DilipJ

surprised to read that he was an early investor of Google. I wonder how that came about?

that's not really fair to the kid. All of us are born with advantages that others lack. Every person living in America has access to wealth and connections that the average African can only dream of. That shouldn't take away from anyone's success here or diminish any of our accomplishments

that's not fair. So if someone is firing a gun at you, you can't fire back with a gun? She bullied those men, costing one of them their job. How else do you respond except by bullying her?

the best comment yet. there seems to be a growing segment of the population (mostly from the left) that wakes up each day looking for ways to be offended. It seems like such a miserable way to live one's life.

yeah, there's more to it. The founder Mick Mountz was an HBS guy, he went around for awhile networking with alums to try to get the initial cash investment. Eventually connected with Ajay Agarwal of Bain and landed some seed money.

so are you saying there is an upper limit to entrepreneurship? I don't think so.

I wonder if pg has written anything about this, if there is some point of diminishing returns in the lean startup scene

you think it's more efficient to ship everyone an entire set of encyclopedias than to keep wikipedia's servers running?

no, I meant like direct to institutions like pension funds.

why would a pension fund give money to Sequoia, and then have them give it to YC? that's an unnecessary management fee the pension funds have to pay

what I wonder is if/when YC will start to take institutional money....that's what's going to take YC up to upper caliber of VC funds.

I think Reddit is the greatest thing to come out of the first batch.

I doubt they were as altruistic as you describe. They probably viewed it as a good business investment. When you consider the elevated prices they pushed these books out at, and the fact that their online website is festered with ads, it's pretty clear that this is a firm that is primarily interested in the bottom line.

I'm sure more carbon is being used in cutting down the trees to turn into paper, and then shipping all of that paper to customers.

I agree. If you don't have an idea, on what basis are they judging you? what is their filtering process? If you are in your early twenties, what exactly have you accomplished that would separate you from the herd? Nothing, except which schools you have attended. I'm guessing the main filtering process YC will do is to filter based on which schools you attended, so in that way, YC is basically adopting the recruiting process that investment banks do.

I wonder what % of those YC funds attended the Ivy League or other private u's vs. those who went to state schools?

perhaps YC should think of becoming like a business school. Most business schools charge upwards of 100k for two years, and most students borrow that from the federal government. YC could instead "charge" half that amount, teach all the major business principles that one needs to know in a few months (which could basically be teaching pg's essays to a class audience) with the caveat that all or most of the tuition charged will be returned as seed investments to the students at the end