I will miss the old Y Combinator

http://scobleizer.com/2011/01/29/i-will-miss-the-old-y-combinator/

by domino • 15 years ago

90 61 15 years ago

scobleizer.com

il2• 15 years ago

You know what else makes great stories? Successful companies.

I think it's disingenuous to lament a change in funding models that appears to be a huge net gain for founders.

Considering many YC startups have been raising additional funding for a while now, I don't see much changing.

sliverstorm• 15 years ago

But is it for sure a net gain? Is there no value in humble beginnings?

HeyLaughingBoy2• 15 years ago

Only for the people looking for a story to write about. Poor people don't like being poor.

Confusion• 15 years ago

What do you know about Scoble that makes this 'disingenious'? I read nothing but an honest sentiment. Not everything has a deeper meaning or needs to be part of a grand consistent whole of thoughts, you know.

il2• 15 years ago

Maybe that's not the right word choice. But it's a journalist saying "I don't like this story because it changes the narrative/ starving founder myth we're trying to create" doesn't feel right.

wooster• 15 years ago

As one of those single founders you hear about struggling to make things work from within their apartment or the local coffee shops: that story is overrated. It's all about the business, and the $150k investment which was offered today is an exceptionally good deal.

patio11• 15 years ago

There's always the "before they were famous" angle (important as more YC companies come in at later stages of maturity than "two guys with a gleam in their eye"). I think AirBnB, for example, cornered the market on Obama-themed balanced breakfasts prior to being in YC.

If that doesn't satisfy, particular journalists looking for scrappy upstarts can still find them - the Internet is a big place. I mean, Andrew Warner manages to find a new story every day, with fairly little overlap with other sources of news I follow.

geuis• 15 years ago

I know that the hardships of other people usually make the best stories. Hiker gets his arm caught under a rock and has to cut it off with a pen knife 3 days later to escape, makes for a gripping story. Moral is, sometimes being the person in the adventure isn't all its cracked up to be.

When my cofounder and I applied for YC this past round, we had a lot of hopes in getting accepted (we didn't, unfortunately, but got the interview). Even though I knew all of the benefits of getting into YC in terms of the experience and the contacts, I still had a certain amount of trepidation in terms of finances. I was ready and willing (still am!) to dive into YC and not look back, but I was also looking at giving up a job that pays well (I make more money than anyone else in my large extended family), the health benefits, 401k, stock options, and 2 weeks of vacation each year. I live in San Francisco, and it isn't cheap. That $17k, split between 2 people, doesn't go far. I'm a single guy with limited expenses, and it still would have been tight.

Having met Paul Graham and the YC crew a couple of times, interviewing with them, and meeting many other people at various YC-funded companies, I feel confident in saying that I highly doubt the spirit of YC is going to change. There is a certain character to all of the people I've met that's hard to define but is definitely there. That isn't going to disappear simply because an investor is trying something new.

I suspect that there are driven people like me who are in slightly different situations (family, etc) where they don't feel like they can take the risk if they get accepted. This stops them from even feeling like applying.

Now knowing that there's another guaranteed round of money to be accessed after a few months is going to let people on the edge make the decision to apply. Some will get accepted. It will let people feel like they can work as hard as possible on a dream and know they have a better chance of being ok longer. $150k + $17k at a startup of 2-3 people is enough to not only fund the company, but to also let the founders who need it to take a survivable income for the first year while they're getting off the ground. Its an extra safety blanket that lets those founders who need it to take the plunge and to fight a while longer to succeed.

For the people that get accepted into YC where $17k was enough, those people now have some extra guaranteed resources to help their businesses grow. That's the money that lets a 2 person team hire a 3rd after 6 months to let them keep growing while one of the founders concentrates on angel or VC funding, instead of hitting a wall because there's too much to do and not enough humans to go around to do it.

I'll grant Robert that YC may change a little, but it'll only be for the better.

brown9-2• 15 years ago

Great post, but I feel the need to point out that two weeks of vacation is not that much of a perk and is actually quite low.

elgenie• 15 years ago

"struggle and sacrifice makes for great stories", but not necessarily great companies. Tech journalists' ability to phone in the same story they've written 100 times before shouldn't even register on the radar of things to consider.

danilocampos• 15 years ago

Meta: I want to ask something right now that will sound very flip but I mean it with no malice and with full earnestness. Seriously – I'm asking because I want an answer. Cool? Cool.

How has Mr. Scoble convinced so many people to listen to him?

In over six years of following the Valley and tech in general with interest, I have heard Mr. Scoble's name so many times – but never associated with anything of substance. I've never read of any dramatic achievements, nor have I been pointed to any essays of any deep insight or poignancy. While he frequently comes up in conversation he does not seem to... do anything. Like a Paris Hilton.

From what I can tell, he worked for Microsoft, then wrote a book in which he appeared on the cover naked (Hiltonesque!)... and then convinced a bunch of people to follow him on Twitter and other social media flavors of the moment. Then Rackspace bought him an enormous tripod.

I hasten to reiterate that I have no specific ill-will toward Mr. Scoble, but I am... mystified and hope for some insight. Is this a case of wildly successful self-promotion? Is the success of the self-promotion, itself, the measure of success from which he derives attention and note? Do people latch onto him in the hopes of learning similar powers of promotion?

wheels• 15 years ago

Here's the right visual:

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/5843/178783.jpg

Scoble is the ultra-fan. I wouldn't really call him a rabid self-promoter (though those are certainly around) -- he just oozes an almost naive excitement about the technology world and seems to try to be in all corners of it at once. I think that sort of excitement, almost like the tech world is one big family of sorts, is, in its own way, contagious.

klein_waffle• 15 years ago

I think this picture says everything you need to know about Scoble.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2007/07/scoble-ipho...

If the tech world is a big family, Scoble is the youngest kid whose incessant bids for attention have the older ones rolling their eyes.

pclark2• 15 years ago

Scoble is just a normal guy who has gradually built a following of mostly normal people. He isn't technical or anything but is a good conduit to "the normal people" who do not read TechCrunch.

junkbit• 15 years ago

He has a self-deprecating charm. An everyman; like Homer Simpson. He's also like that snake-bite guy form Australia with a hundred scars who says 'give it here lads, I'll see if it's poisonous'

Occasionally you will see him get worked up and stand his ground but he's so enthusiastic about everything new and shiny that it becomes infectious. A little naive perhaps, but his optimism for technology and the future is a light in dark places.

mahmud• 15 years ago

Steve Irwin :-(

That's just how he rolled:

http://haringliwanag.pansitan.net/uploaded_images/steve%20ir...

jedwhite• 15 years ago

Scoble is a great curator and breaker/spreader of startup news. And I think it would be fair to say he's done a good job of pioneering some new forms of social media journalism.

It's true that he's a startup enthusiast, and often looks more like an evangelist for startups. But he's a decent and friendly guy in person, and genuinely believes in the importance of startups.

That's why people quote him, tweet him and support him. He's part of the startup community as much as a person who covers it.

He's one of the good guys, and good on him for supporting and covering startups the way he does.

reinhardt• 15 years ago

Thank you for formulating what I am thinking every time I hear his name: "Who is this guy and why should I care ?". The Paris Hilton analogy sounds spot on; Scoble is the socialite of the tech scene. Reminds me of the "social media expert" illustrated at http://theoatmeal.com/comics/websites_stop, "like a webmaster from the 1990s, except you can't even code HTML".

edanm• 15 years ago

I follow Scoble on Twitter and am subscribed to his blog.

The reason - he breaks tons of great stories, and has a lot of interesting interviews with people from the industry. I've heard about a lot of new startups/products for the first time through him, and they're always interesting.

Not sure how it came about, but that's the reason I follow him now.

(I've also met him briefly in real life, he's a really nice guy).

kkowalczyk• 15 years ago

He's a single most prolific journalist covering startup and (mostly computer) technology companies. His many video interviews are insightful, humanistic and full of positive energy about technologies and companies he covers. That, in my book, counts for a lot. Comparing his relentless work promoting companies and informing the public through interesting interviews to what Paris Hilton does is rather tasteless.

srgseg• 15 years ago

I think you're assuming that people are following his 'expert opinion' when in fact what people are really mostly following is the very interesting information he often brings us.

Scoble works very hard to bring us stories about startups and products and the people behind them. That doesn't necessarily mean he's 'insightful', but he does bring a ton of value to the tech community.

toddh• 15 years ago

In social network terms Robert plays the combined roles of the connector and maven. In his connector aspect he is a liaison that connects different groups together. From Tipping Point connectors "link us up with the world ... people with a special gift for bringing the world together, they are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack for making friends and acquaintances". In his maven aspect Robert, as he lives and tries to solve problems in his own life, is continually testing out different products and has a considerable expertise in those areas. It's not his role to be a deep technical expert, that's an in-group function. Without people like Robert there would be much less radiation of information between the startup and thought leader groups and the broader user community. That's a rare and valuable service, one Robert peruses with a passion.

damoncali• 15 years ago

He will answer your email in a thoughtful manner, despite having no idea who you are and that it's 99% likely that the only reason you're contacting him is that you want to promote your widget.

That kind of infectious engagement is incredibly hard to come by - they guy just lives it.

erikpukinskis• 15 years ago

I've been following his blog for 6 months or a year, but I'm finding myself skipping over more and more of his posts, and am considering taking it out of my reader. Your question spurred me to look at what made me subscribe in the first page and what's changed.

I remember watching and really enjoying this interview with Cloudera CEO Mike Olson: http://scobleizer.com/2010/03/05/do-we-need-a-new-tech-liter... I found Olson to be smart and interesting, and Scoble asked good questions. I was excited to learn more about what people were doing with big data and industrial NoSQL, and that interview was a great primer.

I also remember reading an essay of his on curation (http://scobleizer.com/2010/03/27/the-seven-needs-of-real-tim...) that I thought was really insightful... after all, curation is something he's an expert on.

That's around when I subscribed to him. If you go back to March/April/May of last year (http://scobleizer.com/404) he was writing lots of great, smart, important essays.

Lately, I feel like it's more like startup diarrhea. A flood of interviews and links and startups and random crap that he's testing out. I guess that's what you have to do when you're focused on "breaking" news. But at some point I just don't have the patience to wade through all of it for the good stuff.

Ironic reason for unfollowing an expert in curation!

wyclif• 15 years ago

I remember a few months ago when Scoble was singing the praises of pip.io from the rooftops. You had to go sign up for pip.io, it was gonna be huge and it was so awesome to have all your social media content in one place.

So, yeah. I hear you. I'd rather not diss the guy, because he has added a lot of value just by covering the startup space and conducting a lot of great interviews. I just wish he would spend more time doing quality blogging.

I give a lot of credit to Scoble, though. He's unique among the meta-geek crowd in that he'll respond to anybody as long as you have something intelligent to say without regard for whether you're in the "inner circle" of SV. Not many people at his level do that; in fact the only other person I can put in that category is Steve Jobs.

_b8r0• 15 years ago

As I understand it, he is genuinely massively interested in technology, almost being like a kid in a sweet shop.

Having said that, he's also the prime example of why you should get off the Internet and start doing something.

pclark2• 15 years ago

This deal won't change that. YC knows scrappy companies win, and especially well capitalised scrappy companies.

robryan• 15 years ago

My takeaway from previous ycombinator groups is that anyone onto anything half decent by the end has had no trouble getting a financing round.

Personally if it was me I don't think it would really change the way I went about things, would still work out of a house and go it cheap, just might be able to get an early hire in to push things along even faster without having to worry about how much equity I was sacrificing to do it at such an early stage.

6ren• 15 years ago

A great advantage startups have over established companies is they get excited over small wins. And beginnings are small.

The Innovator's Dilemma even suggests established companies spin-out small startups to work on emerging technologies/markets, for this reason.

dotBen• 15 years ago

No longer will we hear stories like we heard from Airbnb’s founders of surviving off of cereal or “ramen.”

'ramen profitable' and it's derivatives should be taken as a cutesy fluffy marketing term and nothing more (like most startups were never actually started in a garage).

No one should be living literally off Ramen noodles and cereal. It's incredibly bad for your health and a total lack of investment in your body and your brain.

I'm not saying YC's small funding encourages this, but nevertheless we should not be encouraging the promotion of this concept.

brc2• 15 years ago

Hey that sort of diet got me through university and freed up funds for that other important calorie source : beer.

You can actually live on that type of diet for a little while when you're young and eager. There are far worse things for you to do.

pnathan• 15 years ago

I ate ramen a lot for one semester for so in undergraduate. My mind and body felt horrible in short order; I never got any sort of nutrition, and I basically haven't had any since. That was like 6 years ago.

If you need to buy cheap food for a while, ramen is not the answer. Finding ingredients at the grocery store and cooking them up yourself is the answer. I suspect that if you really want ramen, you can make it cheaper yourself. And more healthily ().

() Except for the salt levels.

mgkimsal• 15 years ago

I'm seeing the word 'loan' in there along with 'investment' - the two aren't really compatible terms. Who's on the hook for the loan? From the TC page:

"If you’re not an investor, here’s what it means. Yuri and SV Angel just offered to loan each company $150,000. That loan will convert if/when the company raises a proper angel or venture capital round at the same valuation that’s set in that round. Most convertible debt has a valuation ceiling and also gets a discount on conversion. This debt doesn’t.

It’s the most entrepreneur friendly investment that I can think of, short of just handing people money as a gift."

So, they're not just handing money over ('investing') - it's a loan, which would seem to require payback. If the company flops (some do) who is on the hook? YC itself? The original founders?

jacquesm2• 15 years ago

It's a convertible note as far as I understand it.

lrm242• 15 years ago

It's a convertible note, so it is a loan. I'm 100% positive that there are no personal guarantees and it is essentially entirely unsecured. Convertible notes are very common early investment tools when it is very hard to place an accurate valuation on the company. It significantly reduces the amount of paperwork involved and it allows the person providing the note a guaranteed seat at the A round table. Like most loans, it typically carries interest which accrues as part of the principal and adds to the conversion.

jfarmer• 15 years ago

A convertible note is a loan, just one that you never expect to pay back.

jacquesm2• 15 years ago

So go and re-create it, we'll see how well you do.

Backseat drivers don't get to vote.

spinchange2• 15 years ago

Those who can't ship, blog.

josefresco• 15 years ago

Those who can't blog, comment.

spinchange2• 15 years ago

Turnabout is fair play, but roughly how many words do you think this story and silly meta-analysis deserve?

I could throw-up a few paragraphs on my wordpress, but I'd rather work on some code. What do you think?

edawerd• 15 years ago

As a founder during the "old YCombinator", back when we had to move to Boston (YC s08), I can tell Scoble with absolute certainty that while the fear of running out of money was always on our minds, it wasn't the motivating force for us working our asses off. It was something greater than that: An innate entrepreneurial desire to build a company doing something meaningful. Indeed, even after the economy crashed right after we graduated and money ran out, we doubled down with our own personal savings to continue fighting.

Yuri's funding isn't gong to change a thing for YC founders, except arm them with more ammo to build something great

JoeAltmaier• 15 years ago

I loved those Dickens stories too! Children working in factories! Fishermen dying for lack of a doctor! Ha Ha!

BrandonM4• 15 years ago

Is this guy fucking serious?

No longer will we hear stories like we heard from Airbnb’s founders of surviving off of cereal or "ramen."

That bums me out, because struggle and sacrifice makes for great stories.

I'm sorry that you're bummed out at less human suffering. These are people with friends and families and hopes and dreams and feelings, and you're treating them like characters in a movie. These are people working their asses off to make the world a little bit better and hopefully make money doing it. Mr. Consumer here is upset that their lives are a little better? And his only reason is that the stories he hears aren't as nice? This is disgusting. Fuck you, get some perspective.

biot2• 15 years ago

Speaking of perspective, I wouldn't call living off of cereal or ramen human suffering. These are people who could probably do one hour of consulting and, with the money they make, buy more food than someone in the third world sees in a month. It's human suffering much in the same way that choosing to flagellate yourself with a cat o' nine tails is.

BrandonM4• 15 years ago

Eating a healthy diet is unquestionably better than eating a cereal-and-ramen diet. Being able to afford a better diet does lessen human suffering, even if that person isn't a starving child in Sudan. Being bummed out that someone's life is better, simply because it doesn't make for a good story, is shitty.

If Mr. Scoble wants a story of struggle and sacrifice, he can kindly live it himself.

prodigal_erik• 15 years ago

Because of food banks, I take "living on ramen" as a euphemism not going out or getting laid. And does a founder who's never had a big exit or a high-paying job really have the credibility to sell consulting hours?

jaredsohn• 15 years ago

I think it is also important to point out that this funding change doesn't prevent these kinds of situations (and related stories) from happening anyway; people will continue forming startups without funding. Also in Airbnb's case, their famous living off of extra Cap'n McCain's cereal started prior to YC funding.

BrandonM4• 15 years ago

Good point. In addition to being self-centered and somewhat mean-spirited, Scoble's post was inaccurate.

adrianwaj• 15 years ago

Why are people assuming the 150k is from this batch onward?

rmason• 15 years ago

Just getting accepted in YCombinator means you're part of an elite group. Even among these select startups there are those whose original idea doesn't work.

How many fail because they ran out of money trying to execute a pivot? All this added capital is going to do is increase the success rate. I respect you Scoble but you're wrong.

gallerytungsten• 15 years ago

I somehow suspect Scoble has never been poor. There's nothing glamorous about it.

ericmsimons• 15 years ago

Living more comfortably while doing a startup is a great thing though. Better food = better brainpower. It may not sound as good on paper but the end result will be the same if not better.

erik_landerholm• 15 years ago

I was in YCS09 (CarWoo!). The 150k would not of changed anything we did when it came to being frugal.

We would of still lived in our office (not in an apartment that was our office, but in our office that was our apartment).

We would of still rented a total crap hole in not the greatest part of town. It might of helped WePay not have a neighbor who got macheted because we all wouldn't of had to live in the slums. It might of helped us not live next to other tenets that were growing weed and getting raided by the cops. The day we moved out the cops raided them. We had armed police officers in our hallway. These 'stories', while hilarious are not conducive to a good working environment.

I'm older then most entrepreneurs YC funds. Tommy is also older then most. A bit more money up front would of been very helpful and wouldn't of changed our drive or decision making one bit, except to make us not worry about raising money until later. And that would of been a good thing. Raising money stole a fifth to a quarter of our time during YC.

We always knew we would need more money. Right out of YC we raised another 200k. It was very stressful because if that didn't work out we were up the proverbial creek. Having that 150k up front would of helped ease a lot of sleepless nights...listening to our neighbors scream and yell as they tried to hang a sodium light, but I digress.

I will miss the old Y Combinator

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