YC Interviews in India | Hacker News Reader

YC Interviews in India

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258 pointskatm77 comments

With YC China in the works and now interviews being held in India, it looks like YC is making a strong push to get a solid foothold in two obviously huge markets that have fairly weak Western presence. Seems like a smart move, it'll definitely be interesting to see what YC looks like 10 years from now.

Interesting!

I'm a big fan of pg's essays. From my pov, it was the "golden age" of blogging^. Essays like "black swan farming," "high res-society" were fascinating, and tied abstract ideas aabout startups, investing and the world to the parcticalities of how YC works. I found it fascinating.

PG did address startup hubs, why "YC of _place_" was a problematice idea and other reasons why YC is centralized where it is.

But... PG wrote about a lot of ideas. Some might lead you to the opposite conclusion, maybe increasingly as the startup industry has grown.

Ramen profitable, for example, could be a totally different proposition in India. "High resolution" is an idea that I think at some scale needs to happen outside of SV.

Since those essays, YC has scaled. That could put new possibilities on the table. Many of the reasons startups hub are fixable with scale.

I realize this is just interviews, but I reckon that "just" is not just a just.

^Another great example was joel on software and the stack overflow podcast. You could watch Joel and Jeff's abstract ideas about (eg) "social user interface" and such be implmented in software.

Good to see YC expand. I’m curious, though, if innovation ramps up in the startup space in both China and India, will there be a decrease in demand for immigration to the states?

My own experience across the visa spectrum is some want to move here permanently, some want to make their stake here and return back to their home country, some want to come here and build new businesses.

I don’t mean it as A discussion about immigration but more about one of innovation.

We keep hearing, despite obvious growth in other regions, SV is still ground zero for new companies.

SV is ground zero and probably will be for some time, but the forces of present immigration climate are unlike it has ever been in the past, and I wouldn't be surprised if it topples SV's position as the innovation hub in the near future. In the past, immigration was a minor barrier comparable to other barriers founders and innovators face regularly, but one that needed to be overcome. Today, especially with the freedom of the global internet infrastructure together nationalist political climates, immigration is starting to look like a less and less savory distraction that doesn't even justify the effort needed to overcome it.

The immigration situation for skilled/educated workers, has to my knowledge, always been extremely bad in the US. Right now, it's gotten worse to another level, but it's not like it was anywhere close to good before. There is no founder visa. A few rare people (including you) have managed to get the O-1 visa; but that's usually an extraordinary difficult endeavor. Even getting a new H-1B is incredibly hard, with your chance of winning in the lottery less than 40%, and there being a significantly long (~7 months) before you can even start working. Moreover, you're prohibited on having majority control over your company on an H-1B, and need to ensure there's a board that can fire you. So there's that.

Then there's getting an EB-1 approved ... I don't how you managed to get it, but kudos to you on that. From what I've read, it's incredibly difficult, and usually an order of magnitude more difficult than getting an O-1. Immigration guides often say you need win the Nobel Prize in order to qualify for it. But I've also heard luck plays a huge factor -- in terms of who your adjudicating officer is. Anyways, there's very little info out there (on the interwebs) that talks about how to succeed with an O-1 or EB-1 application. (It would be great if you could write about it.)

Getting an O-1 and EB-1, rather than being some extraordinary feat, is more of an extraordinary distraction, and yes luck factors into it a lot.

My understanding is if you tried to immigrate 8+ years ago, it was relatively certain and less of a distraction, even if it still took ~12 months to be done. It has gotten gradually harder every year, until it went up asymptotically in 2016 (I finished applying for my EB-1 in 2015).

Unfortunately IANAL + immigration landscape is evolving constantly, + the complexities and options of immigration vary wildly with the differences in personal circumstances (from passport to education and work history), so anything I write will be quickly obsolete, and most people would find it either too generalized, or not applicable to them.

Feel free to DM me, I'm happy to share some advice with anyone who thinks immigrating will be important for their career.

imho from talking to many first time founders there is already a decrease in demand/aspiration to move to the states

part political climate, part living cost in sf/bay, part network becoming more global etc

Absolutely. No offence, but we wouldn't touch the states with a bargepole for all the reasons you mentioned.

Great initiative! This should encourage more Indian/ SE Asian founders to apply, since they no longer have to think about the time spent on the arduous US visa application process - and can instead keep the focus on building their company. Kudos to YC!

YC is still requiring accepted founders to be in California during the in-person program. But yes, they don't have to deal with the US visa process for the Bangalore interviews, which is an improvement.

For any company based out of India, working on solving problems for Indian consumers, I see very less value in applying to YC. First of all their advisors have very little or no idea about how does it work in Indian context [because haven't done startups in this area], which mind you is very different and more complicated then valley.

VCs and Angels have picked up investments in India [0], and as a result, as far as India is concerned, YC has missed out on Unicorns, though, Razorpay/Cleartax/Meesho could be Unicorns in time.

[0] https://trak.in/india-startup-funding-investment-2015/ (URL says 2015, but the data is latest)

Well looks like YC is stepping up their game to get a bite of the future.

Byte, you mean?

Means a slice of pizza/future

I think he was trying to be sarcastic.

Nice to see YC doing this.

Does someone who only has an idea, but not done the implementation yet ( or not production ready ) can apply??

Yes, though stage creep is a real problem and some applicants show up not just with a prototype but revenue as well.

Imho, to make most out of YC demo day, you'd have to have something concrete ready, and so it helps to have started working before having interviewed with YC.

Unless you just came up with the idea, it's useful to have talked to users already and/or have some data that the idea is good. Having revenue or being launched already is not a requirement.

It's amazing to see how people are fighting over city names on a YC thread. Just amazing! When we have problems like climate change and global warming to solve, please by all means let's first decide the name of the city!

To remind you, people also fight over if Thanos was right on the internet.

Not everyone is supposed to talk about the big problems like climate change all the time. That's kind of boring.

My two cents though.

ycombinator shouldn’t be the medium to discuss non technology period.

I don't quite understand this move? Was there a big issue with founders getting accepted for an interview but then not being able to travel to the US for the interview?

US visas

But for the interview they would just need a travel visa right? If they were accepted they would still need to travel to the US and have the same issue they did prior?

Yes, they would just need a visitor visa (B1/B2/VWP-ESTA). I think YC is conducting interviews in India mainly for convenience. Why force a 100 potential founders to fly to the U.S. to attend an interview -- which would probably cost for flight+hotel around $1500 per person, so that's $150,000 wasted. Not to mention besides the money, there's time wasted as well -- the time flying in airplane (34 hours -- 17 hours each way). It's simply economically, from both a monetary and time perspective, more efficient to avoid unnecessary travel for an interview.

Moreover, there's also the fact that it's practically impossible to move to the U.S. as a founder of a company (there's no visa for founders). People from a select few countries (that the US has trade treaties with) and who have $100k in savings just lying around might be able to self-sponsor a E-2, but I'm most YC-funded founders probably don't qualify for this either. Especially not founders from India, since India is not a E-2 visa treaty country.

Typically you have ~2 weeks between being notified and interview. Have personally witnessed a lot of teams where one founder couldn't make the interview in the time frame. For the actual YC program both the invitation letter is much stronger, you probably have an established US entity and a strong reason to be in the US. Less likely you get denied a Visa.

It would be great if YC expanded to the Asia-Pacific region... somewhere easy for Aussies to reach/apply/interview like Singapore.

Who will be doing the interviews?

please come to europe too :)

Is Tel Aviv next?

Very cool

Bengalūru, it has been 14 year since the name changed officially would appreciate if people stopped using the anglicized name of our city.

Like it or not, Bangalore is significantly more recognizable than Bengaluru (for example, the Wikipedia page uses it). So I doubt it's going away any time soon…

I live here and hate the new name. It feels dumb to say it, whereas Bangalore sounds very modern. Kind of like Dilli vs Delhi.

Who knew you could also feel dumb by calling a city a certain name, and feel modern by calling it another?

I live here too. I like the 'new' name, it has grown on me. I think it's endearing and friendly -- like a petname. "Namma Bengaluru" vs stiff-upper-lip British Bangalore.

Putting my personal opinion aside, it's definitely not catching on: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=Bengaluru,bangalo...

I still call it Bangalore in any formal setting.

Bangalore is the English name. My city is called Dublin in English and Baile Átha Cliath in our native language of Irish. As an Irishman I understand better than most the resentment towards the English but really this is not a battle worth fighting. Both names are correct in their respective languages.

I don't have any resentment towards English. The city has been around for as long as the English language and nobody local never called it with the anglicized name if anything it would be more of a correction.

My point was more that every language uses different names for places. It's like saying we can't call Germany Germany anymore because Germans call it Deutschland.

My take on this:

Though Bangalore is a relatively new name, it has been deeply ingrained in recent collective memory and literature. So it needs some time to change. Other cases in point, Bombay -> Mumbai. Madras -> Chennai, Calcutta -> Kolkata. While these changes have been adopted in some circles, the anglized form is still in use in many places. Especially, places and instances that have history pertaining to the past few centuries.

Also, in IT field, Bangalore symbolizes more than the city. It is a standin for the Indian IT industry and it's boom in general. It has a certain connotation and degree of recognizability that may be lost when using Bengaluru. Still with time, it too would change.

Bengaluru is now the official name in the English language. Bangalore is the British Empire's English name.

It is a relic of colonization that is worth leaving behind. This battle is completely worth fighting. If Ireland officially lists Dublin as Baile Atha Cliath for addresses, the airport, and for international English references, I will use that. This is not about two different languages, but of erasure.

> It is a relic of colonization that is worth leaving behind.

It costs the ex-chequer a lot of money to fund such renames. In the midst of 600,000,000 people living below the income of $2 a day, funding renaming cities to rid of British heritage should be least of India's problems. Such vitriol has never done anyone any good and is a sign of society embroiled in misplaced priorities, imo.

As an Indian, I take the opposite stance. For example, I strongly insist on calling my hometown Calcutta as it is part of the heritage of the city and my own upbringing. If you want to erase the colonial past, then work towards making the country better. These nonsensical gimmicks do not help anyone.

> It is a relic of colonization that is worth leaving behind.

Should the name India be changed to Hindustan or Bharat as well?

Instead of wasting tax payer money on changing names maybe the govt should focus on actual issues.

It is the prerogative of the nation and its people to choose official naming for international usage. If India, like Myanmar (formerly Burma) wanted to choose a native name as their English representation through a formal process, it is disrespectful bordering on hostile to ignore that, especially as a foreign entity like YC. Nobody is saying anyone should change any names, but once they have, it is important it is respected.

This is a complicated initiative, but it's clear that most people do not recognize the impact or meaning of a choice like this. It is considered equally hostile and rude to, for example:

- refer to a divorcee by their ex family name after an official name change

- refer to a transgender person by the name they had previously after an official name change

It's up to the individual what their name is, and making a name official is clearly indicating what they would like to be referred to. It really shouldn't be that much trouble for outside entities to respect that.

Its been 70 years since the British left, if these were important issues that people thought strongly about it would have come up sooner. This rather recent renaming agenda should be called out for what it is -- a convenient and manufactured political diversion to draw attention away form the governments failings and lackluster performance.

Many of these cities/towns indeed had pre-British names but for better or for worse, its the British that made them into the cities that they are, for example Calcutta, it was 3 not very notable villages prior to the British.

The argument for renaming will carry a lot more heft if these were notable names prior to the British. In some cases they were but not all.

> but once they have, it is important it is respected.

No I dont agree, I still call Mumbai as Bombay most of the times because that was the city I grew up in.

I think its disrespectful to the people of Bombay/Bangalore that the govt wastes money changing names instead of fixing actual issues

You have said this in 4+ places in this thread. People who have strong connections with the place (similarly with a person who's name has changed) can use their discretion which name to use, if the person in question is alright with either name. However it is inappropriate for an outsider to use an unofficial name or deadname without permission, especially in official context. That's all I have said.

Please stop bringing up taxpayer money, it's not like taxes can only be used for a singular issue at once. I could say the US taxes shouldn't be spending trillions on military before fixing other problems like homelessness in SF, but that's not how taxes or governments work.

> However it is inappropriate for an outsider to use an unofficial name or deadname without permission, especially in official context.

I don’t see a single reason why it is inappropriate, other than it offending you. Nobody needs permission to use words from anybody else. If anything is offensive, it is this type of gatekeeping.

Keep carrying on like this with talk of how outsiders should behave, and Bangalore will lose the competitive advantage it enjoys as IT workers will find friendlier places to move to.

> However it is inappropriate for an outsider to use an unofficial name or deadname without permission

I dont think its inappropriate, that is how names change over time. Just embrace it, dont fight it.

> Please stop bringing up taxpayer money

Why? Shouldnt you say something if the govt is wasting money on frivolous activities?

> I could say the US taxes shouldn't be spending trillions on military before fixing other problems like homelessness in SF, but that's not how taxes or governments work.

I agree, the US should be spending less on military and more on the welfare of its citizens.

Europeans used the word India long before Britishers colonized India. So it's not really a good analogy. Bombay -> Mumbai is a far better one. However, I do agree that spending taxpayers' money on changing each colonial name is not worth it.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_India

> Europeans used the word India long before Britishers colonized India.

So why use a European name, shouldn't it be an "Indian" name.

Bharat(along with India) is a constitutionally recognized name. So it is actually used in official context. But the general convention is India for English, and Bharat for Hindi(and some other languages like Marathi).

> So why use a European name, shouldn't it be an "Indian" name.

It's difficult to answer. I think Indians usually don't have much problem with foreign words. The day-to-day Hindi is somewhat influenced by Persian and even the word for the majority religion (Hindu) has a Persian origin. But in case of English worded cities, it quickly becomes problematic as they were named during the colonial period.

There's also this other issue that unified India is an extremely new thing and it wasn't common for people within India to refer to that landmass as a whole.

> Bengaluru is now the official name in the English language.

Who made it official? On what authority? The name in English is the name people use in English. Maybe Bengaluru is now the name in Indian Official English?

Until today, if I read something about Bangaluru, I wouldn't even know it's Bangalore.

Using the anglicized name in English doesn't strike me as particularly egregious. (Presumably you don't say "Espanol" or "Francais" when describing other languages in English. Or describe "China" as "Zhongguo").

However, they should probably at least correct the "Banglore" misspellings in the FAQ.

oops, fixed. thx :)

Lots of city names are translated.

Even in India people would probably say "Rome" instead of "Roma", "Moscow" instead of "Moskvá".

And it's not only in English, Italian would say "Tolosa" instead of "Toulouse", German would say "Mailand" instead of "Milan", French would say "Cracovie" instead of "Kraków" an so on...

What about Bombay, Peking, Persia, Siam, Ceylon, Burma, Leningrad?

And when you talk (in English or Kannada) about Rome, do you write (and say) 'Roma'? When you talk about Moscow, do you say 'Moskvá'?

(Even closer to home, do you say 'naaii dillii'?)

While I agree with you in general, you would have a better case with a different city than New Delhi, because most Indians simply never use the full English name in informal parlance — it's always been 'Dilli' (in Hindi) and/or 'Deli' (in inf. Indian English). In fact, the term (and equivalents of) 'Old Delhi' see more common use than 'New Delhi', largely because the latter is the one most commonly referred to as just 'Delhi'.

Talking with people who live in Delhi (in both English and Hindi), I got the sense that 'dilli' is becoming increasingly rare.

I am overall rather tired of the city-renaming craze. It seems like expensive bike-shedding at best. You end up with ridiculous scenarios like renaming 'Madras' to 'Chennai', where 'Madras' in fact is a native, historic Tamil name for the city, and 'Chennai' is the name of Telugu collaborator with the British.

'Bangalore' vs 'Bengaluru' by people of Karnataka - the state of which Bangalore is capital of.

Bangalore: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=IN-KA&q=bangalo...

Bengaluru: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=IN-KA&q=bengalu...

please look at it for "all time" (that google has data for)

Bangalore: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IN-KA&...

Bengaluru: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IN-KA&...

This is a post-colonial battle still being fought, and India's wish to shed its colonial shackles deserves to be respected.

My one year Google Trend time range was deliberate. When both 'Bangalore' and 'Bengaluru' is equally familiar with public AND 'Bengaluru' is being pushed by govt institutions, we need to see which name is still in trend with locals. 'Bangalore' name should have been at zero if all the locals were using the new name.

If the time range is increased to the time when Bengaluru was not yet a familiar term then it is quite obvious that this new name would trend upwards to the current time.

I know it was deliberate, and deliberately hiding the story.

Certainly several locals will prefer the name they grew up with. Some find it rolls off the tongue better when speaking English, or just because they used Bangalore for many years already. No such change will ever have 100% coverage in such a short time, yet I think it's worth consciously respecting. Locals will use both interchangeably because it's often used informally, but I think for anything official, it's important to use the correct and official name, which is Bengaluru. Such as here, this is not an informal post by YC but an official announcement.

You have to put both terms in together to be able to compare them in the same scale:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IN-KA&...

> This is a post-colonial battle still being fought, and India's wish to shed its colonial shackles deserves to be respected.

Calling it a 'battle' that is being fought and 'shackles' being shed and all is a bit bombastic. And kindly do not purport to speak for all Indians.

What's next? Are you going to fight the battle to call Patna Pataliputra? Rajasthan Rajputana? How far back in history do the really real names lie?

> and India's wish to shed its colonial shackles deserves to be respected.

They city can become respected by having a reputation of being topmost liveable city in the world, that is far more respectable instead playing silly games like changing names which waste taxpayer money.

This is not the right place to show your love for the name. We should be happy about YC considering Bangalore/Bengaluru as a place to conduct interviews. Your point deviates the intention of the post.

Its been 70 years since the British left, I wonder why the sudden resurgence to go back to pre-British names. Bengaluru was the name for the place prior to the British, but I would argue its the British that made 'Bangalore: the garden city' out of it, that touch still remains although diminishing everyday.

I think this is particularly uncharitable. YC is probably planning to invest in companies in India, we should be more charitable and not be unnecessarily antagonistic.

Also, I think this is unrealistic. Do you expect others to properly use the names of all cities ? For example : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozhikode. The 'zh' sound is not present outside of a few South Indian languages. It is OK if others call it Calicut IMO

EDIT: It seems the OP has edited the comment to make it more polite. Thanks OP.

It would help your case if you were to write, "It has been 14 years since the name changed officially, and I would appreciate it if people stopped using the anglicized name of our city."

Seriously, you want to do this here? This is a hackernews thread not an equivalent on twitter or FB.

I know a lot of Indians in Mumbai - most of them still call it Bombay!

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