skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
YC Rejected: Please read.
In the coming hours, and days, HN will be seeing submission after submission regarding their YC application decisions. It happens every application period and can become quite annoying. As such, I will address most of the issues many of you will be submitting threads about.

"Why did I get rejected?!??"

I don't know, many of us don't either. Other than your idea possibly being a pile of garbage, none of us here know as to the exact reasons you got rejected. Sure, pg will, but I doubt he'll write up a critique of your app and post it publicly. If you want to know why you were rejected, email someone at yc to see if they're even willing to give you feedback.

"Maybe we should start a YC-rejected group!!!"

Go for it. Honestly, it's a big waste of time. Last year someone created RejectedByYC.com, but that seems to have vanished. I don't really know why you'd want to limit yourself to giving/receiving feedback and support for your project from other YC-rejected companies. The rest of us who got accepted or didn't apply aren't less willing to encourage/support/critique your efforts.

"I got rejected, but I'm moving on!!!"

Awesome, but really, even considering to discontinue a project based on your YC decision is foolish. Sure, the experience is great, you get a little cash to get you off the ground, but if your motivation was that dependent on the outcome of whether you'd be accepted to YC, you need to realize that there are much higher hurdles to be conquered ahead. Plus, we don't need to know you're moving on. Create something, ask for feedback, and we'll care.

"MyStartup (YC reject '09) asking for feedback!!!"

Don't label yourself as a YC reject. I don't know why people do this. I am no more interested in your startup whether accepted or rejected from YC. There are several YC companies I think are crap, and many rejects that I think are awesome. I guess what you're trying to get across by labeling yourself as a YC rejects is "PG thinks we're crap, but I'm out to prove him wrong!" That makes you seem bitter and unable to emotionally settle with your rejection. We are a community of startups and people interested in them and we need not to label ourselves into various camps. There are startups that are accepted into YC, and for those companies, they were each merely granted an opportunity. For every YC accepted company, there's another who has received angel investing sans incubator-type program, and another who has been hooked up with a client that could bring lots of business, and another that just took vc funding. Starting companies is about finding opportunities. And if YC isn't an opportunity that came your way, you have hundreds of other paths to pursue.

I've said this before, but please realize that Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Myspace, eBay, Amazon, PayPal, and 99.999% of the most popular and/or highly valued acquired companies didn't go through YC, nor any other YC-like program.
So there are no acceptance emails? If you got neither a rejection nor acceptance, what does this mean? I'm worried they lost my email (even though it was specified in the application)
Owen blushes and is curious of where you saw me. Given the geography, I'm guessing Reflections/Projections. I was weak then!

Coincidentally I did joke of the day for the first time last week and mostly concur with your opinion.

Probably the best speaking experience I gained was when I stood up in front of 57 students twice a week for a full semester. With the power of life or death (aka A-F) comes responsiblity.
DIYcity: How do you want to reinvent your city?
I like the way it melds impromptu with non-impromptu (quick prep, speech, then rebuttal). I'm not active with my club anymore (moved out of geo area/moved on) but I will send on that suggestion.

Have you ever done a Table Topics dinner? Dinner at a restaurant and each person has to speak for 2-3 min. while the dinner is being served.
What are you crazy? SF. Colorado is a tiny stream compared to the bay area.. it's cheap, but cheap doesn't get you connections.
http://Google.com
My trip report for Day 1 of the Computer Human Interaction 2009 conference
I have seen from others that kept watch to see if their beta was visited and they were not. I don't believe they test out most of the web applications that get submitted. So not having one didn't hurt you at all. They say it is good to have a beta, but I don't really believe it. Even in the interviews it is said they spend less then a minute checking out any beta. It is apparently just not really important.
<A Streetcar Named Twitter>Scalaaaaaaaaaaa</A Streetcar Named Twitter>
judging by the amount of rejectsion - we'd have t make some SERIOUS bank in order to quit our day jobs.
Yeah, I found the site when I was looking for material to study for the Putnam. It is a great site for learning about advanced math topics and even finding more challenging pre-college math material, by the way.

I got the impression that he was really brilliant.
Here's his blog:http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/weblog.php?w=1
My business model (tentatively) is the typical freemium with some ads. I will as you say, try to grow it from revenues generated. So the rate of growth will be tied to the revenues. I do not plan (now that YC is not an option) on raising capital.
Obviously brilliant-- but more in a kinda gritty 'only works once' way. Like the reaction I had when I first saw the million dollar home page: A little ill, but mostly just mad I didn't think of it first.
I agree, but I think that you and me and other HN users are a niche.

Twitter serves that niche well (6 million users after 3 years of constant hype proves it is a niche IMHO), but I think for an FB size audience the usage patterns will be different.
The fact that it might be a good thing is personal (aside from the added desire, which could very well be the final straw to motivate whomever to do whatever). I was a bit nervous about quitting my job - that decision has been made for me.
Funny as it sounds, if you got neither rejection nor acceptance, another possibility of 'lost your email' might be you're accepted. Except, they sent the first batch of rejection letters out first. Just my 2c. =)
Come on out: Toronto Lisp meet-up this Tuesday, 6PM at the Linux Caffe
OT: Did it bother anyone else that the site calling it an "MD5 Encrypter" with the "Encrypt Data" button and all. Where is the decrypter?
It's 4000 lines of C code, not counting headers. Try again.
I agree with most of what you said, but I think this belongs as a comment in the rejection post.
It's not rejection guys. It's non-selection.
Oh... wait... no here it is pretty much just rejection.
Here's a forum with the type of questions that more likely to be asked. These questions are more difficult. http://www.wilmott.com/categories.cfm?catid=26:

Example brainteaser:

"Last night I sat behind two wizards on a bus, and overheard the following:

A: I have a positive integral number of children, whose ages are positive integers, the sum of which is the number of this bus, while the product is my own age.
B: How interesting! Perhaps if you told me your age and the number of your children, I could work out their individual ages?
A: No.
B: Aha! AT LAST I know how old you are!

Now what was the number of the bus?"

Discussion: http://www.wilmott.com/messageview.cfm?catid=26&threadid...
He is reacting to a perceived attack on global warming.

There is no need attack the language as activist, which you do even in this post.

The goal of the green movement, at its heart, is greater efficiency in all walks of life. I think we all agree that efficiency is good.

So why does word choice matter if motivates us to become more efficient?
Most people don't understand dissemination of information; in their "world" they're the most important factor in the equation. News turn homogeneous.

I think the value of Friendfeed is that it exposes the exact non-value of Facebook.

This, in turn, exposes the exact opposite of the "exposing" motives on Twitter. Value exists on both sides of the equation, but Facebook wants to hold everybody captive.
This perl is so modern, it's looked like this for over a decade. It's only gotten more featureful since then.
I figured there'd have been less of a chance of someone submitting one of the above posts to have come across what I wrote as a comment than as a thread by itself.
Um, can someone explain the answer to the first question? Why wouldn't it go lower than the low eighties? Or higher, for that matter? How would the price change if there were 1000 sellers?
Note that a "small sample" does not mean the same thing as a "represntative sample". You really care about the latter, and the former will only sometimes skew the latter.

"Sample size is too small, so I don't want to consider X paper" always drives me nuts. A better argument is that since its voluntary, people who are lazy will cancel and never explain and perhaps they are a majority of the user population. Please use that kind of reasoning instead of the knee jerk "300 sounds like a small number".

(Sorry, serious pet peeve)
CHI is great. I'm a student volunteer and it's a blast.
These are all good points. I don't have answers to any of them. Feasibility is a whole other issue.

My point is that if you look at online newspapers as online services, then they should be able to charge people for programmatic access to their service, just like any other tech service does through its API.

If I want to build an app on the back of Yahoo BOSS, I have to pay Yahoo.

If I want to build an app on the back of the New York Times, maybe I should have to pay the New York Times.
one thing I read in an annual astronomy magazine is that you're better off to start with a good pair of binoculars. I think the reason being they are cheaper and easier to control. I can look up the details if you are interested, and if I still have the mag kicking around home.
Vote in the Webware 100
so would they eventually send out acceptance letters, or are we supposed to assume no responses mean acceptance? It's like a reverse pocket-veto :-)
I could use your vote for OfficeZilla, listed on the bottom left hand side of the page above. I know there are others you might use and like, you can vote for whoever, but I could use the free traffic.

So far they have written this nice article which resulted in about 800 signups http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10193578-2.html, they pick 10 winners from each category so there is a reasonable chance of being one of the winners in this category and getting the benefit of the traffic.

My job has changed so that means all sorts of time to work on the system now if I make enough money fast enough to survive the month. This can be big if I have more people then I have more people to sell to once I have something for them to subscribe to (paid modules and such).
Sweet, email me at hang@bumblebeelabs.com and we can arrange for a meetup face to face tomorrow. Or, if you know where to look, I'm the only guy at the conference who has Bumblebee Labs as his affiliation.

Cheers
We've emailed everyone who applied, except 7 groups that didn't include an email address anywhere, so anyone who hasn't gotten an email yet should check their spam folder.
Actually, yes. That's way more personable and less canned. I also said, "if you get emails like this" meaning similar in nature, not necessarily subject matter.
There's a quote often attributed (I don't know for sure if he actually said it or not) to comedian Bill Murray on the topic of being rich and famous that says something along the lines of "Try being just rich first and see if that isn't enough for you." Seems like an approach worth considering.
Yep, R|P. It was a good talk from what I remember, although they conveniently make videos of those that you can watch again later.
Basically the sellers end up bidding for the opportunity to sell. So basically some sellers won't be willing to sell below 89, more won't be willing to sell below 88, and even more won't be willing to sell be 87. And it works the other way too, so the lower the price gets, the more people are willing to buy. So theoretically, when the number of buyers equals the number of sellers, transactions end up occurring. This is assuming that the market is efficient, which isn't always the case.

If there were 1000 sellers, the price would drop even lower, because there is more competition among the sellers.
are we one of those? Do you only send an email to one of the members, or all group members? I was pretty sure the email was there in the app, but I didn't see anything in my spam box.
Not yet. I've done a fair amount of public speaking, but I'm new to toastmasters. What's amazing is that after 3 months of weekly meetings, I'm actually enjoying what I saw before as something scary and challenging. I think, frankly, that it's just about repetition. At digg, they trotted me out twice a year, and there was a ton of pressure. Now I talk every week, and I feel comfortable, and it's fun.
They don't have to go through the list to figure out who they're saying "no" to, they go through the list to figure out who they say "yes" to.

They don't provide reasons, because there probably isn't a specific reason, other than the application wasn't one that wanted to make them say yes.
I've been scared to watch it. But I loved that conference, basically because there was less pressure, and it had really interesting but offbeat speakers, namely Steve Yegge and Randall Monroe (xkcd.com). I felt privileged to be there but not pressured to perform.
Wolfram Alpha Podcast
I'm looking at joining the local Toastmasters and can say that in the 2 nights I've visited - there was no "joke of the day"

Also - thanks YC for the confirmation - I think I'll properly sign up next meeting.
XDomainRequest is no longer IE-only
Good post, people get hung up too much on being validated by others. Do your own thing, and stop worrying so much
Sproutbox is in the house? http://sproutbox.com/
Fortunately for you 2009 happens to be the international year of astronomy. Buy your daughter this:

https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/

She'll be able to do a variety of experiments on it, and if it turns out she actually enjoys looking through it, you can then buy her something more pricey.
Absolutely fueled the fire. Don't consider it rejection as much as "non-selection" as someone else said. It doesn't mean you have a bad idea or aren't good at what you do. There are just so many spots. If you believe in what you have, you find a way to make it work.
The iPhone actually auto-capitalizes most stuff for you, so I find myself typing better english on an iPhone than on my normal keyboard :)
San Fran, easy. Though don't count Seattle out
I think we are on the same page, but to be fair, twitter is just starting to ramp up growth wise. And facebook has an easier growth path -- college students. That said, I think twitter could see tremendous growth in 2-3 years -- leaving its niche as companies, groups, and close friends use it more regularly.
Very good Chaitanya, welcome aboard yar! :-)
All of us need a Secondary Source of Income Today
Every family today requires a secondary source of income these days. All that we hear in the TV, read in the newspapers are job loss, home foreclosures, layoff, employment problems and so on. If you are not having any financial problem today, you have no guarantee that you will not have any tomorrow. Therefore it is best to keep yourself protected financially much before you enter into problems. If you are already in financial problems, then you should not delay any further to look for your secondary source of income.
No idea. IMO, they should send out acceptance letters. Since i'm on the rejected-camp (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=550330), i was just saying that, you still have hope to be accepted if you haven't received rejection email. All of us seem to receive it on the same time.

So, if i were you, i probably look at it as the "glass is half full" rather than "half empty" if i haven't received anything. Good luck! =)
10 Top Earners in each Segment will Fuel the Rally
most of our energy use is unnecessary -- from the article

Saul Griffith via Long Now lays out a nice engineer's estimation of factor 7-9x required drop in personal energy use; mostly through deprival: we become vegetarians, travel little, etc. Let's hope that's unnecessary.

http://fora.tv/2009/01/16/Saul_Griffith_Climate_Change_Recal...
If you didn't think to monitor your traffic, then QED.

Business 101: instrumentation.
[Read/Write Web] Sense Networks: 4 Million Sensors to Help You Find ...
And not hung up enough on letting the market validate their idea.
So... Rejected from YC happy hour in Palo Alto? Sounds like a good way to cuss and discuss!
Vote for JamLegend too! Gotta love the underdog in the music category...
Not so long ago, I wanted to make an API which would take a blob of text and return sentiment prediction on it. But I couldn't get the data for the same. Anyone knows any good source of sentiment data? (Apart from the usual product review data from Amazon, etc.)
Um, no. What did I say that suggested that? Did you read the article? They're going to try to change their model so that they get paid more by the companies that are shifting to the spiky end of the emerging power law distribution, and capturing revenue from the whole ad stack.
Also I should mention, since it's been part of the whole toastmasters motivation and stuff, and since everyone here seems to enjoy me talking about digg, I'm giving a _keynote_ at dpc (Dutch PHP Conference) in June entitled "Digg: The First Two Years":
http://www.phpconference.nl/

It should be pretty good, because I'm totally beyond the control of Digg PR. Though I will try to be fair and balanced about what actually was a great experience.
Disclaimer: We (Ramamia) got rejected.

YC is a hell of an opportunity. The advice/mentoring, along with a little bit of cash is big for young ambitious hackers/entrepreneurs/dreamers like us. There is no doubt it gives you an advantage.

At the end of the day, if your startup fails, it won't be due to a rejection from YC or any one specific event. Think about it logically, should one decision/outcome determine if a startup loses? Just being apathetic and letting the world have its way with you, isn't the way to go.

So, go fire up textmate,photoshop,gdocs,or whatever gets you going and keep chugging along. You've taken the time to fill out the application and probably more, so keep going. Post on HN for feedback once the demo is up. The community will actually give you valuable feedback and won't be assholes. You may succeed, you may fail, but I promise you that you will not regret it.
No, it really doesn't. And thats not true either, ive met plenty of maried and with kids entrepreneurs that rock it! Dont hate, its totally uncool.
Maybe it was four.
Thanks for the opportunity, Paul. Did you guys happen to get my letter/stickers? Just want to make sure it reached you.
what I'd like to know is (yes I've been rejected again) is should I consider organizing now... or continue coding and again hope to get picked up by yc in the next round (yes I know I don't need yc). they say the don't like dealing with existing paperwork. I'd also like to know if anyone has seen YC fund something that wasn't a web application.
trapdoor functions anyone ?
Yes, Time Magazine allows editorial writing throughout its content. I won't comment on what I think their biases are, but I'm pretty sure you can detect them on your own.
Allaire Vet Simeonov Leaves Polaris, Forms Advisory Firm, While Looking for Next Big Thing
Guys- I think being an entrepenuer is seriously what matters. Once you make money what do you do with it? Spending it gets boring so you start a new challenge. What's important is that you stick with what your doing and be the best at it! I also think at the least applying for Y combinator is at the bare minimum an exercise that is good for understanding your product better.
I don't know how to say this gently, but YC money should be harder to accept. After all, they don't have a pre-existing relationship with you, and friends and family do.

It's a bit as if you're saying that it is easier to accept money from 'strangers'.

Personally I think that if your idea has merit and 10k is the big issue that you should get an extra job, save like the devil for the next 10 months to a year and then do it anyway. And face up to the fact that if 10k is the real problem that your idea may not have as much merit as you think after all.

I know this sounds quite harsh but good ideas + good teams are not going to go down because of a little bit of $.
Looking for some clarification...

Does Technorati carry the same weight that it used to? I don't hear it mentioned and/or coming up that often.
I think you should add 'whip smart' to that list.

I've been going through some of your writings and I'm quite impressed.
The growing complexity of Facebook is confusing ME.

Granted, I haven't been active on it in a while, but I went on it for the first time in a couple of months and it took me far too long to figure out how to change my profile picture.

I think for the moment they can get by keeping their users through sheer strength of numbers, but they're going to go too far and start losing people if they keep switching up their design.
I like when people seeking feedback mention they're a YC reject (if not in the headline in the accompanying text). They're demonstrating their relentlessness and it satisfies my curiousity to see what sort of teams/projects weren't selected.

To me, it's just as appropriate to mention as the fact that other companies are "(YC'08)" or whatever.
For us, we were at idea stage when we applied to YC. The application process has motivated us to start something whether or not we get into one of the 'combinators this summer (some decisions are still pending). That's an awesome kick in the pants. Applying to YC was a great opportunity to find out which of my peers were interested in startups and to get started on something. We're both still in school, so we have good circumstances to get going regardless of the decision.
Examples of Coming Soon Page Designs - Part II
http://www.cnet.com/html/ww/100/2009/poll/audio.html
To all you guys & girls that got 'rejected', don't be down, be UP. This is your chance to prove the spotters at YC wrong. Do it anyway, by any means that you can think of and make them regret not selecting you.

Even if only stellar ideas were presented with great teams behind them then YC would still be able to select only a limited amount of those. Chances are that you'll make it and those chances are not that much different from the projects that did get selected.

And you have at least one extra motivation, to make whoever made that selection at YC think, oops... we should have picked that one.

Being selected by YC is not a guarantee of success and not being selected by YC is not a guarantee of failure!

Best of luck to all of you, both those selected and those not selected.
I had a hard drive crash recently. I can't tell you how this makes me feel. If I had used DropBox, I wouldn't have lost so much data. Truly, DropBox is a way of the future.
The difference is that IRC can be useful.
Startups in 14 sentences: +1 to PG's 13
When I looked at the homepage, I didn't know what it is for. I had no idea what "outlet" really meant(advertising in mall).
Then I looked at the FAQ. I thought it's another online ad network.

Then I looked at inventory in CA. I finally understood that it's for offline advertising.

I suggest you to put in a couple of outlets inside the window when I mouse-over a state in the map on the homepage.
For web apps, reframe the "coming soon" procrastination crap and stick a little text entry where people can leave their email "to be the first to try" or get an invite. Less under-construction orange cone blocking the road, and more like an exclusive concierge to RSVP for a velvet-rope event.

Plus you collect leads :-)
Watch house season 5 episode 20 online