<story><title>The Worst Part of YC</title><url>http://blog.samaltman.com/the-worst-part-of-yc</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wildermuthn</author><text>At West Point, I was one of ten cadets in my class of one thousand to make the parachute team. For some reason, the parachute team had become a symbol-status and a fast track to cadet success.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s interests me the most is that I had no idea, no clue, that the skydiving team was a fast-track to promotion. I just wanted to jump out of planes. That wasn&amp;#x27;t the case with many of my teammates. We had some great talent on the skydiving team — the most talented men and women at West Point. But some of them hated jumping out of planes, and they did poorly.&lt;p&gt;Sama writes that the number and quality of YC applications has risen. That might not be a good thing. Talent and ambition aren&amp;#x27;t the greatest indicators of startup success.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think its a coincidence that Dropbox, Reddit, AirBnb, Justin.tv, Loopt, and Stripe all came within the first few years of YC&amp;#x27;s existence, and that YC&amp;#x27;s more recent companies haven&amp;#x27;t taken off in the same way. It might be because immensely talented people see YC as their avenue to success.&lt;p&gt;If being immensely talented and ambitious was the prime requisite for startup-success, then YC would be in a great position. But as I understand it, having talent and ambition don&amp;#x27;t matter as much as having a determined, cohesive, and visionary team.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>paul</author><text>In the early years of yc, people said there weren&amp;#x27;t any good companies. It took years for Dropbox to become Dropbox. There are actually a lot more great founders and companies now, but it will be years before you realize it. That&amp;#x27;s the nature of this business.&lt;p&gt;Your point about ambition is a good one though. Filtering out people who are just there for the prestige generally isn&amp;#x27;t that hard though -- they have ways of self identifying :)</text></comment>
<story><title>The Worst Part of YC</title><url>http://blog.samaltman.com/the-worst-part-of-yc</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wildermuthn</author><text>At West Point, I was one of ten cadets in my class of one thousand to make the parachute team. For some reason, the parachute team had become a symbol-status and a fast track to cadet success.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s interests me the most is that I had no idea, no clue, that the skydiving team was a fast-track to promotion. I just wanted to jump out of planes. That wasn&amp;#x27;t the case with many of my teammates. We had some great talent on the skydiving team — the most talented men and women at West Point. But some of them hated jumping out of planes, and they did poorly.&lt;p&gt;Sama writes that the number and quality of YC applications has risen. That might not be a good thing. Talent and ambition aren&amp;#x27;t the greatest indicators of startup success.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think its a coincidence that Dropbox, Reddit, AirBnb, Justin.tv, Loopt, and Stripe all came within the first few years of YC&amp;#x27;s existence, and that YC&amp;#x27;s more recent companies haven&amp;#x27;t taken off in the same way. It might be because immensely talented people see YC as their avenue to success.&lt;p&gt;If being immensely talented and ambitious was the prime requisite for startup-success, then YC would be in a great position. But as I understand it, having talent and ambition don&amp;#x27;t matter as much as having a determined, cohesive, and visionary team.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>acgourley</author><text>Stripe went through YC four years ago. Give the newer companies some time.</text></comment>