment by habosa | Hacker News Reader

I believe this is the first ever YC company to go public? If so congrats to YC as well as the team at Dropbox.

A few years back (2015?) pg was on a panel and asked if YC made any mistakes on the application process. He acknowledged they did — Robert Morris gave a low score and wrote “spam” in the comments section of the application of a particular company that started looking successful, so they refined their process. It seemed clear he was talking about SendGrid which went through TechStars and went public in late 2017.

I don’t know why you still can’t search video transcripts, otherwise that video would be easy to find. Any ideas?

Wasn't Dropbox also one of their solo founders? I wonder if YC ever rethought that filter given their success.

Arash is a cofounder iirc.

The story is Drew applied to YC solo, but pg strongly encouraged him to find a co-founder. Arash joined as the co-founder before YC started: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/18/paul-grah...

tada:

https://www.quora.com/Why-was-SendGrid-rejected-from-YCombin...

Curious why going public deserves an applause. Is being private a bad thing?

It's more of a "congrats on the money" applause.

It signifies a milestone. Being single isn't bad but there's no problem celebrating a wedding

Well. For Y-Combinator is a win. It's an opportunity to convert their equity to cash and get a return on their investment.

Private companies that operate at a positive cash-flow are free to distribute profits to shareholders. Sure, going public makes it easier for investors to liquidate their stock, but that doesn't mean you can't get returns from investments in private companies.

As a practical matter, Dropbox is operating at a loss, yet has value as a company because of the expectation that it will hopefully someday turn a profit. IPOing allows Y Combinator, which specializes in early stage investment, to realize a return on their investment and invest in more companies without having to wait even longer.

It's simply a major milestone and (theoretically) a sign that the company has reached a point of stability and market size that it can weather public markets.

It's also an important liquidation event for employees and investors.

You don’t have to clap.

One could probably make the argument it deserves the opposite of applause.

When you take investment money, it comes with the expectation that there will be a liquidity event. (going public, selling to another corporation) Being private is not a bad thing at all, in fact I would expect most entrepreneurs would prefer that their companies remain private. However you've accepted a faustian bargain once you take money from someone else. Going public is seen as the most desirable liquidity event, since the company still controls its own agency and you maximize choice if/when you want to sell your stake in ownership.

The bot has spoken.

The most important thing out of all, really, is funding through public market.

If you believe the profits of our industry should be captured by more than just a few uber-wealthy, well-connected individuals, you applaud.

Buying a stock on the NYSE is doable with a bit of extra cash and the touch of a button in a trading app these days. Some would argue that even this is too high a barrier for the poor and marginalized, but it makes it possible for at least a portion of the professional class to participate.

Assuming the IPO goes well they should get applause because YC and employees will get liquidity. That said, if the IPO is priced low, employees and some investors may not get a large windfall and may not celebrating too much (kind of like how you do not always celebrate a large down round).

I think that's true. I always thought AirBnb was going to be the first one to go public.

Wasn't Square a YC company? They went public in 2016 I think.

Nope. You're thinking about Stripe

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