Hacker News Reader

Comment by shafyy | Hacker News Reader

I'm a bit worried that we might be seeing "peak YC".

Clearly, Sam Altman and Michael Seibel are the most influential and impactful people that drive YC forward. Sam's on the way out, and I wouldn't be surprised if Michael also leaves in 1-2 years. Is YC going to be able to innovate without them?

Furthermore, I would suggest that YC is becoming more risk-averse as it grows (as any organization does). Will that mean worse decision making?

Another point is that the average age of YC partners is growing. Will that hinder them to spot and understand new trends, and pick the right companies?

Now, this is an outside-view analysis. I've spoken to a few YC partners (as part of office hours or at events), but never went through YC myself. I know quite a few people who did, and they seem always most impressed with Sam and Michael.

Edit: Typos

View on HN

One could have made the same observation when Paul and Jessica stepped aside. But instead of flattening or falling, YC bloomed to new heights. As long as the folks who take over are as capable and motivated I think it will keep getting better.

As for the comments about the partner ages, I don't think that's true because they keep brining on partners. Also, I'd say they had the opposite problem before: to many young partners who were only enamored with new stuff and not interested in "boring old things".

As to the risk averseness, that one I agree with you on. I get the impression that they have so much data now that they rely more on the data than on intuition which of course probably gives them better consistent smaller returns but might mean they are missing out on the next AirBnB or Dropbox.

The entire partnership is incredible and does a huge amount of valuable work, and startup advising, that they don't get nearly enough credit for.

I'll still be involved (and will ensure we continue to take risks and grow!), and obviously Michael is amazing.

By damn, I just love when the big kahunas still involve themselves in the community they cultivated so long ago. Cheers, Sam; the best of luck to you and the team at YC.

I didn't mean to say that not all partners are great at what they do :-)

We're nearly always worried that we're past our prime, which is part of what drives us to try new things.

Rather than become more risk averse, I've actually seen us take increasingly large risks in the five years since I've joined. A few examples: investing in a greater number of sectors, investing in new markets, investing in different stages, advising thousands of companies (startup school), challenging the norms of fundraising (series A program)...The list keeps going.

Taking on increasingly risky projects can be a sign of risk aversion though. E.g. working on (or funding) moon shot projects can be a way to avoid having to hold yourself accountable if the project fails, whereas it's much harder to put all your eggs in one basket behind a strategy that should actually succeed if well executed.

I'm not saying YC is guilty of this generally, but I do see it sometimes. E.g. I think pursuing the artificial kidney thing is kind of a cop out compared to getting states to change their laws so that people are opted into organ donation by default, since if the former fails you can just say it was because the technology isn't here yet whereas with the latter it concretely shows that you just weren't able to get it done.

More people involved almost always leads to less risk taken within an organization. Of course, "risk" is hard to back up with data in the short-term in this instance.

However, number of sectors, number of companies and challenging the norms of fundraising is not what I mean by risk. I meant rather investing in companies where 99.99% of all other VCs would pass. And I'm not saying that you're NOT doing that, I'm just saying that theoratically that could become an issue and I'm worried about that (because I want YC to be successful!)

Or, to put it in another way: It's not clear to me if in YC's case bigger = better. Maybe there's an optimum somewhere?

Don't worry - I'm not going anywhere :)

That's exactly what I've said about three days before handing in my two weeks notice in the past ;)

A few years ago, you could have written the same post except with the name "Paul Graham" instead of "Sam Altman".

YC has become a brand like harvard or stanford. The best are going to apply there.Even if you are terrible picking winners and loser you are picking from bunch of impressive people so you will have winners.

I don’t buy that. A significant number of people around the world have heard of Harvard, while I doubt that most people in the U.S. alone have heard of YCombinator. I’m yet to talk to a friend or family member about this place without having to explain what YC is. Nobody has to explain Harvard.

Not to say YC isn’t a big, impressive brand that draws talent, just that it’s still orders of magnitude from the top of the Ivy League.

Harvard is well known amongst people who attend college or who are interested in college. YC is probably equally well known amongst entrepreneurs or people who are interested in entrepreneurship.

It's just that people who attend college or are interested in college is a much bigger group than entrepreneur.

Harvard is probably one of the top 10 global brands along with Coke and Nike.

Absurdly not the case. You are in a bubble.

Not sure what bubble that would be. I didn’t attend Harvard and don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has. I also don’t live in the United States.

The concept of a university is fairly universal (pun intended) and surely Harvard or Oxford are considered the “best” at least in terms of name recognition.

You’re on HN. Go to yemen and ask your question.

According to Wikipedia, there are more than 20 universities in Yemen. I’m pretty sure they’ve heard of Harvard.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Yeme...

Which is different to being in the most recognisable brands in the world, with coke, disney, manchester united, etc etc.

The parent simply stated that YC had become a brand like Harvard or Stanford. That's very clearly true, YC is the best in the world at what it does and it's extremely well known in tech. It is a potent brand. I don't see where the parent was implying YC was as well known globally as Harvard.

Harvard also isn't as well known as Coca Cola (not even remotely close in fact). That lower recognition doesn't mean that Harvard isn't a brand that represents eg a very high standard in its field.

Coca Cola is the most recognized brand on Earth, Harvard is the most reputable university brand on Earth. It actually seems like a good comparison.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/03/14/the-w...

I think comparing an accelerator to a university is flawed for so many reasons.

It's not, because the comparison was about brand value and brand perception. YC and Harvard have a very similar elite only-the-best-get-in-and-then-you're-set perception in their respective markets (plus a scarily similar "if you know guys who knows guys, it'll be easier to get in" aspect).

They're more similar than dissimilar. For example, both try to have a selective process where they try to gauge potential of applicants, and whether they're worth investing resources into. Universities are actually a specific subset of accelerators..

> I would suggest that YC is becoming more risk-averse as it grows

YC Startup School shows the opposite

Which big outcomes do you think represent particularly savvy trend spotting?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com