Two New YC Partners: Kirsty Nathoo and Carolynn Levy

Based on this and the biannual stories of how many great teams there wasn't room for, I wonder: how long until the YC partners aren't advisors so much as the deans and department heads of YC University?

I realize that's a hugely loaded question, just curious what people's thoughts are.

aaronblohowiak3• 14 years ago

These are SMEs not GMs, so I would suggest quite some time. Further, these are promotions of existing contributors, not 'true' staff expansions.

opminion2• 14 years ago

Agreed, no need to GTTM of IIP, which would diminish the FAB of JUT.

pg• 14 years ago

We wouldn't have to do anything like that till we had such a large number of partners that they had to be organized in some sort of structure. YC is intrinsically very parallelizable, so we probably have room to grow several x before we'd have that many.

brudgers• 14 years ago

A law (or other professional) firm might be a better analog for YC than a university - each partner may be responsible for one portion of the firm's portfolio and support resources may be shared while benefiting from economies of scale. As the firm adds to its portfolio additional partners may be recruited to maintain the ratio of projects to partners and by adding partners with expertise in different areas, the firm my diversify its business interests.

guynamedloren• 14 years ago

Can somebody please explain what it means to be a YC partner?

tptacek• 14 years ago

Traditionally, the difference between a "partner" and an "employee" is that partners share a formally-defined portion of the earnings of the business. A partnership is a business in which all the profits of the business which aren't simply invested back into the business flow to the partners.

I have no idea if that's exactly what it means at YC; partnership at YC might have as much to do with how portfolio-company-facing or visible a team member is.

larrys2• 14 years ago

"share a formally-defined portion of the earnings"

Which typically vary according to the particular partner by various items including seniority, equity invested, as only two factors.

asdf333• 14 years ago

Congratulations Kirsty!!!

ddt• 14 years ago

Woo! We would be about three months behind where we are now if it weren't for Kirsty and Carolynn's help.

zbruhnke• 14 years ago

Congrats Kirsty! You deserve it for all the hardwork and time you put in dealing with all of our questions and accounting issues. thanks for all you do!

samstokes• 14 years ago

Congratulations Kirsty, much deserved!

vaksel• 14 years ago

is this partners where you just give them the title.

or is this like what you have with law firms, where they have to buy their way in as well?

larrys2• 14 years ago

I don't know Carolynn but I would assume she has some significant business skills in addition to legal skills. From my experience it typically wouldn't make sense to make a partner out of a legal adviser for this type of business (as opposed to a business where you may be regularly fighting legal battles) and certainly not in the same percentage as a non-legal skills partner. Once again I don't know this particular situation. But a mistake I have often seen entrepreneurs in IRL make is becoming partners with their attorney or teaming up with an attorney in a business dealings. Attorneys tend to frame everything in legal risk which can often get in the way of certain risks you inevitably need to take in business.

One example might be the tendency that I have seen for a company to present a sales prospect with a multi page legal document to sign for even the smallest of dealings. This creates friction and isn't always necessary for small transactions and it gets in the way of closing deals. Every situation is different of course.

opminion2• 14 years ago

http://paulgraham.com/julian.html

itsprofitbaron• 14 years ago

Congratulations Kirsty & Carolynn

lowglow• 14 years ago

Congratulations, Kirsty and Carolynn!

felixchan• 14 years ago

Congrats Kirsty and Carolynn!

Vaismania• 14 years ago

Congrats Kirsty - she's a major force behind YCs success.

leeb• 14 years ago

Even with these new additions, Paul Graham is still the only YC partner without a set of double letters in his name :) Congrats to Kirsty and Carolynn!

modarts• 14 years ago

Great work you guys, keep it up

eoghan• 14 years ago

Congrats Kirsty. Very cool news. :-)

anandkulkarni• 14 years ago

Congratulations, Kirsty and Carolynn!

Two New YC Partners: Kirsty Nathoo and Carolynn Levy

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