I would love to believe what pg is saying. However there are strong counter points to his arguments.
Uber and Travis Kalanick don't seem to be failing. They may have some negative publicity, but their growth is strong. Uber is probably worth more than any single yc company including Airbnb.
"Don’t let funding take your eye off the goal: making something people want. Everything else, including going through Y Combinator, is there to support that goal but is not the goal itself." Exactly...
I think the mindset to have here is that YC is so popular and the number of YC partners are so small, that you have a very small chance to get in the first place.
I wouldn't burn too many candles hoping to get in or trying to figure out a reason why you did not. There is a benefit to applying in that it makes your commitment to your startup even stronger.
Focus on what is important and that is your business. I truly believe building something sustainable is better for YOU, than trying to make the next Dropbox, Facebook etc. But if you already gaining Facebook like traction I am sure YC will already have heard of you.
Worry about your startup and just focus on making it sustainable. Becoming popular with customers and maintaining that relationship. has more benefits for more people than getting into YC. Focus on what is important.
How come no one asks where do old chefs go to? What about old artists? What about old musicians? What about old plumbers? What about old construction people?
Rust really interest me. However I want them to get to 1.0 before I can evaluate whether or not to use Rust in my app. Currently I am using Go and it stable for my needs. Rust could make me switch once they get to 1.0 and people start writing more projects in Rust.
I want to add that stability in deciding to use a language in an application is very important. How good the standard library is and how much traction the language is gaining in projects and particularly open source projects is also important.
Marc is extreme smart and talented individual. But when your on Twitter 24/7 and keep on making predictions your gonna be wrong at times. Sometimes you can be wrong in a really big way.
I am really curious about the technology behind the 5k iMac. I am not sure if there is any off the shelf GPU out there that can drive that display using retina type rendering.
It's interesting they did a custom controller for the display timing (Timing Controller (TCON)) . They must have had to do deep customizations to use the AMD R9 M290X (comparable to the Radeon HD 7870) to drive it.
If this is not innovative I am not sure what is, in terms of an engineering standpoint.
The thing about bubbles is it sort of hard to predict. Also how many times have we seen the same bubble. Investors have already learned from 99 and they will short any IPO/Public company stock that does not have any significant growth and/or profits. Look at Zygna and Groupon, probably made allot of short sellers rich.
What happened in 99 is already factored into the market. The public stock market is dying to short sell over hyped companies that under deliver.
The situation right now is unprecedented. With the Fed keeping interest rates low for so long. LP's have no other choice but to invest more of their money into public stock market and the private markets through VCs. I can't seem reduce their exposure until there are viable options. The Fed won't let that happen.
I can see a scenario where if somehow startups burn up all their capital and go under. Somehow the entire VC fund goes under. LPs might have to pull money from public equities to cover their startup investment losses.
If one or two big startups like Airbnb or Dropbox go under. The worst case scenario could be really bad, as it could have sever ripple effects through the start up ecosystem. Eventually hitting the public markets and normal people.
Honest question does anyone still use Quora? It seems more about being an ego contest than actually answering questions. They are definitely not the "library of Alexandria"... they far far from that.
PG made allot of valid points. It very useful to watch the video first.
However here is one additional counterintuitive point. Not all startups work hard. The good ones are focused and might not have all the answers but you at least know what your going to be doing. Some startups are just there, they don't work consistent hours and spend allot of time doing fluff stuff and not productive stuff. Some startups are just there because it's the cool thing now and they come in at 12:00pm and leave at 4:00 pm.
For reference I have worked few startups, some small companies and one very large company. I am currently working out of a co-working space. I see very few startups here working any type of consistent hours. I don't mean 9-5 , I mean consistently being here and working no matter what hours they prefer, even though they are full time members of the space.
I can reference companies like Apple in which people are basically working as much as humanly possible[1]. Their work culture is actually more intense than allot of startups. Even at a small-medium company I worked at I would see executives up at 3am, even after they have been at work all day long.
I understand the cynicism about YC and silicon valley. I think it's great to have some critical thoughts about the why and how.
However these lectures are pretty good. I would highly recommend to watch them even if your skeptical about all things silicon valley. Some of the lessons and points of Lecture 2 about focus and intensity also apply to small businesses and large businesses as well.
I thought the ending quote from Henry Ford was great.
"The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time"
This is a pretty expected move on Apple's part. There typical MO is to assimilate the company entirely.
The only reason Beats headphone is still around, is because it is generating revenue and will offset the cost of the acquisition. As soon as they are ready to start producing new headphones in production, you will see Beats headphones shut down quietly.
Uber and Travis Kalanick don't seem to be failing. They may have some negative publicity, but their growth is strong. Uber is probably worth more than any single yc company including Airbnb.