sama

I had emailed this out to the YC community over the weekend. I got word from a journalist it was about to leak, and I couldn't get in touch with the person that runs the YC blog (I don't yet know how to post on the new one, but I'm sure going to figure it out now). I didn't want to wait, so I just posted it where I could.

Also I happen to think documents are easier to read with double spaces after sentences. Surely there is something more important to complain about than that.

We'll announce details on structure and timing in January.

Good idea; I may try something like a "State of YC" update once every 3-6 months.

We've started giving money to a small pilot group. We're still working out the kinks but expanding it slowly.

The plan is still to run the pilot until we're confident everything is working well (especially with issues like making sure no one loses eligibility for income-based benefits) and then start the full-scale study.

We support free speech, obviously. And we're happy to fund people with all sorts of different political views.

We do not allow harassment, for which Andrew unfortunately set a new bar in our community. You can look at his Twitter or Facebook for plenty of public examples, to say nothing of what he's said privately.

As per our previous comments, when a founder violates our ethics statement, we remove them from the community.

two errors!

I counted at least 5 factual errors in the photo caption and first 3 paragraphs.

We also heard that this reporter was 'encouraged' to write this by someone from a competing accelerator with an obvious agenda. Seems like manufactured controversy otherwise.

All that said, we like hardware and we like Luke, and we're excited he's in the new batch! And we're thankful for the work he did to get our hardware program set up.

I think those organizations were wrong to support SOPA, and it was wrong for us to say we wouldn't invite them to Demo Day.

Yes--honestly, for me this is much more about not electing Trump than electing Clinton.

Also, a reminder of what I personally think about Trump from early this summer:

http://blog.samaltman.com/trump

I understand the confusion since they share a word, but they are entirely different. EG part-time partners don't have a legal vote in the direction of YC.

You seem to continue to try to deliberately misunderstand this, but he is not a YC partner.

He is a part-time partner, which means he spends a small fraction of his time advising YC companies, but does not have equity in YC.

There are plenty of hard tech software startups. But I see how unclear this is; fixing now. Thanks.

What we've thought about the most is creating a better way for potential cofounders to meet each other.

As Finbarr says, non minimums at all. Sometimes we fund just an idea if the EV seems high enough.

I enjoyed attending and I thought many of the conversations were interesting.

The format is just discussions. Some of them changed my mind about things, many didn't. No direct actions come out of it, but hopefully there are some benefits to smart people sharing ideas.

People never really understood what we meant by it. Will try to break out into several more descriptive RFSs in the future.

Once you submit it we may read it away, so you shouldn't submit it until you'r ready.

Early 70s.

We both go in most weeks for about half a day and talk to the team whenever they need.

I shudder to imagine. It's a real problem with the system.

Not yet.

You are 27. Hard to imagine you'd be behind in anything.

But no reason to delay in making the impact you want.

No, it doesn't hurt future chances!

Yes, some people call me that...

We're spending a lot of time right now thinking about where we should add new groups (i.e. where we're limited and where the biggest opportunities are).

Hopefully will be ready to talk about it early 2017.

Working at a startup is the right answer to your first question, and it's definitely a viable path!

I expect the rest of the world will trend towards Silicon Valley. But I'm biased.

To find industries ripe for new companies, look for places where technology is causing a high rate of change.

Not yet but that would be interesting to offer some day.

That's a very good initial step.

You should give up when no one loves what you're building and you're out of ideas about how to make it better.

We have discussed trying a remote group through the YC batch. Although we're all varying degrees of skeptical, I think it's worth a try.

As you point out, there are (some) good reasons that MV doesn't make sense, like your customers being very far away. That said, it's only three months.