I love YC.
Even though I'd never apply and thus never get in because of my preconceived notions about YC's preconceived notions (too "old"?, proud Dad of a bunch of homeschooled kids, mostly solo founder (well, I've got kids who code!), building a social/chat app way outside of the Bay area echo chamber, and not toeing any particular political lines (hey, I'm a coder so I'm allowed to recursively nest parens -- don't tread on me), and even if I'm doxing myself a bit with this comment!), YC and PG (through his essays, Hackers and Painters, and his genuinely kind and sincere approach to everything, even with people who are on the opposite side of the political aisle, like me) have taught me so much about how to be a force for good in this strange and weird world.
PG seems to truly live out Jesus' wisdom and the Golden Rule. He wisely avoids getting dragged into political discussions, and the HN moderators wisely steer even very wild discussions away from flame wars. For my next act, I'd like to build a social app that scales up the same sort of non-partisan (or multi-partisan!) active, intelligent discourse that occurs here, even if there are, sadly, very few dang's in the world.
I would like to say a very, very warm and very sincere thank you to pg, dang, and the rest of the YC team who make it possible to still have a civil, mostly uncensored, and wide-ranging conversation, and has helped so many great startups get off the ground, both inside and outside of YC with things like the SAFE and the startup-school opened to all, proving to VC's how things can and should be done, and just pursuing the most interesting startups, period. If I truly thought I had a chance given my coloring so far outside the SF political lines, I'd apply in a heartbeat!
Much love from someone deep in the heart of Texas. Keep up the incredibly awesome work.
YC has been an invaluable resource for me.
An acquaintance was in the 3rd batch of founders and turned me on to the ecosystem and community here. Around that time, I was a few years out of high school and working for minimum wage at a pizza shop.
I was experimenting with web design, making a few extra dollars running google ads on phpBB forums, and learning to code in the process. I never realized my geeky side could translate into something entrepreneurial until I started spending time here. Tracking the progress of my friend and this community planted a seed that turned into a dream of someday being a founder.
Today, my two business partners and I have been running a successful software business for almost a decade. We were distributed before it was mainstream. We're in the WordPress space and have a team of 20+ people all over the globe. I've had the opportunity to travel, meet investors, smoke cigars with business heroes, sleep in if I want to, and enjoy an exciting and fulfilling life.
I still find myself regularly googling about issues that arise in my company with "hacker news" appended to the end of the query. The stories here helped us navigate a very stressful M&A process and countless other "business stuff" hurdles that we encountered over the years (ie business insurance "hacker news").
YC provided me with direction and inspiration when I was floundering around in my early years. The simple ideas that you don't need an MBA to start a business and being an odd duck is a valuable entrepreneurial trait were life-changing. The community and discussions here are where I come to learn and be inspired. I sincerely hope it continues to be that for myself and others for many more years to come.
Thanks YC!
I was rejected by YC and still point to them (namely, the combo of PG’s essays and HN comment wisdom) as the greatest single source of startup advice as I’ve built a company in the 9-10 figure range. Thank you YC! You have done so much for the startup community!
Happy birthday!
When I was 17, I: (a) was immortal (b) knew everything (c) had boundless energy (d) was out to change the world (e) did not know myself.
Fifty years later, I am • finite • humble • energetic in spurts • want to teach and encourage • still learning about myself.
Y Combinator, my best BD wish is that all your mistakes will be instructive. <3
Happy birthday, and thank you. Even though I have a bit of an HN addiction, it has helped me sound out a lot of different ideas and put them up for challenge in a way that would not been possible otherwise, and doing startup school in '18 was a significant personal and professional turning point. It's not just startups, users, and customers, you've enriched a lot of lives.
17 years seems like a long time, but looking back, it's not, and it's an example of how much all these things can grow. Cheers to another 17 years of finding and making things people want.
For anyone curious, this is the general area PG screenshot for the map: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3815449,-71.1244449,16z
This is about a ten minute walk from Harvard Square near an area known as the Radcliffe Quandrangle.
I followed YC from the time it was just a glimmer in pg’s eye (http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html). By the time I went through YC myself, in the Winter 2008, I felt like I was already late to the game. Eventually I realized W08 was still early, early days. (For example, the weekly dinners were generally cooked by pg himself. Also, the benches would see-saw up if someone on the wrong side left their seat—I’m sure some of you fellow old-timers now recall that idiosyncrasy with a strange sense of fondness.)
Congratulations to Y Combinator on 17 amazing years. Here’s to many more years to come!
Congrats to everybody contributing to YCombinator and HN success :)
When did this comment board start out of interest?
Happy 0x11, see you at 0x111
YC has been instrumental in some incredible successes. It's been very cool to see people I know go through the accelerator, scale up, and eventually exit. Long may it continue.
YC SUS Winter 2020 alum (enjoying the current "build sprint"). Discovering new startup wisdom everday. Here's to YC's next 17 years, and what 2040 will bring ;)
Jeez, I feel old.
Congrats to the team. It's proven itself beyond useful time and time again.
Wasnt pg married and wasn't Jessica his employee?
Happy birthday, Y Combinator. Thank you for existing.
here is the new UI for hackernews on 17th birthday of Y combinator.
hn.devss.io
It says I can't post to hackernews so if somebody else can post it for us it will be great.
Thanks
Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday
What a badass organization. Congrats!
Happy birthyday, YC!
Almost an adult!
Congrats!
It's almost too old for itself.
I got into the fifth batch (s07) and remember my other startup friends staging an intervention to dissuade me from accepting because "the valuation is really bad."
Interesting to see how long even the industry insiders failed to take YC seriously. And then once it was working, they flipped immediately to complaining that YC was too powerful and too influential (unbeatable network effect, seed/A valuation inflation, and so on).
I also remember the constant naysaying about scalability and batch size. Our batch was ~19 companies. People kept naysaying, "Well this model is fine for now, but it will never work past 20 teams."
PG would always reply with something like, "Yeah, they said that when we had fewer than 10 teams also. We aren't thinking too far ahead; each batch, we just find the next bottleneck and solve it, and we'll see how far that gets us." Which evidently got them pretty far. A lovely example of doing things that don't scale.