ncd

Most of what you describe takes place at the state and federal level, but not local. In fact, discretionary funds are plentiful in our target market—people are often shocked to learn that we've never run into price objections when selling, and we've successfully sold to cities ranging in population from 20k to 4m. In other words, they aren't "awful purchasers" as you call them—they're hard-working, dedicated people looking to improve their efficiency with money to spend, but they aren't being provided with solutions they can experiment with on a monthly basis. We're trying to change that.

In addition, the strategy you've outlined is the one nearly every incumbent in every enterprise space has leaned on to protect themselves from disruption, but it only works for so long (as we've seen time and time again). I also think people overestimate the ability of large companies to quickly adapt their offering—the machinery of enormous sales, marketing, and product organizations can't turn on a dime.

This looks awesome (although I think the name could use a little work). It also brings up a question I have for HN:

Every few years, I make an attempt to learn to use one of the classic editors like vim or emacs, and inevitably give up after the enormous productivity drop I suffer when writing code. I just can't seem to pick up the muscle memory required to become fast with these tools, and the overwhelming array of customization options leaves me frustrated.

The most annoying thing is that I want to learn one of these, because I think I'll enjoy it once I do. Any suggestions from people who have picked one up on how to accomplish this seemingly Herculean task?

And, I suppose, I have another another question: is it worth it?

> even more unethical and sketchy

That's quite the stretch, and I'm even one of the commenters in your linked thread who used to work there. Gusto has made some mistakes on the employee equity side, but, with a few exceptions, it was a wonderful place to work.

Michael was one of our group partners during S16, and I cannot think of a person better suited for this position than him. He consistently demonstrated the ability to cut through all of the nonsense founders tried to use to defend their actions (ourselves included) and delivered fantastic insights into our businesses to which we were blinded.

For me, the group partners were the primary value delivered by YC during the program, and I look forward to that value being continued under Michael's leadership. Congratulations!

I thought it was incredibly valuable, but exhausting at the same time. Usually, meetings like this would be spread out over days and weeks, giving you a chance to recover from each pitch. This was relentless: the same questions every 20 minutes for most of the day.

On the other hand, it was awesome to meet so many people excited by what we're doing in a single day. The investors we spoke to were engaging and thoughtful, and we didn't have to worry (for the most part!) about whether speaking with them was worth our time.

The algo for matching investors with companies seemed to work _okay_, although there were a few meetings we had to schedule outside of Investor Day with people who didn't make the cut for whatever reason.

On the whole, it was absolutely worth it and I highly recommend YC keep it as a mechanism for speeding up fundraising after Demo Day.