Y Combinator Accidentally Let 15,000 People Into an Exclusive Program, Now Has Decided To Do It On Purpose (recode.net) 26
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: When Y Combinator accidentally admitted 15,000 people to its 3,000-person Startup School online program last summer due to an almost funny technical glitch, it was an embarrassing moment for one of Silicon Valley's marquee brands, and a rollercoaster of an experience for emotionally vulnerable startup founders. Suffice it to say, mistakes like this don't typically happen in the well-to-do, perfectly manicured world of Silicon Valley startups. But this all offered a chance to test a big question: Does Silicon Valley only work if there is some exclusion, some selectivity, and some prestige? Or can access to what makes a startup a success -- the right connections, the right money, the right know-how -- be available to everyone who signs up? The answer -- in YC's eyes -- is: Yes, it can. So from the chaos of those accidental admissions and rejections, YC is now going to make this same "mistake" on purpose.
The accelerator program is discarding the application for its Startup School program, YC told Recode, effectively turning a selective program into a massive open online course. This is different from YC's core accelerator program -- the well-known training program that has birthed companies like Airbnb and Stripe -- which remains selective for now. Startup School is a relatively new 10-week program run by YC in which founders watch online lectures, submit status reports on their companies, and participate in discussion groups with other entrepreneurs trying to make it. While YC has more work to do to diversify its core, highly selective accelerator program batches, Startup School draws about half of its participants from overseas. YC thinks the new, bigger startup school program worked -- at least if you look at the program's completion rate. YC says that when 3,000 startups started the program in 2017, half of them completed it. And when 10,500 started the program in 2018, about half of them still completed it. So maybe Silicon Valley success does scale! But then again, about 4,500 of the 15,000 people dropped out of the program this year before it even began. "YC coped with the surprise 10,500 participants by running two programs -- assigning a successful startup founder to advise each of the 3,000 startups that it meant to accept, as it normally does, and then requiring the other 7,500 to nominate a leader internally to serve as the sherpa," Recode reports. "The latter situation didn't exactly always work, YC admits."
"Those groups were chaotic. Not a lot of people followed up or stayed engaged," said Olive Allen, a startup CEO who was accidentally admitted. Her advising group of about a dozen dwindled to three by the end of the program, she said. "Then again, not much can be done to engage all 15,000 people. It's always on you as an entrepreneur at the end of the day." "Some of the 3,000 founders who were correctly admitted said their experience seemed pretty normal," the report adds. "But when 12,000 rejects are earning the same credential, that rubs some folks the wrong way."
The accelerator program is discarding the application for its Startup School program, YC told Recode, effectively turning a selective program into a massive open online course. This is different from YC's core accelerator program -- the well-known training program that has birthed companies like Airbnb and Stripe -- which remains selective for now. Startup School is a relatively new 10-week program run by YC in which founders watch online lectures, submit status reports on their companies, and participate in discussion groups with other entrepreneurs trying to make it. While YC has more work to do to diversify its core, highly selective accelerator program batches, Startup School draws about half of its participants from overseas. YC thinks the new, bigger startup school program worked -- at least if you look at the program's completion rate. YC says that when 3,000 startups started the program in 2017, half of them completed it. And when 10,500 started the program in 2018, about half of them still completed it. So maybe Silicon Valley success does scale! But then again, about 4,500 of the 15,000 people dropped out of the program this year before it even began. "YC coped with the surprise 10,500 participants by running two programs -- assigning a successful startup founder to advise each of the 3,000 startups that it meant to accept, as it normally does, and then requiring the other 7,500 to nominate a leader internally to serve as the sherpa," Recode reports. "The latter situation didn't exactly always work, YC admits."
"Those groups were chaotic. Not a lot of people followed up or stayed engaged," said Olive Allen, a startup CEO who was accidentally admitted. Her advising group of about a dozen dwindled to three by the end of the program, she said. "Then again, not much can be done to engage all 15,000 people. It's always on you as an entrepreneur at the end of the day." "Some of the 3,000 founders who were correctly admitted said their experience seemed pretty normal," the report adds. "But when 12,000 rejects are earning the same credential, that rubs some folks the wrong way."
Oh really... (Score:2)
> Suffice it to say, mistakes like this don't typically happen in the well-to-do, perfectly manicured world of Silicon Valley startups.
Um... have you ever been to Silicon Valley? It's all seat of the pants fixes to last-minute crazy error all the time...
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Yeah, I think whoever wrote that spends too much time on Hacker News and not enough time in the real world.
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Does Silicon Valley only work if there is some exclusion, some selectivity, and some prestige? Or can access to what makes a startup a success -- the right connections, the right money, the right know-how -- be available to everyone who signs up?
Basically, Silicon Valley has gotten so detached from reality that they believe they earned shit when it's all back-room deals. They apparently acknowledge it's back-room deals with the "right connections" part, yet, they are still deluded in thinking every single person on Earth doesn't already know that all it takes to succeed is wealth and connections.
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It is so strikingly at odds with reality that I interpreted that as a sly bit of sarcasm.
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"mistakes like this don't typically happen in the well-to-do, perfectly manicured world of Silicon Valley startups" [citation needed]
Sarcasm?
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I pinch myself daily now. What the fuck fake universe is this, that a moron that thick, the literal world's DUMBEST TRAITOR, somehow is still fucking around at the top of the US food chain like none of this is real?
Have you ever considered that maybe some of your premises are not real? That maybe you have not been told the truth? When things don't make sense, I tend to seek out more evidence until they do.
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I say dump VC companies in general. They're terrible at it and basically are throwing money at people with zero business and technical experience and not caring if they get anything back. We already are glutted with social media companies we don't need more startups thinking that they know how to make another one. Let's get to doing things the old fashioned way, working hard to make something of value that can potentialy return a profit based on something more than inflated stock expectations (trust divid
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"y combinator is an american seed accelerator"
For men whose problem is the opposite of premature ejaculation.