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"We expect a fraction of Pioneers to start companies. In exchange for the investment and benefits below, Pioneer will retain 3% of any company you found over the next eight years. Pioneer will also have the option of investing an additional $20,000 for 5% in any of those companies. These conditions apply if you already have an incorporated company."

yeah, as an outsider looking for entry into startup - it just doesn't seem right! i get the fact that you guys have to fund the company some way! but it just seems too costly. i would be short selling myself.

urg. yeah. Seems like some baggage that might hurt your ability to be part of a founding team too.

If you have the opportunity to join other programs, go for it! Our hope is that this model enables us to reach the billions of people that are outside the network of Silicon Valley. They might not even be sure if they have a "company". They just want support on whatever project they're pursuing.

We're hoping that becoming a Pioneer vastly increases the odds that you turn your "shower-thought" into something real, even if it takes a few years to mature.

We're going to be making bets on folks substantially before they have the indicia of success that investors screen for. Before anyone could even say "This person will someday found a company." The math for this to be sustainable requires that the equity slice be higher than someone would ask for if they knew 100% of their investments were in high-potential companies.

This is a chicken-egg scenario:

1) I'd be less apprehensive about giving away 8% to any (!) company I found if I knew the network/guidance/community were proven.

2) You need track records of success before the network/guidance/community is seen as worth it. Right now, it's a gamble since you're new.

So you need a population of people willing to take a lower amount of money with a gamble on community quality.

Given that, it seems better off to wait.

If you are able to think through this, this fund is not for you. As mentioned in OP's comment, they are targeting folks who aren't even sure if they are building a company, just based on their 'potential'. It is a risky endeavor and from that perspective, the equity portion is justified. For someone who has access to this advice and support, it's not worth it. But for those who don't, this is Godsent.

this is a deal breaker as it makes your plan B inviable.

if your startup fails, you will never join another as an earlier employer, which is the plan B for most failed founders. becuase now you are a toxic asset to any early stage company which you can be said to be a early founder. now you will only be able to find 9-5 jobs at big Co as your plan B.

If the network you offer is very valuable, and you maintain a good relationship with the future founder, they will probably choose you as an investor automatically when the time comes, out of trust and simplicity.

> "shower-thought"

It strikes me that the lack of conviction in the people that the Pioneer fund itself is selecting (as evidenced by such a low amount of money for such a high percentage, and lock-in) means that all that they will get is going to be half-baked shower thoughts. Ultimately, you get what you pay for.

It's just marketing spin on what incubators and many early venture firms typically do, except your goal is particularly to exploit people from around the world who may not yet be savvy to how the SV system "works."

And before you object to the notion of exploitation, let's just contrast your quasi-moral claims about loss to "the economy from the loss of ideas and wealth they could have produced," to the rather huge liberties you'll take with the people who you'll be supporting. So are you really concerned about the grand loss to the world of people in whom the world doesn't sufficiently invest, or are you most concerned about maximizing venture capital? These goals are in logical conflict.

Without hitting on whether or not this is the right company to do this, I don't think the idea is itself at all unreasonable. By the time you're concerned about 8% equity, you've basically already 'made it' in the sense that you have likely have enough capital to start to more independently pursue your other ideas, or alternatively seek more favorable funding with some history for more traditional venture capital types.

This project seems to be clearly aiming people who have ambition and competence, but minimal to no current resources or connections; the goal being to get them to where that is no longer the case -- helping them to reach their potential. It's hard to call anything at all exploitative if it succeeds in getting people from that critical nothing to something point, regardless of how it does it.

8 years is a long time though, and could potentially be more than one company.

Indentured servitude.

At 3%? Indentured servitude was 100%.

I've always thought this argument was really hypocritical. The argument is you shouldn't be concerned about a few percent of equity since once it matters you will be rich and not care. Except the person making that argument is certainly rich and seems to care a lot about these few percentage points. Why are we expected to not care when they clearly do?

Similarly, those few % of equity means less equity later for future rounds of funding or for paying out to employees.

"by the time you're concerned about 8% equity, you've basically already 'made it' in the sense that you have likely have enough capital to start "

Nope! haven't made it.

"This project seems to be clearly aiming people who have ambition and competence, but minimal to no current resources or connections; the goal being to get them to where that is no longer the case -- helping them to reach their potential"

hi, that's me!

"It's hard to call anything at all exploitative if it succeeds in getting people from that critical nothing to something point"

i see the value of taking people from nothing to critical mass i.e - YC. in case of pioneers - i might be nothing now but highly unlikely - i will be nothing for the next 8 years!

imho, this 5 + 3% won't select for the best of people! I would totally judge a person who lock herself in this 8 year contract! that's just me

3% for so little cash is not enough to fund projects in anything besides short term software plays with an acquisition exit strategy. This is a valuation of ~100k which is less than what a bay area software developer makes in a year.

+5% for 20k is not that much better, it's a valuation of less than half a million.

If you want a biotech, or a hardware company, or something that really moves the needle, you'll have to put more money in there. Things that really change the world need a longer runway. Things that change the physical world need 5-10 years of burndown funding, and a team of 5-20 people.

20k buys you an hplc. Or a really cheap shuttle run. What is the expectation beyond that? Further raises on an early seed? Even let's say there's a 5x bump in value, to raise 1-2m to do something real and hire people takes on the order of 20-40%... And I've seen more than one companies fail to raise a series A with a risky and dangerous new idea because there had been too much seed dilution.

I couldn't do some really basic cancer drug research on $60k - i had to stop renting a lab and move to my garage, deal with multiple equipment failures from out of pocket, and suffer 3-and-going-years of delay due to having to get a job and reequilibrate personal finances and lose time to work on it, and I'm continuing work on a dribble as and when I can afford to do it... $20K would not have covered my animal studies, which themselves were low-n and strictly "proof of principle". Even this project had its initial phases funded through the traditional academe, and I don't see such a low investment getting any such a thing to a point where a for-profit would have a saleable asset (be it IP or otherwise) or at least a product and cashflow to convince series A to throw in when so much equity has already been given.

I listened to your Kara Swisher interview recently and one part stood out above everything else. You admitted that if you had not been accepted by YC, you would likely not have had the success you've had.

That kind of honest self-reflection is something sorely missing in Silicon Valley. Far too many people think their success was inevitable and completely self-made. Very few acknowledge the very rare kinds of help they received, and for a small turn in fortune, might not have received.

It's a great thing that you've not forgotten how different your life could have been without opportunity. And it's a beautiful thing that you're using your success to extend that opportunity to others.

I'm sure your resources are limited now but hopefully over time you will expand the grant (or investment) to help more people and with more money.

Congrats and good luck!

Thank you! I wrote some more about that here: https://pioneer.app/blog/hello. Everyone needs their first stepping stone, and I'm hopeful with Pioneer that we can provide that in a much more scalable way.

Looking at your application process, I cannot help but notice how poorly Einstein himself would have performed in such an arena.

But, maybe I’m missing something.

You mention an aim to support high-achieving outcasts, but the application process appears to be, as another comment mentioned, a popularity contest. What is the thinking behind that?

Daniel, this is incredible! I was actually going to shoot you an email about when AI grant's next phase is going to be for my Modular Neural Networks project.

I think one of the largest problems a lot of creative, insanely formidable people face are a barrier to entry to a network like this. That is one thing I've always admired about YC, Startup school. Pioneer's value in this would be insane.

I'm looking forward to the results, and hopefully climbing up the leaderboard myself over the next few months ;)

One piece of feedback that stood out to me on the home page: in the headline you say you're building a community of "young" people.

You can probably imagine that–for some–that statement doesn't really jive with being "open for all", etc.

As someone who is an artist on the side, the fact that this can fund art projects sounds terrific. But I'm wondering what could be expected when an artist goes to SF? The mentoring and networking aspects of such things seem less applicable to an art project vs. a company, so could you tell us what you had in mind for such scenarios?

Although most comments here are kind of negative, I just want to say initiatives like this are amazing.

Not sure what kind of ideas you’ll fund but there are lots of really smart people who love to tinker and solve problems. Being able to give them some runaway fuel so they can focus on problem solving rather than staying alive by taking a job they don’t love can go a long way.

When YC started, no one knew what it would become. It had good intentions, some money and a pool of wiling young folks to bust their asses.

And I think that concoction is amazing. Mentoring + network + funding + talent.

I really wish you the best.

"we’re trying to do most of the screening in software. Becoming a Pioneer requires winning the Pioneer Tournament" Is this a code challenge? Where do I find it?

https://pioneer.app/

Looks like it's more of a popularity contest than anything else.

Right. The application process appears to openly prioritize marketing skills, which puts it in serious conflict with the stated goal.

> Right. The application process appears to openly prioritize marketing skills, which puts it in serious conflict with the stated goal.

Exactly. To quote [1]:

"The world is full of extraordinarily creative people that are struggling to fit in.".

If the candidate is struggling to fit in, he/she is probably not "the popular kid" or a highly successful self-marketer.

Another quote from [1]:

"Our goal is to build a decentralized network of young, creative and exceptionally motivated outsiders who don’t fit in to the traditional system.".

I personally would claim that such self-marketing is exactly what the "traditional system" is (among other things) strongly about. So making it a popularity contest is opposed to the self-stated/self-imposed goals.

[1] https://pioneer.app/

If I could make a recommendation, it wouldn't hurt to specifically call out some marginalized groups that often get left out of the Silicon Valley VC mix. Not to call out VCs or anything, but after a while people start to get the idea that even groups that seem generally inviting tend to have hidden biases. And yeah it could be an infinitely long list, but look at it as just being reassuring to those people who might not take the risk. Off the top of my head: people in so-called "flyover states", LGBT+, disabled people, anyone working on research or art that's remotely sex-related.

Neat idea, but isn't the $5k amount for 3 months kinda low?

good idea, I would be more specific about the company/equity side of it. 3% is a lot of equity to give up right off the bat. YC has a specific program at least.

> I'm passionate about this work because I'm the benefactor of a similar system.

Perhaps I misunderstand, but I think you mean "beneficiary".

I think what you're doing is great! Keep it up!

What a wonderful opportunity! Inspiring!