Tell HN: Winners of Apply HN for YC Fellowship 3

The thing with YC is startups can’t do the program in a vacuum. Even with the remote nature of the Fellowship, the founders affect the partners they work with and the other founders they work alongside, both in their batch and among the alumni community. We made the decision to call all the startups we’d consider taking on through Apply HN and make a decision on fit. I know that’s changing the rules at the last second, but we didn’t realize this until Pinboard entered the fray. I'm actually grateful for the head's up. Like all our experiments at YC, we design them to adapt as things happen, and they certainly did here.

I made the same phone calls with the other founders and they felt completely different. I wasn’t looking for gratitude or devotion or deference. My minimum was connection, my ideal was simpatico—evidence that I could spend a lot of time with the founder, which is what’s needed to make this relationship work well. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a good rapport with Maciej. Regardless of the vote situation, I’d make the same decision.

Maciej is clearly brilliant and quite witty and knows how to build and direct a passionate following. Pinboard is unique and I’m glad it exists. More opinionated software should exist in the world. Even though we couldn’t find rapport together, I sincerely wish him and his startup the very best.

"We changed the rules at the last minute. We're sorry, but that's the way it goes."

I can live with that. What you did instead, first by pretending Maciej didn't win in your post, and then by blaming him for not being selected in Dan's follow-up, was a mistake, and not a great way to treat him. I don't know you at all, but Dan likes you so you can't be a bad person, and I can't believe Dan is happy with this.

We're grown-ups and don't have to like each other to work together effectively.

However, I appreciate your being honest about arbitrarily changing the rules on me.

This kind of statement is broad, and covers anything from "he said he'd use the money to breed a race of robotic nazi grizzly bears" to "his voice reminded me of my ex-spouse's".

YC is y'all's thing, you run it however you want, but the lack of details here does make it seem like it really is about the fact that Maciej routinely criticizes the whole VC/startup fairy tale that YC peddles, and that changing the rules at the last minute is the only way you came up with to dodge having to work with him.

I generally agree with what Maciej has to say, and have a fairly negative opinion of YC (despite enjoying the HN community, and respecting some of the people involved with YC) - I thought I'd be pleasantly surprised by YC here and see what happens when they're willing to work with one of their smarter critics.

But in the end, there's just disappointment, and no reason to reconsider my perception of YC.

This times 1000. A working relationship is not a friendship nor does it require any particularly strong "rapport". Though the idea that there's no difference between a working relationship and being best buds is, I guess, not uncommon in SV---something to protest against the next time an experiment like this is run, I guess.

Disclaimer: I didn't vote for Pinboard and hadn't even heard of them before this voting.

Were the real reason, as stated here, published the first time, I wouldn't even have bothered to comment.

But when you're inconsistent, you should bear a special obligation to be generous and charitable to the people you're disadvantaging. YC didn't live up to that obligation here.

I was about to even agree with one saying the evidence looked fishy given spotting or countering subversive behavior is kind of my thing. Then, kevin's comment appeared just as I was about to write mine to confirm opposition angle a lot.

Full disclosure: First time I've ever found out who idlewords is, I don't use that product, probably didn't give it a vote, I give mixed reviews of Silicon Valley politics/VC's, and say whatever I think facts lead to regardless of blowback. As in, near zero bias in this and people's concerns are still obvious to me.

Retroactively doing so, sure, is your right but it's fairly underhanded.

If the point was to experiment I think YC missed out on a big opportunity.

Is what I would say.

I realize it's inadvisable to wade into this discussion, but this just leaves me indignant and disappointed on behalf of my whole industry and profession.

Gut feels are often valuable signals, but without further examination and specificity they are a gigantic bias bomb waiting to explode.

An organization that widely permits this type of vague assertion to pass unchallenged is institutionally incapable of improving inclusivity or diversity, and one has to wonder if it's institutionally interested in the same at all.

Some concrete questions: what is YC's policy on ensuring employees/partners have received training re: bias? Have YC decision makers all participated in de-biasing education? If not, how does this reflect on YC's apparent dedication to improving diversity in our field?

Pinboard is in a relatively unique situation amongst all the other companies in that it is beyond finding product-market fit -- it's got an established userbase and a founder with proven chops and a large following. It seems like he is in the exact position where something like YCF can help pour gasoline on the things that he's doing that are already working.

I understand YC's tremendous focus on finding a right fit with founders when they join the regular batches. But, at least at first, it's not entirely clear that this criterion should hold as much weight with YCF. They'll talk less frequently, invest less money, etc. -- maybe the optimal strategy for YCF is in fact focusing much more on the present stage of the company and whether or not the little bit of cash/partner influence can cause an inflection??? Who knows, really... but it sure sounded like accepting Pinboard -- not in spite but because there were these issues with Maciej -- would make it an especially interesting case to try out.

Now, if this is your whole argument, then I don't disagree with it. Yet, tptacek's reply to you is still true based on what's in the comment you replied to and the others. Your counter doesn't apply to what he wrote.

The reason this experiment was so interesting was that it would bypass their biased human filtering and let in people based purely on their merit.

Not accepting Pinboard undermines the entire experiment. Pinboard could likely be a huge company with YC's help, and it would be fucking hilarious to watch.

Let Pinboard in and do the experiment again. He's smart and he's not crazy. Any founder able to win the votes is someone you can work with. Consider it a diversity program, which it would be.

YC is much more of a "mentor+mentee" relationship than a regular "coworkers on a team" relationship. A mentor relationship is much less effective if there's no personal rapport between participants.

To put it another way, suppose the best advice YC can give is to focus on something other than pinboard (or something like that), would idlewords listen? Because if not, what's the point?

I can see this is disappointing for idlewords, but overall, this seemed fair and reasonably transparent to me.

I'm worried the overall outcome is that instead of being a fun and interesting experiment, it's going to be a 'bad and sad' in YC's minds, and any future contest is going to have a lawyer writing the rules.

So, here's to a clearer 'judge's decision is final' next time and that the three accepted applicants turn out successful.

"...but we aren't going to be the ones to help that happen."

Hi Kevin... :-)

Understand your feelings and agree with the choice in the context of YC/YCF - but to me this is a massive opportunity to grow YC beyond what it is now; to me, it feels that instead of looking for a way make it work, YC bailed out.

To that end, on a trial basis, I'm offering to start YCX, which would allow YC and the community to work together to make this possible.

While I wouldn't pretend to know the all the answers now (or in the future) - I deeply believe in bridging the gaps between communities to form new communities that in the end will be in sum stronger, more diverse, create opportunities, etc.

Very possible that I've misunderstood, but the main issues I'm seeing are: (1) how YCX relationships would work with YC/YCF and (2) insuring that the way capital is provided works for YC, the startups, and community.

To that end, to me, some solutions might be to have the funds provided by the community via non-equity crowdfunding, have YCX only mentors, allow YC/YCF to opt-in to relationships with YCX fellows, etc.

Happy to talk more offline if you're open to trying to make this work; also, completely understand if it's not a path YC wants to consider too.

>Maciej is clearly brilliant and quite witty and knows how to build and direct a passionate following. Pinboard is unique and I’m glad it exists. More opinionated software should exist in the world. Even though we couldn’t find rapport together, I sincerely wish him and his startup the very best.

I find this a little confusing in that it seems to conflict with what I had taken as the entire purpose of the experiment. If not trying out people who have positive attributes who others seem to like that you don't connect with then honestly, what's the point of this?

Everything HN readers know about choosing successful founders comes from reading material written by you guys and seeing your results in action. The facts were never going to be radically different in that our primary criteria would be things like "company name has lots of strong letters" or "that guy has a power beard", no the things discussed in the comments were stuff we've read from VCs and are effectively regurgitating. Nothing revolutionary there.

The true value I thought you were going for was to take the bias of "do I connect with this guy" out of it. But instead you say you think he's great, companies great, but just don't connect with him. You don't need us to be able to find great people with great ideas that you do connect with.

You've taken a system that would remove your own intuition bias, and then created a step at the last minute where the only apparent intent appears to be to introduce that bias. :/

I sort of hope this is just a polite "this isn't a business decision. It would just suck to work with this guy and I'm successful enough to not have to do things that suck for money", in which case fair enough.

1. As other posters have said, "we couldn't find rapport" is a warning sign of unconscious bias. And, as you said, the rules were constructed "on purpose: we don't want to bias it along the lines of how YC already operates."

2. It's pretty clear that "we decided to privately call all the startups rather than do everything in public" only happened because of Pinboard's success.

3. You guys dropped the ball on this one, big time. DQ-ing Pinboard isn't the real problem. If you think the Pinboard business is no good, or the founder would squander the money, whatever, that's your call. But it should have happened far earlier in the process. Waiting to drop Pinboard until after after two rounds of votes were tabulated is ridiculous.

If Pinboard had no votes, we wouldn't be having this conversation. It was specifically because it had the most votes that there was any expectation that it might be chosen. But it was always Kevin's prerogative to say no, and he did. They were clear that it is an experiment, and that we would figure things out as we go. I don't see how you can accuse "changing the rules". There were no set rules.

You would be dishonest if you tried to say that Pinboard didn't initially approach this as a funny/protest entry ("Let's make YC great again"). Whether he changed later is irrelevant. Whether some voted for Pinboard because they liked it is irrelevant. Others voted for it for it in the same spirit as he entered it, and suddenly (whether he intended it or not) you have the Wonka Factory's doors open and a bunch of people finding it fun (and maybe cathartic) to act like Veruca Salt. Don't blame Kevin or Dan, blame Maciej.