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Comment by bcassedy | Hacker News Reader

Ehh there's a really pro ycombinator slant and ever notice how any yc announcement, hiring notice, or article quickly hits the top? They're getting a lot of value out of that stuff that helps with the VC side of things.

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> Ehh there's a really pro ycombinator slant and ever notice how any yc announcement

The site is literally news.ycombinator.com... and you're surprised it's slated towards ycombinator?

I don't think the parent is surprised, no.

Who would hate on YCombinator?

There are some legitimate arguments about how VC backed startups have behaved as of late, and YC is part of that overall system.

I’m not sure where I personally sit, but I think it’s a bit silly to pretend that YC is universally beloved or beyond reproach.

I did not think it was universally beloved, but just never read any negative viewpoint about them so was curious.

Keep in mind that YC is very visible. As a result, complaints about VC behavior in general will accumulate to YC, since they’re often the public face of startups and startup culture. That might not be fair or ever correct, but it’s how people work.

Personally, YC’s involvement in AirBnB is my biggest complaint with the company. I’m not sure how it looked from the inside before hand, but in retrospect AirBnB is one of the poster children of VC backed companies extracting profits at the cost of society, and I suspect that they probably should’ve known better.

> AirBnB is one of the poster children of VC backed companies extracting profits at the cost of society

Do you have any evidence to back up that claim? Because hard data shows exactly the opposite: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2018/beyond-bls/how-airbnb-has-...

That’s focusing on AirBnB’s effect on the hotel industry, but I’m more concerned about AirBnB’s effect on the rent market. This is a subject that’s been pretty well covered here before.

I don’t think you read the link before downvoting it. It’s about the effect on the hotel industry as well as consumers and hosts.

You also haven’t provided any evidence to back up your claim. I’d be curious to read it, if it exists.

I absolutely read your link, it was talking about hotel consumers. But I was never concerned about hotel consumers; I was concerned about the effects on everyone else.

Studies into various markets have shown that AirBnB increases rent for residents by converting long term rentals to short term rentals, reducing housing supply. The question is whether or not the increased tourism offsets the damage caused to the housing market. Studies point towards the answer being “no”.

Source: https://www.epi.org/files/pdf/157766.pdf

This is not an out there theory on my part; the name for this is the “AirBnB effect”, and searching for that shows articles in Forbes, EPI (linked), the Guardian, The Harvard Business Review, among others.

You absolutely did not, because it very clearly states it's not just about hotel consumers: It's about the welfare effects on hotels, travelers (including those who otherwise wouldn't have been hotel consumers), and hosts [1]. Why do you keep mischaracterizing it?

The EPI thinktank report you linked to simply states the costs outweigh the benefits without any numbers to support that conclusion. This paper, on the other hand, does look at the numbers. I appreciate the reference, however.

[1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w24361.pdf

Extracting profits at the cost of society may be a bad thing for you and me, but it might be a good thing for YC.

I'm reminded of Paul Graham's words on unions:

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/663456748494127104?lang=en

From his perspective, it could be that society is something standing in the way of profits.

Also, society stands in the way of progress. You can’t have both. Progress and no-profits.

Are you saying something like everything is relative? I can't tell if you're being sarcastic.

I'm sorry for the lack of clarity. I should have been explicit in saying, I agree that treating society as a thing you can vacuum wealth out of is a bad thing; the people who run a VC firm (and who view unions as an indicator for industries to "disrupt") may view that as a good thing, or as the goal.

That should tell you something important about them.

Sure, but the criticisms mostly don't apply to companies in the seed stage. YC is somewhat removed from the mainstream critiques of startups mostly by sitting at the part of the process where startups are most startup-like, ironically enough.

You’re not wrong, but we’re talking about different things. Culturally YC is more associated with startup culture, even if their direct involvement ends after the seed stage.

HN makes no secret out of that. Reddir has Tencent's influence crippling them.

The fact that YC doesn't need to monetize HN , and others mentioned how so much talented is sourced here is what makes it a good and comfortable place for technologists and tech enthusiasts.

Although, I am still a wee bit dissappointed at the lack of discussion about actual hacking.

Haven’t you noticed the years long media campaign to try and get the public to hate tech? It hasn’t been very successful but it’s not like there aren’t a lot of people who hate every single person who work in the technology industry.

I get that angle, but have never read any criticism specific to YC.

Any of the non-founder employees who work at one of their hundreds of portfolio companies that have refused to go public. Literally only one company backed by YC, Dropbox, has gone public to date.

Does Y Combinator have a lot of companies that could go public? Most do not seem IPO ready.

And what does any of that have to do with YC?

Probably a return of investment priced without the Ponzi-smell.

My comment was in response to "Who would hate on YCombinator." To expand on my answer: All of the employees who were duped into taking a low salary in exchange for the promise of valuable equity are the ones who would hate on YC.

Jason Calacanis, repeatedly, and vociferously.

Intriguing. Lots of interesting reading there.

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