<story><title>Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money</title><url>https://venturebeat.com/2017/12/21/sam-altman-too-many-y-combinator-companies-raise-money/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sama</author><text>I am interested in trying some version of this! Have been thinking about all the edge cases.</text></item><item><author>jpao79</author><text>Was just thinking the other day, it&amp;#x27;d be super interesting if YC ran some YC Equity&amp;#x2F;YC UBI experiments within its own network.  Basically in joining YC, each YC member would be granted a percentage of YC&amp;#x27;s 7% stake in all of the YC companies which would reduce their need to fundraise.  In theory, YC members should all be highly motivated achievers and use that percentage stake to move their diverse set of businesses forward.&lt;p&gt;Since there is such a high barrier to entry into YC, it might not prove shared equity&amp;#x2F;UBI would 100% work in the real world.  However, coming at it from the other side, it could provide some early clues as to whether a shared equity&amp;#x2F;UBI could ever work at all.  For example:&lt;p&gt;- Would YC companies cheer each other on with positive peer pressure&amp;#x2F;be more motivated to knowledge share or would low achieving YC companies de-motivate high achieving YC companies?  Would YC companies who fold be allowed to retain their percentage of the YC stake?&lt;p&gt;- Would high achieving startups bypass YC or be attracted to YC?&lt;p&gt;- Would every set of new annual entrants into YC be seen as diluting the value of the existing YC equity or additive?  Would existing YC companies want more say in the selection process?  Would Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe receive the same percentage of YC stake as new entrants?&lt;p&gt;- How do you socialize the concept with existing stakeholders (i.e. existing YC partners) who would be diluted?&lt;p&gt;- Is it better to implement it as a single monolithic YC group or divide it by YC Class?&lt;p&gt;Assuming ~1500 YC companies with ~10 employees each, that&amp;#x27;d be about 15,000 participants, which would be a pretty good dogfooding [0] experiment!&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Eating_your_own_dog_food&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Eating_your_own_dog_food&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dzink</author><text>Edge cases:&lt;p&gt;A. If you give the equity to the startups:&lt;p&gt;1. There is a risk of activist or corporate acquirers getting a substantial share of YC after buying out startups. Contract clauses can eliminate that, and prevent dilution, but value of extended network advocacy is lost too.&lt;p&gt;2. Do dead startups lose their share? If they do, you would see more zombies, which is not ideal. If they don’t who keeps the equity when founders part ways? If it’s the founders based on equity share - see (B)&lt;p&gt;3. Competing startups could have shares in the successful one, and potential vote, which leads Oracle&amp;#x2F;Salesforce type battles. Potential swinging votes during corporate governance, but also potential helpful behavior, which while nice could be seen collusion by regulators at scale. That said, startups win with monopoly characteristics, so that may be less of an issue.&lt;p&gt;B. If you give the equity to individual members:&lt;p&gt;1. There is selection bias where alumnae help friends and go through the program multiple times - you risk having portfolio maximization and groups voting buddies in for control over YC. Even if you don’t see clique battles, there will still be: Vote these guys in because they were Stanford alumns too. Over time you will lose even more diversity in the network and a broader network that captures the next wave of breakouts not seen by the less diverse YC will gain speed.&lt;p&gt;2. The resume stuffing and portfolio padding motif to join YC will be dominant to the “let’s build a unicorn” motif. People who pursue status and do YC as the next Harvard will have more easy access (B1) and more reason to go for it.&lt;p&gt;3. To boost the unicorn incentive the above equity distribution needs to continue only if you have a startup within YC that is actively growing by certain criteria or has had a meaningful exit for the YC network. Another way to protect integrity of the network, is to allow equity in YC to be stacked only if the person has been a founder of more than one startup still growing or with a meaningful exit. This scenario may be enhanced with some incentive for people who join other YC startups meaningfully, but how complicated a structure will be too complicated for investors in the YC startups themselves?&lt;p&gt;This is first layer of brainstorming with minimal info.</text></comment>
<story><title>Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money</title><url>https://venturebeat.com/2017/12/21/sam-altman-too-many-y-combinator-companies-raise-money/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sama</author><text>I am interested in trying some version of this! Have been thinking about all the edge cases.</text></item><item><author>jpao79</author><text>Was just thinking the other day, it&amp;#x27;d be super interesting if YC ran some YC Equity&amp;#x2F;YC UBI experiments within its own network.  Basically in joining YC, each YC member would be granted a percentage of YC&amp;#x27;s 7% stake in all of the YC companies which would reduce their need to fundraise.  In theory, YC members should all be highly motivated achievers and use that percentage stake to move their diverse set of businesses forward.&lt;p&gt;Since there is such a high barrier to entry into YC, it might not prove shared equity&amp;#x2F;UBI would 100% work in the real world.  However, coming at it from the other side, it could provide some early clues as to whether a shared equity&amp;#x2F;UBI could ever work at all.  For example:&lt;p&gt;- Would YC companies cheer each other on with positive peer pressure&amp;#x2F;be more motivated to knowledge share or would low achieving YC companies de-motivate high achieving YC companies?  Would YC companies who fold be allowed to retain their percentage of the YC stake?&lt;p&gt;- Would high achieving startups bypass YC or be attracted to YC?&lt;p&gt;- Would every set of new annual entrants into YC be seen as diluting the value of the existing YC equity or additive?  Would existing YC companies want more say in the selection process?  Would Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe receive the same percentage of YC stake as new entrants?&lt;p&gt;- How do you socialize the concept with existing stakeholders (i.e. existing YC partners) who would be diluted?&lt;p&gt;- Is it better to implement it as a single monolithic YC group or divide it by YC Class?&lt;p&gt;Assuming ~1500 YC companies with ~10 employees each, that&amp;#x27;d be about 15,000 participants, which would be a pretty good dogfooding [0] experiment!&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Eating_your_own_dog_food&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Eating_your_own_dog_food&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jacquesm</author><text>That&amp;#x27;ll be expensive. On the order of 100&amp;#x27;s of millions per year at that scale. 15,000 * 1000 = 15 M &amp;#x2F; month for an amount that would move the needle, but still not enough to live off.</text></comment>