skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Do you encourage people on a work visa to apply (like H1b)? If they get in, do you have any legal partner that will help them join the program on a valid visa or at least guide how to proceed?
There is for sure something about in-person interaction that cannot be replaced by any current technology. Alan Kay recently told me he thinks it's something biological.

Our model just doesn't work well for people that can't move to the valley for 3 months.

Remote work is good in many cases, but early-stage startup advising is not one of them.
How much time should a startup set aside per week for YC? What have you seen in common with the most successful YC companies that sets them apart?
The easiest way to find, use and share animations
Yea, I agree with your interpretation on the root cause of the disagreement. I don't mean to weigh in one way or the other, but I would like to point out that people's mathematical intuition when it comes to infinity or obscenely large numbers can be arbitrarily wrong. It takes a lot of training to even recognize the mistakes you're making, let alone correct for them.
Does anyone know the resolution of the images available through AWS? This site http://landsat.usgs.gov/landsat8.php says Landsat 8 has a max resolution of 30m/pixel.
Is there any point in applying last-minute with just an idea? Or focus on building something presentable, and then apply in the next batch?
The group split was something that happened after S12, which was at the time the largest batch[0]. As the numbers of startups scaled, connecting all partners to all startups was order o(n^2).

I was in this batch - there didn't seem to be any negative impact on the companies given that most/all the founders figured this out and naturally distributed themselves to optimize for talking to the same couple partners week on week. It just meant that every once in a while, you'd be sitting across from a partner that you've never really interacted with and explaining what you do (probably good practice)[1]. Formally grouping partners sounds like a great scaling patch.

[1] Not sure exactly how they did it, but the partners had some internal communication. You'd be halfway through your pitch and then they'd be like "Oh, you're THOSE guys who did X, Y, Z". And then proceed to still give you great advice.
An ML with many C notations :)
I couldn't agree more. It is the most pre-fab of dismissals and takes threads like this in precisely the wrong direction: into generic goo, when we ought to be discussing salient details, like the impact of varying page alignments.

Few of us have anything substantive to say about that, which is fine—but then we ought to post nothing, not regurgitate truisms.
What your thoughts on renaming completely technical or being all rounder who understands tech really well and can do above average coding etc? My question is should I keep on improving myself as a programmer, the real worker or trying to be decent programmer but a good manager/non-purely tech but tech related person? So that after 30, when the Valley's ageism kicks in I can move onto other non purely technical positions?
I wouldn't really recommend dual booting. Despite all the FUD here, Linux is a fully usable OS without such onerous maintenance overhead. Your environment is a lot more amenable to customization and a lot of Linux users like to spend time getting their experience right for their personal needs. (Not everyone thinks Apple UI is the pinnacle one-size fits all UI solution
)

I've put Linux on a lot of random laptops over the years without problem... BUT when I buy a brand new laptop specifically to run Linux on it I do like to do a little research just to make sure I won't run into problems.

The reason I would not recommend dual booting is mainly that I think in terms of workflow and maintaining context/continuity of software enviroment.. You should choose one OS to be -your- OS and run any other OSes in VMs as needed. If you really want the option to dual boot you can run an OS that's installed to disk in virtual box without too much hassle. But in terms of workflow, having to reboot your machine and juggle files and incompatible FSes around will be a nightmare and you'll pay a high switching cost if, as you're working, you should need a tool from the other OS.

Among the people I know and from my own experience over the years dualbooting.. Eventually you're going to pick one OS and spend 95% of your time in it and it will be your primary gateway to computing.

In my case I run Linux as my main OS and if I absolutely need a windows application(like IE or Photoshop).. I just bring up a Windows VM.

You seem interested in Linux and the web does run on Linux but honestly, while installing a bunch of server software directly on your workstation OS is a great way to learn, I can't imagine that anyone works that way longterm. So even though you can do it in Linux(and OSX but I would never do this there, it's too much hassle and worse for a newbie).. Once you know what you're doing you probably won't install anything outside of a container or VM that doesn't address a personal or overarching need you have--which might very well include development tools you're working with or interested in.

So.. you're probably going to spend some time in Linux. Decide if you want to live there or commute. If you decide to commute, pick where you want to live.
It's funny because ml languages are a lot less alien to the mainstream than before.

Things people are used to:

- `let` keyword (rust, ES6)
- pattern matching (generalization of ES6 destructuring)
- function first, HOF combinators (ES5 functional literature)
- tuples (python)

A few years back, all these would appear as black magic...
Rather than modding me down, perhaps you could explain why you disagree.
Welcome to link bait, may I take your order?
Perfectly useless. I hope you didn't spend too much time or money on this.
Thanks for bring Rust into the topic. I know that it is very new. But still wonder if some real life projects are using it (except rustc).
Two factors play into this publicity of private individual lives.

If everyone's skeletons are out in the open for everyone else to see, they're no longer skeletons.

What one social group considers a skeleton in their closet, another considers a badge of honor.

I benefitted from this, I'm into and have been into all sorts of things that would have socially stigmatized me 50 years ago. Meanwhile, someone else who is racist or beats their spouse or kids is likely to face social condemnation.

Times change, in this case, for the better.
Internet TV: the cord cutters bringing some sanity to US viewing
Hi Sam,

Do you start reading the application on the 27th?

If someone was to submitted early but was continuously updating till the deadline, which application do you see?

Thanks.
Store my location in a cookie or local storage -- I'll just check the page every day before I head out the door.
It depends on your users. We have some users that are not super well-versed in AWS and they just see a big disk and put data there, and someone has to come back and move it to an EBS volume to make sure it's safe. /mnt is also used as a staging area for large files and the intention is always to move them to permanent storage when done, but that sometimes doesn't happen. /mnt is usually, in the non-AWS world, where the bigger, more authoritative disks, like an NFS mount to the NAS, would be mounted, so it's counter-intuitive to tell users to treat /mnt like /tmp. Even if someone is using /mnt as a temporary store because they understand EBS v. ephemeral, if they shut down from within the instance, they don't see any warning about the doom of the ephemeral data, and it may be unclear that a shutdown/system halt is the same as a "stop" in the AWS console, and they could lose the data that they had in the staging area unexpectedly.

There are plenty of plausible situations where an AWS user can find themselves with important, even just temporarily important, data on ephemeral. Whether those are the result of "correct" usage or not, it's beyond the pale to just zap that data away and tell the customer tough titties as soon as a shutdown command is issued.
How does the partnership structure work at YC? What does it mean to be a part-time partner? Do all partners get carry?
Running Kafka at Scale
Federal employee ordered to get psych evaluation for considering climate change
SYSTEM is roughly equivalent to root on linux.

My interpretation of the article is that he managed to escalate far enough to get into the kernel, allowing him to to modify some data structure to give a user land process higher privileges.

So, the overall process could be something like Chrome escape => windows driver vuln => full control of the system.
What is the one company that applied to YC and was rejected, that you wish had been selected?
I imagine each partner will have different answers. One thing I say is that we should be willing to fund anything that could be a $10B company, and that is such a difficult restriction we shouldn't have any other restriction.

Personally, I am very interested in nuclear energy and solar (I think energy is the highest-impact single thing to fix--it's remarkable how many other problems reduce to the energy problem), biotech, AI, education, healthcare, and online communities.

Interestingly, those first three categories are also where I think the biggest dangers to humanity are. High-risk high-reward, I guess.
What does YC think of founders who are working on a project on the side (of their job), wanting to turn it into a startup? I presume there are lots of people who have day jobs to pay the bills before they can get some initial funding.
Just bookmark it after searching.
With some startups it's hard to distinguish between the two to be honest. I almost feel like the way the media covers startups they are a "get rich quick scheme". What percentage have a successful exit? I don't know. I did hit the startup lottery once as a late hire and got about $8k from the acquisition.

However, I do agree I would have better spent those years thinking about how I could solve people's problems instead preying on their insecurities.
Watch the Startup School video on Youtube. It's when he talks about what he built before/parallel to The Facebook (Wirehog, Synapse, ZuckNet, etc.)
Good twist to a weather app. Since ever tutorial that teaches you how to code wants you to make one.
Sam,

Have not seen YC investing on any Television/native Smart TV apps ...any thoughts on why?
As a proportion, how much of the value of YC is in the advice partners give, how much in the 'brand name' and network, and how much is just being around tons of smart focused people for 3 months?
Sorry I stand corrected.

I stumbled upon this info when writing a redirector app recently. You're right, I should have verified that it was true.
> If the trend is that the middle class is moving toward size 0 while the upper and lower classes are growing

I think you've hit on it, there would have to be nobody on the income distribution curve in the middle, between the vast bump of poor on one hand and the smaller bump and long tail of rich on the other hand.

But that's not what we have. We have a literal median with most people making money in the middle, and it has gradually shifted higher, but not as quickly as the rich, which is the real problem.
The Penang Science Cluster: Innovation on a Growing Island
Immersive Video for Virtual Reality
In terms of what to look for in founders, one lesson YC has learned seems to be that determination > intelligence.

What other major lessons have you learned in the last few years?
Any ideas for some innovative growth hacks?
AT&T is using the Title II rules it hates to get millions in refunds
Sam,

Does every application submitted, before the deadline, get seen and on average by how many reviewers?
On that note, would you ever consider starting a YC 'minor league' farm? It'd be interesting to do 12-15k investments on young, very scrappy founders, a la original Summer Founders Program. Perhaps mentored by alumni rather than full-time partners for bandwidth purposes.
That is a good point.

Through the multiplying effects of leverage a 10% gain on your house here is a much bigger advantage in purchasing a house elsewhere.
We won't accept a direct clone, but competing companies are fine.
The ISIS Twitter Census
Totally OT, but in French the word "clavier" means "keyboard", so I thought it was about a new kind of keyboard been released. Oh boy was I confused when I checked the article!
What frustrates you the most about YC? What would you like to see change?
How much is six times nine?
Discover New Products / Startups with This Aggregator
Hi Sam,

What about people who are in the US on an H1-B visa and have a great idea/working prototype (built as a side project while working at a big co)? Will you invest considering the H1-B visa restrictions?

Thanks!
I wrote a similar\silly binary weather service (using the OpenWeather api) at http://taps.af

"Taps aff" is a Scottish way to talk about taking your shirt off on warm (read: >20C) days. I've also seen drunk people in some pubs shout "TAPS AFF, LADS!!" and a bunch of their drunk pals took their tshirts off and necked shots of tequila. Scotland is weird :-/

Oh and "Aye" means "yes", "Naw" means "no"

edit: awww it's down, sorry
You got encoding errors on non-ASCII cities:

http://caniwearshorts.today/?location=s%C3%A3o+paulo

UnicodeEncodeError at /
'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xe3' in position 105: ordinal not in range(128)
The visible universe? Some back-of-the-napkin estimates are that no more than 2^500 bits will be flipped in the region of space we can see, but there's a crucial assumption about minimum temperature you need to make to make that that estimate finite.

On the other hand, there's some pretty compelling reasoning that the entire universe is actually infinite in extent, so ... infinite computational power?
I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned CarMax. I won't argue as to whether CarMax is best or not but I can attest that it is a very straight-forward, no-haggle, and pretty fair-priced way to buy a car. Even if you don't feel they are best-priced, you definitely will 100% avoid all of the anxiety and nerve-wrackiness that comes with going into traditional dealerships. That alone might be worth a slightly inflated price to avoid that experience anyways.
With the Tag Heuer Deal, Google Needs to Step Up Its Smartwatch Game
PersistIQ (YC S14) is looking for our first marketing hire
Of course, goes without saying. Thanks!
Fair enough. I should have said "the model fails to accurately reflect my sense of morality".
I think so, yes. But also, it's a different time now. I'd have had more progress by the time I applied to YC.

For some companies, in a week, good hackers can get a prototype built and have a few initial users. If that's possible, we expect it.

If you are building a nuclear reactor we do not expect a prototype at interviews. However, we did have a rocket company bring a prototype engine to interviews.
> A false dichotomy.

I'm curious about your reasoning behind this statement.
Does YC have any initiatives planned for a Founders Conference that revolves around founders from URM groups, I'd love to see a conference for URM Founders, similar to the Female Founders Conference.
The exploits that take down hardened browsers take months to develop. The time limits and race dynamics are theater.
Show HN: FoneScript, cloud PBX for hackers
Hi Sam,
I started a company with a few co-founders. When we started building the product, we self-funded & raised from myself & friends/family but my co-founders weren't in a financial position to put money in resulting in my co-founders being diluted below 10%. Is that a major problems with applying to YC? They are all actively involved and eager to continue building the company.
Yes, I've thought about trying something like that.
Should we try to communicate culture and values in the application? Are those things that YC filters for?
This is a valid criticism.
How much does it hurt our application to not have a developer as a founder? We have an Engineer and a Business MGMT background.
Do international founders have a better chance of getting in because of the fact that they are willing to sacrifice something greater, or lower chances due to immigration issues?
Relax, it was for fun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGsalg2f9js&t=7m40s
Do you anticipate that putting together a structure for companies looking to perform long-term technology development ( i.e. three years, five years) is something YC would have on the board?
I agree. There are plenty of legitimate channels that use affiliates and there are tons of shady ones.
Yes, especially when you take into account that your two married doctors will likely be working off debt/opportunity cost related to becoming doctors for over a decade. At the point that they have paid off all debt, and start having a positive net-worth, things might turn around.

At the point that they have saved enough that they can live off investing their savings then that is upper class.
One of my partners is planning to do something here, but I'm not sure exactly what it's going to look like. (We run an extremely decentralized partnership.)
I would consider F# if interoperability with the .NET ecosystem was important for my task. Otherwise I would probably pick Haskell.
And yet every year they have been found. It's safe to assume browsing to a site can take over your entire machine at any time. Enjoy the web guys!
> This "middle class" family with the $2M home and the $250k income could sell that home, move to middle America, get a ranch home for < $200k with $1.8M left over, and retire, never working again.

That assumes they already own their home outright. It still takes a while, even earning $250k a year to pay off a $2M mortgage.
Structural subtyping are mostly close to static polymorphism. After all, we just don't like inheritance, not dynamic polymorphism. Besides, interface and trait are not really inheritance although closely related.
I ... well, yes, obviously? Since all I was concerned to address was the claim that the syntax is "natural", I didn't feel any need to include anything else. That's why used ellipses, which mean "the sentence continues, but I'm not quoting the rest".
Funds need a 10x return from one company to cover the entire fund. Is that a philosophy YC subscribes to, and if so, how long until it becomes evident which (if any) company in a given class will be the 10x ?
@GP

4. By using various forms static/dynamic analysis (taint analysis, fault propagation, fault injection).

5. By fuzz-testing the software.

Taint analysis is looking at which registers/memory locations you have access to. You inject data into a process and then check where in memory that data shows up, which execution branches are taken, which registers are used with the data, what the stack does, etc.

Fault propagation looks at where errors and faults are handled and how they are handled. The idea is to get a good idea of how a process manages errors and then find an error that is not handled (correctly).

Fault injection is injecting errors into a process and then watch the fireworks. Think of this as the brute-force approach to fault propagation analysis.

Fuzz testing is bombarding the process with semi-valid/semi-random input and watching what happens. There are many tools with this. Example output for browser-fuzzing could look like this:

<html>>style="\>>overflow:none"></body><html>

Obviously none of today's browsers would be exploited by that, but with mutli-threaded rendering, memory management, javascript reading/writing html and all that stuff going on at the same time it's not surprising that fuzz testing can turn up lots of errors (though not all exploitable).
Thank you. They are exactly what I was looking for. I'll spend a few days on these :)
We have a great deal in common. I followed a similar path to yours, and somewhere along the way moved into the Advertiser side of the equation, where the potential upside is much higher. Being a solo affiliate these days has been usurped by large companies posing as 'ad networks,' reselling traffic on the open exchange. With your background, you could make a lot more (in the form of salary and bonus) by marketing at a company that has a large marketing budget. I personally know affiliate vets like myself that pull 500k+ salary and bonus, whilst also having side projects. This is definitely one of those cases in which your skills are more valuable promoting an existing business than starting your own.
On open-sourcing existing code
We fund a lot of 3-5 year horizon companies.

10-20 years is harder. This does not work for startups. I have a few ideas I want to try, though.
I frequently see the stat that YC companies are worth 30 billion in total. While this is very impressive, it's still less than say Uber at 40 billion for a single company that's about the median age of the group--so it seems like a fair comparison, though an obvious outlier.

For the Uber, Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. outlier startups, how much pure luck do you think plays into their success? AirBnB and Dropbox are YC's biggest outliers. Have you found any actionable patterns in the way the founders of these outliers work/think/operate compared with the more moderately successfully and unsuccessful founders?
Reddit study: ShitRedditSays is site’s most toxic thread
That's something that surprises me a lot about the US: optional voting. Most (if not all) of the places I've live in during my lifetime had mandatory voting (in Argentina there's even a fine and you may be denied a passport if you have no justification for not-voting).

But what amazes me even more is how much people CHOOSE not to vote. Do they really not care at all?
API tech company Apigee files for an $86M IPO
Would it be possible to do a remote program mentored by alumni?
Your location system does not seem to work in the US.

This website: http://thefuckshouldiwear.com/
Shows correctly my location (Albany, NY).

Your website does not find my location and when I manually write Albany, NY in the bottom, it doesn't work either!
We agree. RC4 must die.

Will post back once we have resolved the issue.
Our users really are across a bunch of different industries. That's the thing - this is such a widespread problem that it's not constrained to one space. Data from Saleforce -> Mixpanel; eBay -> Shopify; NationBuilder -> centralised data warehouses are some examples.
Masters of the Eurozone – Goldman Sachs
10x returns don't help us much. Our entire model is driven by occasional 10,000x returns.

It usually takes about 2 years to have a good sense for who is on a trajectory to maybe get there, and then about 10 years to see if they actually do.
What advice do you have for junior devs who want to work at an early stage startup?
Given that this compilation was published on March 11th, and hpmor finished on March 14th, I don't think it's making the rounds now because of the timing of hpmor. Their finish/release dates are simply close together.
I remember the bad VR helmets that were around during the first Descent, it's probably a good time to bring it back during a time of Oculus Rift.
Taming the Wild Copy: Parallel Thread Corruption
I think it's reasonable to consider that we should stop adding new features to the web until it's at a point where we could have at least one www that doesn't leave users vulnerable.

Literally every browser is unsafe, and has always been unsafe. There's zero reason this should be the case. Transferring documents online is not that hard a problem. Perhaps blinging out all the latest features for all the latest ad companies is not worth the cost to users' system security.
> no null reference => no null reference exception

This is only true in the same sense that there are no NRE in C# as long as you don't use reference types. F# seems to be a fine language, and its non-nullable types are certainly a good thing, but you have to handle null references in F# just like in C#.
Awesome, looking forward to it! Thanks for the answer.