Poll: Should we push the YC deadline back by a day because of the storm?
I have no idea what the situation is like on the east coast, but it's no problem to push the deadline back by a day if it's necessary. Let us know.
Given that YC already has a policy of considering late applications, I would opt for keeping the deadline where it is but loudly announcing "if you couldn't get your application in by the deadline because of the hurricane, please submit a late application". And possibly add a "I'm applying late because of the hurricane" checkbox to the form.
If I had cameras, boats/kayaks, a few actors & friends to help out, shoot overnight on the deserted river roads, a few lines of dialogue and a rough idea for a story, I'd be out there trying to shoot with big-budget backgrounds that would normally cost tens of millions in sound stages or post-production. Though since I'm currently in Toronto, can't really do it.
If I'd been able to plan (or had the idea a few days ago to be able to plan and know in advance how it would likely look), for perhaps $10-20k (mostly for rented boats, cameras and bail money) could have had a semi-decent looking disaster movie or a good short film. Getting the moment the lights went out from some high vantage points & down on the water would have been amazing too.
You can easily be one without being the other. Or both, or neither.
Moreover, people suffer and need every spare pair of hands these days just as they do every day. In NY, in NJ, everywhere. What's your excuse for "making a buck" and not helping, the rest of the year?
Personally, I would find it in bad taste. Profitable? Perhaps... but likely not. At least not directly -- a PR stunt, at most.
So, a rather bad combo overall IMO: would piss people off & not make the buck.
They might need another day, or days, if their power is currently out.
I imagine that a lot of YC folks may be scrambling to check on homes and loved ones and trying to keep generators working, etc.
I think a deadline extension would be appropriate. I know there's an argument to be made that folks should be prepared, but this (like many of the weather events I got to experience in Western Mass last year) really is unprecedented.
(I have no stake in this, I just think extending the deadline is the right thing to do).
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-13-00...
[edit: Originally said "deus ex machina". My mistake, thanks Falling3]
Hitting a deadline "no matter what" is a great metric for effective entrepreneurship. Your users, customers, prospects, business partners, investors, and regulators are unlikely to cut you a break. Why should YC?
(I don't mean to sound harsh on so many who are suffering now. I really wish them the best. I'm just saying that a good business person takes care of business (submits YC application) before the storm and focuses on the really important things like family and safety during and after.)
Those that live in an area that is right now an absolute mess will be happy to see their power restored in the next few days and it will be tough for everybody in the region to pick up their lives.
"No matter what": What if your parents had to be moved out of their house and you had the choice between helping them or applying to YC?
And a ton of other examples that I could come up with but you get the idea.
There is a time to be rigid (when there are no other options) and there is a time to be flexible (when things were arbitrary to begin with and being rigid makes everybody lose).
Sure life isn't fair. But if it is possible to make it a bit better by being nice to each other then I see absolutely no reason why you should not do so.
A good business person is running a business, they're not applying to YC. The New York Stock exchange is currently closed for business, the area is an official disaster area. In light of that I think we can forgive a few start-up applicants that they don't have their ducks in a row just yet.
Extra points for those that did apply under the deadline.
It seems like many in the no-excuses camp often frame the hard line as teaching a lesson for "the real world." But I would argue that a main reason deadlines are important in the real world is because other stakeholders need to have clear expectations to use for their own planning. It's unreasonable to expect them to adjust their plans do to one party's shifting schedule, and it's generally a bad idea to treat deadlines lightly.
But if there's a sensible reason and it doesn't cause a big problem for anyone, I don't see why the "principle" of a deadline should trump empathy and business judgement.
Especially since YC can always use the timing and circumstances of the application as additional pieces of information in their process.
Is it fair for the person in southern California to get an extra couple days to revise because others are going through a hardship? Probably not. I would want them held to the original standard (similar to what the grandparent is saying).
That's the tension I see with this decision. And how do we handle the special cases with teams that are split between coasts?
I don't think one rule will be completely fair, and I would ask pg to apply wisdom regardless if the official date changes. The date is just a date. It's better described as a spam filter than a deadline since YC accepts late applications anyway.
This is all speculative of course (I don't know the effect the deadline has on the founders), but I agree that there is no right answer.
Most people cram for exams and leave it all to the last minute - that's life. So in juxtaposing such a common example - I will generalize and assume a lot of people do the same for just about anything else. It's not some crazy ideology - it's called being a human being. Factors outside someone's control shouldn't mean they should be punished for something that everyone does everyday or has done at some time. No one is perfect, people make mistakes and entrepreneurs more than anyone - that's the beauty of it. However, this isn't some exam - it's an application to find great people, great ideas and amazing companies.
The suggestion from your comment is that great people hit deadlines "no matter what". I couldn't disagree more. Running a startup is about elasticity - not "no matter what". If someone has spent weeks getting their video just right - after doing 1000x iterations of it because they wanted to reach the submission date by 30th "no matter what" but then some act of god comes along - it's fair that it destroys their chance ?
That makes no sense - they were going to hit the deadline according to your logic but now something has come along and destroyed that. The "no matter what" is now irrelevant - its time to be flexible, compassionate and understanding. Walk a mile in their shoes for just one second.
The world we live in is not some crystallized inflexible place and YC is not either - if your idea fails, start another. I, for one, hope that someone amazing comes along because they were allowed to submit after the fact. That's what entrepreneurship is all about - people.
"More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost." - Charlie Chaplin (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEUA7owEl7c for some inspiration)
But if it genuinely has hit the fan, and you're honest, then people will usually cut you a break.
EDIT: A day is kind of arbitrary anyway.
If you get an outstanding application a couple of days late, from a team who literally spent two days without power or phones, and instead of submitting their application they helped their neighbours clean putrid mud from their homes, would you reject it?
Not exactly a helpful comment to bring Noah into this... But there's always one that has to bring up Revelations or some other end of days nonsense wherever there's a storm.
These are future CEOs making the applications, not necessarily future COOs.
There are people who have died. There are possibly people who applied to YC already... who have been killed or ... No.
You may have the approach of you should of prepared.. and thats fine to have as your opinion, but I hope to god you aren't the person applying as your companies CEO.
I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, memphis is a poor place for the most part but the people there will go out of their way to encumber you with hospitality. Now when New Orleans flooded, we didn't get the majority of people from Katrina, but we had a lot come our way, my high school classes swelled, and it was overall hard to see the faces every day of those who lost their homes, or friends, or family, but the point is, we went out of our way to do our duty as human.
This is the point where we all are given two options, we can realize that this natural disaster could have been (http://xkcd.com/1037/), perhaps an earthquake, lets say you and your friends were in an attic hiding away from a fire that was slowly moving its way up a stairs.
If you can honestly tell me that you would find falt in that sort of a situation with someone protecting their family instead of hitting a submit button, let me know.
It doesn't sound harsh, it sounds incorrect. People (customers, prospects, investors etc) are flexible and forgiving during times of adversity, it's one of the most basic human characteristics.
NYC is a mess right now.
Just the perspective of a guy who comes here for the articles.
that said, subways being closed is going to be a huge hassle for the next few days.
They evacuated NYU Langone Hospital when its backup generator failed, so yes, consider yourself very lucky.
An extra day isn't going to change anything. I'd say push it by a week or don't bother changing the date.
(EDIT: these are the main carrier hotels and colocation facilities in the Northeast, all in Manhattan.)
Big scale server colos are usually in WA/OR (cheap power), SFBA (fiber, tech companies), TX (cheap land, sort of cheap power, or at least available power), or DC metro (sort of cheap power, cheap land in some areas, lots of government users).
As a side note, Internap's LGA11 datecentre facility on 75 Broad Street is currently being evacuated, and most of the fuel reserves are submerged below water...
The report I heard (at about 11PM EDT) was that the basement was flooded and the building was being evacuated, but servers would keep running for 5-7 hours until the back-up generators ran out of fuel.
Also, woo, no more 111 8th. Building power is down for most of the building (all of it?) (per floor), although some of the areas have their own generators (Level(3) and the old AboveNet area)
Was just listening in on FDNY radio scanner and they mentioned oil/diesel floating down the street in water.
it would be crazy to allow someone to loose out on their dream of even applying because the mother of all storms decided to hit the east coast of America. surely its http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_God exception :)
Lets remember Winston
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
Only good things can come from opening it longer given what's happened.
I lost ten days of power/connectivity in Isaac.
I'm not in this YC run, but to be honest, I don't think a day's really enough.
This is probably the first time in last 100 years for dwellers living in Manhattan downtown see flood in their homes. Especially for people who lives in ground floor or basements.
http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/171528/sandy-strikes-...
If you're going to run a startup, this is a good test of being prepared for a (known, impending, likely) shit tsunami, and being agile, and resourceful, and flexible, and, well, you get the idea.
If pg wants to appear compassionate about changing the date, that's fine, but this isn't like a tornado (no warning), or Katrina (total destruction of an entire city).
If people were going to apply at the very last second, guess what - moving the date forward by N days just means they have N more days before applying at the very last second.
If out of compassion pg wants to move the date, or more likely to avoid potential criticism of keeping the original date, then fine. But would this make a real difference, I doubt it.
Besides moving the date back might actually prevent some great company from getting in who are right now, demonstrating extraordinary resourcefulness at finishing the application (typing away on an iphone), getting it in on time, and providing a really cool story of how they did it.
I have absolutely no dog in this fight but I think that postponing the entry deadline for those in the affected region is absolutely the thing to do. Whether or not it is worse than Katrina remains to be seen. Millions of people without power and you think that some great company won't be able to get in because they're busy with the application showing how 'scrappy' they are rather than taking care of the people around them (and themselves) is tantamount to giving an advantage to those without a heart.
Really, a day is much too little, a week would be more appropriate.
You could have countered it without declaring him an asshole.
*I want to assume we are seeing the same comment so I am replicating it below.
"The hurricane wasn't a surprise... the effects shouldn't have been a surprise.
If you're going to run a startup, this is a good test of being prepared for a (known, impending, likely) shit tsunami, and being agile, and resourceful, and flexible, and, well, you get the idea.
If pg wants to appear compassionate about changing the date, that's fine, but this isn't like a tornado (no warning), or Katrina (total destruction of an entire city).
If people were going to apply at the very last second, guess what - moving the date forward by N days just means they have N more days before applying at the very last second. If out of compassion pg wants to move the date, or more likely to avoid potential criticism of keeping the original date, then fine. But would this make a real difference, I doubt it.
Besides moving the date back might actually prevent some great company from getting in who are right now, demonstrating extraordinary resourcefulness at finishing the application (typing away on an iphone), getting it in on time, and providing a really cool story of how they did it."
No great company is going to be left out because they could not show how resourceful they were.
There is a time to be hustling and there is a time to put a human face on things, natural disasters are not the time to show off who is resourceful other than in helping to combat the disaster if you're in the area.
If you don't have your priorities straight at times like these then you shouldn't be running a company.
You have a good counter-point there. However, I believe you could have stated it clearly without the asshole remark.
(S)he thinks it is resourceful that a candidate found a way to complete and submit an application under dire circumstances. Maybe using the neighbor car battery to power a laptop or something more crazy.
You assume Grand OP is deliberately advocating risking life to submit a YC application.
You could have disagreed without the name calling. If everyone branded a comment he disagrees with an "asshole" comment, I do not think here would be a pleasant place to discuss.
No, I understand from the original that someone that is 'scrappy' enough to make their application reach YC under these circumstances would be allowed to jump the line at the expense of those hit hard enough that they can't make it. As if such behavior is something that is to be commended, and as if the reward should be that they make it while others do not. Deadlines are imaginary lines in the sand, they can be moved without penalty or further aggravation if the situation warrants it.
YC seems to have the right idea here.
Plenty of people will work really hard to make their submission as good as possible and will submit the final product at the last moment. Being without power or communications (possibly for days) in a region that is hit by a once-in-a-lifetime (hopefully) storm front means that obviously the rules of the game have temporarily changed.
The NYC stock exchange seemed to have its priorities straight, I think some two bit unproven start-up should be able to live with the possibility of having to compete with a few more entries, especially when those fellows are in the middle of what now officially qualifies as a disaster area.
you make it seem like natural disasters are easy to predict down to the precise movements and effects for eacn individual.
i'd love to see that app or service you're making, sounds really powerful. dare i say clairvoyant?
http://fox41blogs.typepad.com/wdrb_weather/2012/10/could-a-s...
Jeff Master's Blog is excellent as well: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html
And yeah, I was born in NYC. We're tough.
It's important to not only empathize with things you could believe personally might happen to you, but also to the millions of others who you might know.
Maybe someone has updated their YC several times. But they also haven't heard from a family member in 24 hours in Manhattan.
I don't need proof that we knew the storm was coming, I'm just asking you to put yourself in other people's shoes and anticipate that maybe things are bigger and more out of control than we think.
Equating human tragedy with an application to YC is inane. It's an application, that's all it is. Apply next time. Or drop a note to pg with an explanation if it's that important to you.
If we didn't have an extension, we'd probably just put an addendum to the start of our video noting the lack of polish due to this complication, and just run with it. We'd hope the video wouldn't be a deal killer anyways.
But yes, it would be a nice gesture to push the deadline back.
I'd expect a lot of people not affected to vote "yes" out of a desire to not gain (or appear to gain) at the expense of other's suffering a disaster. They want a level playing field, and that means to them not having the competition disadvantaged because of outside circumstances.
It's the same reason Inigo Montoya let the Man in Black rest after the latter's climb up the Cliffs of Insanity, even though the Man in Black was willing to fight as soon as he got to the top.
Like other commenters have said, it's an absolute mess. ConEd is predicting up to 7 days for power to return. I voted "yes" but a day won't be enough. Some people trapped won't even be able to click submit for a week.
I think that a deadline extension isn't the best option. The best option would be to give grace to late entries that come from hurricane areas (like others have mentioned, a checkbox would work). However, I'd add an additional box for those ticking the box that asks about their hurricane experiences. After all, isn't YC looking for amazing founders? What better way to see who a person is than hearing about their experiences living through a record-breaking storm?
Sure, people would game the system but if they do make it to the interview stage it'll be easy to tell who's faking.
We had to hack our way in a storm to submit our YC application.
* Note for application reviewers: Email is in my profile, thanks.
If I lived in NY and I was hit by the storm I would have been really bummed out about missing the deadline.
One reason I'm applying to YC is to be among an awesome ecosystem of founders who are there for each other and seeing a large ratio of yes to no votes is a delight.
Given that situation, a delay would be symbolic more than anything.
Still worth doing.
I disagree with the suggestions to add a "I'm late because" or special consideration for late applications. This will postpone a decision and create unneeded complications with the selection process. What I can suggest, is that YC creates an "I will be late on my application because..." area and provide a 3 day extension for those groups. At the very least, this gives YC an opportunity to see if anything is coming in and allow for YC to make a decisions with some "wiggle room" for the late applications. I'm not sure how the selection process works at YC, but the bottom 2-3 fundable on-time applications could be on "stand by" until all applications are submitted and a final decision could be made for the last 2-3 groups.
Right now youtube is readonly - can't change video permissions to "anyone" from "private".
Majority of people submitted their applications and I'm sure many keep editing them (in fact I am right now) but the reality is that the last day editing won't change that much anyways. So if everyone gets an extra day, your chances of getting in will most likely remain nearly unchanged, while the people on the East coast will at least get some kind of a chance to submit the next DropBox or AirBnb.
I would say yes.
I would say postpone it at least a day.
If the stock markets aren't running, you can't expect a startup to get much done either.
F.Y.I. the GTA (the section of Ontario I am talking about) is a good 500 miles from the eye of the storm.
Sure, it's possibile that somebody will claim "the dug ate me hamework", but I think it's rational to keep your eyes open and use your judgement.
Supplies: https://twitter.com/mikeurbanski/status/263028329483997185
Best. Hurricane. Ever. https://twitter.com/mikeurbanski/status/263117753995644928
Push a deadline back because of a storm?
Really?
If I were in your position, I wouldn't miss out on people I think are good applicants because a natural disaster prevented them from meeting an arbitrary deadline.
Hope y'all are safe out there.
If an extension is a good idea (I'm not sure), then one until such time that people's priorities are back on YC related things would make more sense. This could be a few days, or a couple of weeks depending on how things pan out.
If I were in their situation I would really appreciate the help.
"The Starfish Story" http://www.ordinarypeoplechangetheworld.com/articles/the-sta...
Edit: I stand corrected. I'm the kind of person who gets things done early and then reads/refactors it every day making minor edits.
Edit: Maybe you filter by location? But why make it complex?
If they are on the east coast, discount the votes. They should be completing their application, not voting.
:)
NYSE not flooded...