HN user
I didn't realize Garry was so crypto-y. Now as the President and CEO of YC where everyone constantly says "Make something people want", "Solve a real problem", I'm curious for him to chime in to the 'What's a real use-case for crypto?' debate.
Congrats, Garry! Seems appropriate to start to unblock founders on Twitter?
In the main thread on Hacker News, you still haven't addressed any of the issues raised by developers on closing down the free tier. What alternatives did you consider? What stats? What about folks who have both free and paid dynos?
Also, please read all the feedback on the communication style in the blogpost.
I hate the corporate speak of 'Next Chapter', 'Public Roadmap' - just be direct and confident enough to say upfront that you are removing the free tier, instead of hiding it in the blog post. Come on, Bob!
If there was fair taxation on billionaires, and there was a wage growth where all the productivity gains didn't only stay at the top, then I think folks would be less incensed at billionaires.
Maybe the letter last week was more right than it was wrong.. they only forgot to include Brian in the list himself.
Um, just a month ago, in the earnings call, he reiterated continuing to grow and invest. For those following the markets and economy closely (like any public company CEO should), literally nothing in the last month has been a much of a surprise. So, to go from, 'we're so totally gonna hire to' to 'pause' to 'cancel' to 'fire' in a month doesn't seem to inspire much confidence in them.
Amazing that he keeps making it past reference checks..
FWIW, Surojit the CPO has a long colorful history of being a horrible person to work with. Just in the last couple of months, I think Blind had atleast a few threads on him. Here are a couple I could find:
https://www.teamblind.com/post/Coinbase-product-team-culture...
The initial petition alleged problems at exec level. Brian's response confirmed it. And he wonders why the employees wouldn't bring this up internally..
Aside from the fact that his response is likely illegal according to California labor code, threatening to fire employee for discussing workplace conditions, it blows my mind how ignorant and illiterate he is when it comes to understanding power dynamics, and even the basic history of labor.
How do you go from being a startup founder to a public company CEO without deeply reflecting about workplaces, employee happiness, dysfunction, power dynamics and history of all of that?!
I'm not sure what feels more problematic, the framing of the initial thread or the last patch tweet which doesn't even acknowledge Kristen's claim and doesn't name them while trying to thank them. I was all giving him the benefit of the doubt but then the 12th tweet tanked that benefit of the doubt for me.
Feels pretty unethical to take credit for someone else's creative work..
Just to add to appsec112's point, while I did frame my original point as a 'perception', I'm willing to take a bet that if you put together US companies stats, I would be more right than wrong.
And while we are at 'actual stats' conversation, can we do the following -
- for the sake of this conversation, not divvy up enterprise/saas from devtools and enterprise-y fintech and enterprise-y health?
- publish stats on stanford/mit claim?
- publish stats on previous employer? ex-FAANG vs ex-YC portfolio vs none of those.
I appreciate YC publishing stats but the industry's work is not done when just high-level stats are published without scrutiny.
As a response to both dang and emmett, I'm honestly surprised by the strong defensive nature of both your responses. It's what I'd expect from old-school VCs, not YC.
Both appsec112 and infamia already responded to each of your nitpicks, and we can slice and dice categories, labels and phrasing till the cows come home but I was hoping for a more substantive, introspective or atleast a thoughtful response to the original thread.
Maybe there will be a better forum for this conversation some day but as an under-represented founder, this feels like a cynically but not surprisingly another disappointing conversation.
A big part of what YC is about is to be a bridge for everybody else to enter this space—no matter who they are or where they live or what demographic they belong to. YC has a long track record, right from the beginning, of funding founders who never would be given a chance by more mainstream institutions
I find this fascinating, maybe as an example of how institutions think of themselves and how they are actually perceived.
YC feels it is giving outsiders a chance (and that might be true for lot of the intl founders YC funds). But for most in the US, it seems like YC funds only safe SAAS startups, often by founders who were ex-FAANG (or ex-prominent YC startups), who are often white, and often MIT/Stanford.
Maybe it's the definition of 'outsider' that differs, but when I look around founders who reach out, female and founders of color often feel ignored. Consumer founders feel ignored compared to enterprise founders.
There are so many stories of founders who are actual outsiders (woman/PoC and non-elite schools) who have growing, promising, even revenue-generating companies who don't get even an interview and yet, other 'insider' founders (white, male, ex-FAANG or ex-YC portfolio) who get in on a recently thought of high-level idea (and then subsequently pivot a bunch of times in the batch).
I say all of this because it worries me if YC already thinks of itself as funding those outside the mainstream, that it doesn't actually realize who the outsiders are.
This is so great! Has anyone put out a good variable Serif font that is taking advantage of all the variables?
The SAAS thing is real. In my own broader network, I've seen so many interesting new consumer companies not even get an interview but SAAS companies of all stripes not have a problem getting an interview. It also heavily correlates with FAANG/Stanford phenomena which then leads to a mostly white male batch.
There are so many reasons why all this is, including the fact, these applications heavily bias towards 'solving a big problem that the interviewer CAN grep', and so many of those readers and interviewers are themselves from SAAS backgrounds.
Anecdotally, within female founders, it is quite understood that if you are a female founder with a consumer startup, good luck getting an interview whereas if you are FANG employee with event hint of an idea, you get an interview!
It is amazing to me if that the entire conversation on the thread is about her credibility, and not at all towards the systems that lead to blogposts such as these. It isn't one interaction, or one round or one app, these are system issues!
I think it is more interesting to discuss how all of the investor assumptions, ideas, pipelines, and teams, all are informed. And there isn't enough being done to deconstruct that. For example, what does it mean to say 'too early' to an under-represented founder? who is the comparison to? How many of your last X investments or team members came from Stanford or ex-FAANG?
Maybe YC can take the lead here? @mwseibel?
I think it isn't just as simple as wanting to fund black founders. If you do not understand how systems work and actively fix them, you are unlikely to be helpful to black founders.
. Your experience cannot be worse than "received no money" when it comes to raising money. It is a binary outcome.
Oh, but it can. That's kinda one of the points.
Or that they meant that they would offer preferential treatment to black members of the Ivy League. Neither of these answers would be surprising.
Not surprising but inconsistent with the talk.
This is where intersectionality comes in. Her experience is especially worse because she is Black woman AND because she doesn't have an Ivy league degree AND she doesn't have a FAANG experience.
Believe me, it is much worse when after every negative interaction, you have to check if it was because you are female, or black or X. White male founders will not have to worry about that additional male tax.
Agreed.
What is frustrating about these investors (and YC) is that it all is very surface level. I'm sure they believe they are doing the right thing but all of their assumptions, ideas, pipelines, and teams, all are informed by those biases. And there isn't enough being done to deconstruct that. For example, what does it mean to say 'too early' to an under-represented founder? who is the comparison to? How many of your last X investments or team members came from Stanford or ex-FAANG?
Let's put in place processes, time allocations, smaller programs. And let's put all of this in place first for those raising their first rounds - the angel or the mythical pre-seed.
@areoform I wholeheartedly echo this! Thank you!
I can see that naming those who didn't even respond could be more appropriate. My takeaway is that you feel let down the most by those who have the most talk, hence higher expectations, which, it seems to me is the gist of the article.
Both, thanks for clarifying!
thank you!
sigh, here we go again..
I assume you are genuinely asking this but I wish I had more energy to dissect it but the fact that you would need to explain that or assume that I mean that one should be funded by phenotype are two quick examples of that condescension. I hope someone else on this thread can explain more in detail..
THIS, thank you for acknowledging that! It often feels like there are two lanes, there is all this talk of the steps to get on the fast lane, and then you realize there are some people who just got put in the fast lane, and you are still supposed to be 'working' towards getting in the fast lane.
It is frustrating that happens all over the place. Even YC - if I had a penny for every male founder that got into YC without an idea or just a new idea and then if that penny was taken away for every female founder who had a product that was doing well, well, I would be in real debt!
Ah, the classic condescending first response.
VCs invest into your track record and the ability to put together and retain a good team. "Ex-Google" is a good signal that the person can at the very least _technically_ do what they are promising to do, once they take the cash.
Nobody has ever promised that money will be given for phenotype traits alone.
Who knew, thanks for enlightening me. Let's just say that I have VCs emailing me now.
FWIW, we had the same experience with the other Spero VC: Shripriya Mahesh. She has a lot of blogposts around investing in startups that level the playing field, and not once did that topic come up in our conversations. And she isn't the only investor. A general rule of thumb we learnt: more an investor talks about a topic, less likely is that they care.
There is a hidden asterisk: *as long as you are ex-FAANG doing a SAAS startup, in a competitive round. SWM? Hidden bonus bingo!