

Ask HN: Do YC Startups Lack Spine? - villageidiot

By that I mean the kind of business instincts that are needed to really make a killing in the marketplace.<p>There seems to be an abundance of admirable nobility in the aims of YCers but not a lot of ruthlessness.<p>Maybe this is a function of the relative youth and inexperience of most of the groups that apply.<p>Would YC be more profitable if they were more open to older entrepreneurs that are ready to rumble?
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pg
Textually this is a classic troll. But at least it's not an account newly
created for the purpose, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and play
along.

Let's start by clarifying your question. Did Larry & Sergey, when they
started, have these business instincts about making a killing in the
marketplace that you're referring to? Because if they did they seem to have
been well hidden. And if they didn't, these qualities don't seem to be worth
much.

Also, can you tell me more about the youth and inexperience of the people who
apply to YC? No one, as far as we know, sees the applications except us.

Your last question I can at least answer with certainty: no. It takes 4-5
years for a startup to achieve liquidity. No YC-funded startup is that old;
the median is only about 18 months old. Our profitability now is therefore
noise, which means no change in the applicants would have affected it
significantly.

~~~
villageidiot
I appreciate you treating the question in the good faith in which it was
intended. While the topic may be provocative, I felt it was relevant, based on
my observations of YC. However, because I can only provide anecdote as
evidence of my case, I asked the question to discover whether my observations
about YC are shared or whether I am suffering from a delusion. Textually this
may seem like trollish behavior but some of the responses to the question seem
to belie this suggestion.

As for your point about Google, some ideas are so powerful that they fall
outside the conventional expectations of business practice. The fact that
Google's founders have, until lately anyway, been unassertive in the manner of
Microsoft, does not indicate that Bill Gates' approach "is not worth much".
Absent some ground-shaking idea like Google's, I would argue the assertive
approach of Microsoft is the norm for a successful company and a key
ingredient missing in the YC environment.

~~~
mattmaroon
How "assertive" was Microsoft at first? It seems like they spent their first
decade toiling along at standardizing programming across the many different
OEMs and computer types of the day. It was probably another decade until they
did anything that anyone would consider "ruthless".

They started off trying to build something people want (Basic for the Altair)
just like any YC company. I wouldn't say that most YC startups display any
less ambition than building a Basic interpreter.

~~~
brandonkm
Mircosoft was VERY assertive at first. Without laying out a detailed history,
very early on gates had a keen business sense and was quite ruthless. They may
have been 'building something people want', but the seeds of what microsoft
would later become were without a doubt being planted.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists>

~~~
mattmaroon
I don't think asking people to pay for your product is ruthless.

~~~
brandonkm
Not ruthless but certainly assertive.

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tptacek
This question doesn't make any sense. YC is open to older entrepreneurs. Who
knows whether they're ruthless, or ruthless enough? And why accept your
premise that what's needed to win is ruthlessness?

------
mattmaroon
This really doesn't make any sense at all.

------
cabalamat
What is the optimum amount of ruthlessness for a startup to have?

I think this depends entirely on what industry sector a startup is targeting.
For example, a startup in the drug dealing, extortion, pimping or organised
crime sectors should probably be very ruthless and very "ready to rumble".

But for a website -- the sort of business most HN readers are more likely to
be in -- ruthlessness is much less likely to be effective. The thing you're
most likely to achieve with it is getting people to think you're an arsehole.

------
skmurphy
The kind of killing that Hewlett and Packard made in the marketplace was
predicated on fair dealing and a commitment to their employees and their
community. What entrepreneurs would you like to see HN readers emulate?

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prospero
I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty certain no one's been turned down because
they've been too "ready to rumble".

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cchooper
I doubt it pays to be ruthless when you have nothing to back it up. If you
can't dominate, you have to cooperate.

~~~
anewaccountname
>I doubt it pays to be ruthless when you have nothing to back it up.

Did the market cap of Microsoft suddenly drop while I wasn't looking or
something?

~~~
cchooper
Did Microsoft become an early-stage YC startup when I wasn't looking or
something?

~~~
anewaccountname
Microsoft was ruthless when they were early stage; that is how they got to
where they are.

~~~
cchooper
Not when they were two guys writing Altair Basic. They survived off sales to
hobbyists. Being ruthless wouldn't have go them very far.

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SwellJoe
Check back in a few years. We're only three years into observing the YC
experiment. The average exit in the valley takes seven years. Over the next
five years, we'll have pretty solid data about whether the YC model, and its
companies, can "really make a killing in the marketplace".

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noodle
i believe the yc startups follow the "if you build it they will come" type of
philosophy, as opposed to the "shove it down your throats" or "cut costs to
make a bigger margin" vibe i'm getting from the OP.

~~~
madoff
Or the "screw your best friend over by stealing an idea he's been working on,
implement it behind his back and launch it before he even has a chance to
register the domain name he told you about over lunch". Google it.

~~~
olefoo
Your googlebait is not effective, can you at least share the domain name with
us?

~~~
kirse
Might be thinkcomp whining about how Zuckerberg stole Facebook from him...
Only guy on here who seems to actively bring up his grudge.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=328235>

~~~
thinkcomp
Sorry, but if you're implying that I was impersonating someone else (in this
case, the person whose username is madoff, who I don't know) just to revisit
this topic, you'd be incorrect. (You'd also be kind of rude.) I bring up what
happened with Facebook when it has some contextual relevance. There's a lot
people here who could learn from that series of events, and I think I'm
entitled to discuss it just like anyone else. As you'll note, however, I
didn't even mention it until you did--and I only noticed that due to a traffic
spike.

And for the record, I agree. By and large, YC startups do lack spines.

~~~
kirse
_you'd be incorrect. (You'd also be kind of rude.)_

Sounds like someone needs a spine ;)

On that note, though, I apologize for accusing you of something you did not
do.

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rms
<http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html>

~~~
booke
Can we think for ourselves for once? I don't know if you've noticed but a lot
more companies succeed from not listening to pg's advice than vice versa.

~~~
ntoshev
_a lot more companies succeed from not listening to pg's advice than vice
versa_

Got any hard data to support your claims?

~~~
booke
The S&P 500

------
fallentimes
What business instincts are you talking about? Is this from the Brazen
Careerist or something? It just seems like you're making generalizations
driven by anecdotes.

If you're more specific and backup your claims with data (or even concrete
examples) I think you'll get better answers.

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sokoloff
In what way(s) do you think YC isn't open to older entrepreneurs?

If anything, I suspect older entrepreneurs aren't as open to YC than the other
way around. In my own case, if I wanted $20K in expenses for a startup, I'd
login to e*trade and transfer it, or I'd write a check for it. Doesn't seem
worth giving up 6% for the cash, though if I were intent on striking out on my
own, I'd almost certainly talk to YC, to see if a "3% for $1 and
advice/contacts" deal could be worked out.

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siong1987
Where he draws the conclusion from?

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paul9290
I'd say most here want to build awesome products that people use! Most are not
businessman first, but our journey lead us to be such....

Ruthless ... can anyone name a well known inventor who started off ruthless?
Tough for me to even write that word as I want to create good in the world and
profit from it. Being ruthless... blech!

~~~
booke
Bill Gates.

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tyler
This would be a much more interesting question if you were to give specific
examples of how specific YC startups are "spineless", and perhaps how they
could be less "spineless". Without that, I'd simple respond: "They're not."

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vaksel
What exactly do you mean by ready to rumble?

~~~
villageidiot
I'm talking about assertively competitive business practices.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let's_get_ready_to_rumble>!

~~~
french
Sounds like the Bill Gates school of IT. The YC startup community has a
different set of social mores which emphasize usefulness of the product, a
certain trendiness with respect to what else is happening in the current web
2.0 world. We are not really the budding monopolist types. Yes, there is a
certain timidness in the YC community about the dark art of business. But
that's mainly because most of us have never worked :)

~~~
sorp
Well, I've worked in the business world. But I have no interest in
"assertively competitive business practices". Most of the managers I worked
for who were comfortable with that type of approach were exactly the reason I
wanted to escape into the startup world and never look back at corporate life
again. So, if you want to call that 'timid', go ahead. I'd rather do my own
thing, make a good product and try avoid "doing evil" as much as I can. This
probably sounds cliched or like I'm trying to win some brownie points but it's
actually how I think. It's not worth it for me to live in that kind of
"assertively competitive" way that I see my father and his colleagues living -
or working, I should say. That feels like the old way of doing things.

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gruseom
Evidence?

