How YC will be funding the S20 batch | Hacker News Reader

How YC will be funding the S20 batch

dalton.substack.com

150 pointsdalton43 comments

I worked on a video chat startup in 2006 and a concept that still stands out is "floor exchange," which is when one person stops talking and another person starts talking during a conversation.

Floor Exchange usually happens seamlessly in most in-person conversations, but it can be a challenge over video chat, even in 2020.

In any video chat it's helpful to keep your points short and pause for longer than you normally would at the end of each one; if you're doing it right, the pauses will feel uncomfortably long, especially at first. This allows extra time for floor exchange.

I'm excited to see how this remote batch goes!

I haven't heard that term before - but excellent advice!

Floor Exchange usually happens seamlessly in most in-person conversations, but it can be a challenge over video chat, even in 2020.

This is because (conventionally, at least) video chat doesn't really allow eye contact in a natural way, isn't it?

I'll be really surprised if the easiest way to hack the interview process this year isn't just being aware-enough about your camera setup that you can emulate visual cues inherent to physical conversations.

Good advice.

IMO, video conference apps should be designed around mute as the default. The only way to unmute should be modal — holding down the spacebar key (or touch UI equivalent).

This hold-spacebar "enter floor mode" event and its matching exit event should be transmitted out of band to other participants, so they'd get the "floor exchange" signal more reliably and a fraction of a second faster than when relying on video to communicate this.

I’m worried this might make it worse. What I’ve seen is people have a harder time getting the floor, so they speak even longer (making it harder for everyone else). Soon it’s just a series of speeches instead of a conversation. Seems like people would have an even harder time giving it up with holding a key. Maybe if you paired it with a “seconds spoken” timer.

Congratulations, you just described push-to-talk.

Business-targeted tools don't have this because they're intended for people used to conference calls on a telephone system.

Zoom has this. Mute yourself, then you can use space bar as a PTT button.

Zoom has had this as a feature for a while. I use it on long meetings so I don’t accidentally say something dumb out loud when I’m bored.

I think you have to enable it in the options. I’m away from my desk or I would check myself.

> Floor Exchange usually happens seamlessly in most in-person conversations

This is definitely just me (and, I guess, other people like me, but clearly there aren't enough of us to shift the norms in our direction), but I don't find this to be true at all. I have problems with people not recognizing whether I've finished speaking, and even more problems with people deciding that I'm not speaking so they need to continue filling airtime.

A lot of people will start talking before they've thought through something, figuring out what they're saying half way. There's been past HN threads getting into how some cultures have small interjections which the speaker generally talks over to collaboratively steer conversation which can have this "floor exchange" occur when the speaker responds to the interruptions with a prompt

I've met some people who think all the way through what they say before speaking. Interrupting generally shuts them up, so one has to learn to not. Important to stop talking & wait for response, double digit silence may be the right call

If you're the latter type, you can help people understand this is your preferred mode of communication by finding a way to non verbally signal that you're thinking. It can be as stupid as pointing a finger aimlessly if you're thinking of a response after half a second of silence, to sign that if the speaker doesn't continue you will eventually bring something up. Thought being put into responses is appreciated in the end

Having longer pauses is good, but also randomizing your pause length ensures that there is a fair distribution among who gets to go first. It's kind of like the collision logic in the WiFi protocol.

Is there a floor exchange issue during strictly 1-on-1 video calls with only 2 participants?

Get a great web camera or at LEAST some great lighting for your interviews!

A poorly lit fuzzy image is a great way to start off at a disadvantage.

Study after study shows that people that identify themselves as broadly accepting and non-bias hold deep unconscious bias tied to personal appearance, etc. (1) (2)

Logitech has a number of web cameras with strong light sensors and software you can use to generate a professional quality image without back lighting.

There are multiple backlighting solutions on Amazon and elsewhere for <$20.

(1) https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180806-how-hidden-bia...

(2) https://www.forbes.com/sites/pragyaagarwaleurope/2019/02/20/...

I've also been surprised at how much of an improvement headsets with microphones are over built-in laptop mics.

I’ve experienced the same thing - I always right the microphones attached to earbuds were worthless, but compared to a laptop microphone, which picks up every last bit of background noise, my cheap ($15) earbuds’ microphone does a good job at only picking up my voice, with clear enough quality.

If you’re using Linux and Pulseaudio, look into echo cancellation, it’s easy to enable and can help improve your voice quality a little bit.

Great advice, just a few weeks too late for me. Looking at the available mid to high end usb webcams in stock now shows everything out of stock and backordered. Looks like I'll have to make do with a built-in laptop camera and a headset microphone if/when I get that YC interview.

Thesr work at home directives really depleted all existing stock of good webcams...

Over 50% markup for nice webcams on eBay, yeesh.

If you're willing to, you can get a DSLR or mirrorless camera and use UVC as a webcam.

Unfortunately, online ordering is backed up on most sites. My amazon orders are delayed until at least April 19th.

It will be interesting to see what they fund and how much the companies fit the current environment. I'm guessing quite a lot of remote working tools. The one I really want is something that allows 'many to many' conversations. I haven't found a tool for social events that get above 5 people. Normally in real life groups dynamically break into smaller groups and it's hard to replicate that at a networking event or friends birthday or something. That would be powerful to prototype at the Tuesday night dinners as well. Someone's going to get funded with a tool that becomes a default networking tool for the batch and that will then see huge success from getting that group of early adopters using it.

For maintaining eye contact during video call we need to look at camera rather than screen. Unless there is some model trained to correct this by maintaining eye contact irrespective of camera, it will be hard to fix as it may deviate the level of concntration during call. Intel researchers are trying to solve this problem by developing eye contact correction system for video calls. https://techxplore.com/news/2019-06-intel-eye-contact-video-...

Facetime on iOS has this option today, or at least had it in some beta of the OS.

This is the kind of "natural experiment" that economists get excited about.

I hope they're able to at least gain some knowledge from all the disruption throughout society.

Not affiliated in any way besides as a happy user - Krisp.ai is a godsend with respect to cleaning up crappy microphones and background noise. YC should consider offering that to the upcoming batch that will be held remotely

> For maintaining eye contact during video call we need to look at camera rather than screen.

I solve this problem in most meetings by positioning the main view as a smaller window directly under my webcam. This helps put my focal point close to the speaker from their perspective.

Quite late to this thread so idk if anyone will see this haha, but with regards to

> The worst calls I ever have been on are ones with tons of background noise, video and audio lag

The current situation also means internet is unfortunately borderline unusable in some areas, and sadly nothing can be done about it. I've been suffering through constant 10-50% packet loss on my connection due to capacity issues for a couple weeks since "stay at home" started, and my ISP is still unable to give an estimate of when it might be fixed (it's confirmed to be an ISP issue and not at my home, packet loss starts at the tap on the street).

I have an important Zoom call tomorrow, but at this point I'm going in expecting that the call won't work at all and I'll probably have to dial in with my cell phone. Had another, fortunately less important, call today where I disconnected 12 times in 15 minutes...

If YC goes fully remote this batch, I will apply. Moving to California for several months is well outside my price range and would waste way too much of the YC investment. I also have a relatively pricey NYC apartment lease that I can't just break, so I would basically be on the hook for two astronomical rents for at least the duration.

And for people who live in a cheap area, this can make the YC money last even longer.

I also support these benefits for people who made smarter residence decisions than me.

you’re not supposed to make the money last, you’re supposed to raise a seed round in 3 months or die

> you’re not supposed

While I understand the reason behind your comment and it even seems right, I can't stop thinking that we are born rebels.. If we are not supposed to do something, that might just represent an opportunity, doesn't it?

We're told (correctly) by all YC's public communication that raising is a distraction and founders should focus on real work as much as possible. If what you say is the case, YC is either broken or lying, and they're not lying since it's 100% true that raising is a distraction.

Demo Day is like week 12, so you're "supposed" to run your process in weeks 12-14

No, you can't. It says March 16th was the due date to apply. Why even get the country remote people excited?

edit: nope, i'm a dumbass. you can still apply.

They've always taken late applications.

I don't want to get banned but what is the point of this substack post? I know four founders who would have applied to YC only if it were remote. One has a startup with a $10MM valuation, the others not so much.

But the March 16th date has passed. So why announce it now, of course it would have been remote.

edit: ignore, reading is fundamental.

@dalton I have a couple of quick questions, if you don't mind. It seems that YC appreciates science-based (aka deep tech) startups. However, some deep tech startups require much more than three months to develop a solid MVP (say, a year or more). In such cases, 1) would YC still be interested in funding such venture and 2) would it still make sense to participate in Demo Day (by the way, is it mandatory?) or it could be safely skipped for some alternative options when the time is right (e.g., warm introductions to relevant VC firms and potential customers)? Also, what is your current stance on solo founders?

My colleague Jared put together some great advice for hard tech/bio founders and we talk about a number of the companies we have funded here: https://www.startupschool.org/videos/78 He talks specifically about what these companies do during the batch and fundraising milestones, etc

Your prompt reply is much appreciated. Will certainly review the video. What about your current stance on solo founders?

I don't have much to add to all of the other YC-related information out there - I think having a cofounder is generally a good thing, but not every company we fund does.

Fair enough. Thank you, again.

If anything good comes out of this ordeal, I hope it's the realization that you most certainly do not have to fly across the country and burn metric tons of kerosene just to have a business meeting.

Sorry for being pessimistic, but YC without the in person dinners doesn’t feel like YC. That plus the lack of in person rapport with the rest of the batch mates and partners.

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