Welcome Amy, Susan, Colleen, and Steven | Hacker News Reader

Welcome Amy, Susan, Colleen, and Steven

blog.ycombinator.com

83 pointsBIackSwan29 comments

I've always wondered how YC is structured legally? Are they an LLC, or an S corp? How is the corporate organized?

I think it seems to be a very efficient organization for a group of smart people putting up some money and make investment decisions together.

A search of Delaware corporations for "Y Combinator" reveals a number of Limited Partnerships and LLCs:

https://delecorp.delaware.gov/tin/GINameSearch.jsp

Though it's not described how they're all collectively structured/related.

Interesting that none of these are partners (all previous announcements have been partners, I think).

Also super interesting to hire a psychologist! Founder breakups and founder dynamics are one of the hardest things about early stage startups (as YC has said before), so this seems an important step in trying to prevent those, and lead to overall more successful companies and investments! I wonder how long before every investment from will have require cofounders to go to couples counseling like the Genius folks do.

The psychologist profession has a gender equality of 80% female to 20% male. Shouldn't HN encourage diversity and hire a male psychologist instead of furthering the gender stereotype that male are not welcome in that profession?

What content does an Editorial Director entail in the context of YC? Just the http://blog.ycombinator.com ?

Strictly speaking, I suppose it has to do with press releases and such that companies make. But practically speaking, the real worth Colleen provides to YC is PR control, Colleen is an ex-TechCruncher (with the right tech news contacts, seems she's also worked at Financial Times and GigaOM, and more), she knows what to say and when how to say it.

An editorial director is a bit different from a corporate communications person. Many/most VC firms (indeed, many/most companies in general) are now looking to attract audiences of their own rather then rely on the eyeballs gathered around new sites.

First Round Review is a good example: http://firstround.com/review/

Or, go to a16z's homepage: it's all home-grown content! The company hired Sonal Chokshi from Wired to actually be an editor -- not a PR person.

That is an interesting possibility, I think yes, they will do that. It's like a more glorious version of pg's essays... except more strategically thought of (as you would expect from a large company).

Probably doesn't hurt to have a huge network of important contacts though :), the need arrives at unexpected times.

An office manager with a BS in Biomedical Engineering...Wow

Just wondering...does that tell us more about office managers, or about Biomedical Engineering ?

Neither? It tells us about Steven Pham.

Great answer. It's just a data point. There is no evidence that P(office manager, biomedical engineering) != P(office manager) * P(biomedical engineering).

I was a Production Manager at a Medical Device company here in the Bay area previously for almost 3 years. Wanted a change of scenery so I started helping Garry out.

From there, I started helping out with events and tech/ops at YC and joined the team to help out internally, officially (Tara and co have been doing so much already)! All I've got to say is I came for the experience, and stayed for the community.

Biomedical engineering Bachelor degrees frequently have poor job outcomes, they are a few different subjects combined into one degree which leaves little room for depth. My understanding is medical device companies would actually prefer to hire electrical, computer, or mechanical engineering degree holders at the undergraduate level. You also don't qualify for engineering positions in the aforementioned engineering fields either.

Reporting in with my own anecdote: I have totally opposite experiences.

I was at a medically-oriented place where there were a few pure EE engineers, and there was a lot of frustration by higher-ups for the EE's being clueless about medical things. The biomedical engineers were okay.

You have a strange way of congratulating someone who achieved what they consider to be happiness.

What's involved in a "Chief of Staff" role, is it like an Operations Manager?

Hey! Steven here :)

Chief of Staff in my particular case was mainly everything an Executive Assistant does (administrative work, research, gatekeeper, etc) plus anything else that came up that I could help out with.

Thanks, I was thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_McGarry :)

Funny, I was more thinking http://house-of-cards.wikia.com/wiki/Doug_Stamper

sans the sketchiness, of course. :P

Haha, I love House of Cards. And I guess you could draw some analogies :D

I vote kn0thing for the political leader from the south in this joke...

It's a fancy name for "personal assistant".

Love those TC Cribs segments with Colleen! Does this mean more video content for the Youtube channel? Though it may prove a tough beat to cover when every founder is like "we're in stealth mode, get that camera away from here..." ;)

Are these jobs posted somewhere? Or are they strictly word of mouth?

Congrats everyone! Glad to see more women in key roles at YC : )

Is this the first non-partner investment professional at YC?

Go Amy! Turtles all the way down.

More women + a psychologist + possible growth fund. YC is killing it

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