<story><title>I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA</title><text>The application deadline for our winter 2016 batch is next Tuesday, and people frequently have a lot of questions about applying.  Also happy to talk about anything else!&lt;p&gt;EDIT 11:15 AM PDT: I have to go.  This was fun!</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>cperciva</author><text>Is there a place for Tarsnap at YC?&lt;p&gt;Applying for YC funding doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense for several reasons:&lt;p&gt;1. I want to be king, not rich; everything I hear tells me that YC pushes companies to grow fast and increase their valuations, and that&amp;#x27;s something I fundamentally don&amp;#x27;t care about.  I know that I&amp;#x27;m stubborn enough that this would just result in a lot of frustration on both sides.&lt;p&gt;2. Tarsnap doesn&amp;#x27;t need the money.  It&amp;#x27;s solidly profitable, and I honestly have no idea what I would do with investment money.&lt;p&gt;3. I don&amp;#x27;t want to live in the bay area -- not even for 3 months.  Granted, this seems like it may be less of an issue now that it&amp;#x27;s possible for people with pre-existing conditions to get medical insurance; but the bay area is fundamentally not somewhere I can ever imagine myself wanting to live.&lt;p&gt;4. Converting Tarsnap into a US corporation would eat a lot of time and money.  I completely understand why it&amp;#x27;s necessary for companies YC is going to invest in; but it&amp;#x27;s another reason why having YC invest in Tarsnap doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense.&lt;p&gt;I think YC and its portfolio companies are doing great and interesting things, and I&amp;#x27;d like to be part of the community... but as explained above, taking funding doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense; when I applied for the YC fellowship (I know it was a stretch) you told me to apply for funding instead; and you haven&amp;#x27;t asked me to be part of YCR.&lt;p&gt;Is there some other option here?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sama</author><text>None of our current programs sound like a good fit.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;re considering doing something for later-stage companies that might be a good fit, though we haven&amp;#x27;t sorted out details about the bay area for example.  If it does end up as a &amp;#x27;go&amp;#x27;, we&amp;#x27;d probably do it next year.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also possible in future iterations of the fellowship we&amp;#x27;ll be open to companies that are further along.&lt;p&gt;Hope we figure something out at some point!</text></comment>
<story><title>I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA</title><text>The application deadline for our winter 2016 batch is next Tuesday, and people frequently have a lot of questions about applying.  Also happy to talk about anything else!&lt;p&gt;EDIT 11:15 AM PDT: I have to go.  This was fun!</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>cperciva</author><text>Is there a place for Tarsnap at YC?&lt;p&gt;Applying for YC funding doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense for several reasons:&lt;p&gt;1. I want to be king, not rich; everything I hear tells me that YC pushes companies to grow fast and increase their valuations, and that&amp;#x27;s something I fundamentally don&amp;#x27;t care about.  I know that I&amp;#x27;m stubborn enough that this would just result in a lot of frustration on both sides.&lt;p&gt;2. Tarsnap doesn&amp;#x27;t need the money.  It&amp;#x27;s solidly profitable, and I honestly have no idea what I would do with investment money.&lt;p&gt;3. I don&amp;#x27;t want to live in the bay area -- not even for 3 months.  Granted, this seems like it may be less of an issue now that it&amp;#x27;s possible for people with pre-existing conditions to get medical insurance; but the bay area is fundamentally not somewhere I can ever imagine myself wanting to live.&lt;p&gt;4. Converting Tarsnap into a US corporation would eat a lot of time and money.  I completely understand why it&amp;#x27;s necessary for companies YC is going to invest in; but it&amp;#x27;s another reason why having YC invest in Tarsnap doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense.&lt;p&gt;I think YC and its portfolio companies are doing great and interesting things, and I&amp;#x27;d like to be part of the community... but as explained above, taking funding doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense; when I applied for the YC fellowship (I know it was a stretch) you told me to apply for funding instead; and you haven&amp;#x27;t asked me to be part of YCR.&lt;p&gt;Is there some other option here?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chubot</author><text>I think YC is the wrong place for this, for all the reasons you say.  I don&amp;#x27;t see any reason that Tarsnap fits in YC besides &amp;quot;community&amp;quot;, and even then it would be more of an outlier than a peer.  It seems like it would fit in a community of people that are interested in lower risk, slower growing, but more personally lucrative businesses.&lt;p&gt;YC companies do technically interesting things for sure, but a lot of the community is probably more about hiring, office space, fund raising, financials, and that sort of thing.  These are all different for high risk startups.&lt;p&gt;I heard about this &amp;quot;Micropreneur&amp;quot; thing several years ago.  This is something that interests me, and I&amp;#x27;ve been working part time on projects in this vein.  It seems to me that people who want slower growth and less personal risk are inherently a little less &amp;quot;collaborative&amp;quot;.  That describes me and there&amp;#x27;s nothing wrong with it.  Still, I understand the need to bounce ideas off of others, quickly fill in gaps in your knowledge, etc.</text></comment>