The MacroStores from the YC Worldhttp://www.themacro.com2016-11-08T07:42:48-08:00Y CombinatorBen Silbermann at Startup School [Video]http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/11/ben-silbermann-at-startup-school/2016-11-08T07:42:48-08:002016-11-30T15:08:29-08:00The Macro<style type="text/css">
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<h2>Ben Silbermann, Cofounder of Pinterest, at Startup School 2016.</h2>
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<p>Here are a few excerpts from Ben's conversation with Ali Rowghani, CEO of the YC Continuity Fund:</p>
<h4><span class='t-orange'>Ali :</span> You're clearly creative, you clearly had a sense the internet could be something interesting to solve various problems but you weren't technical. How did you overcome that in the early days in terms of actually being able to create the things you wanted to create?</h4>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Ben : </span> I would always start off thinking about an idea and I had some friends that were technical. None of us were super technical so we would always just sort of chip in and learn what we needed to do to get to the next part. </p>
<p>In learning about things like product design and simple front end coding you end up learning little bits at a time. For me at least, it's a lot easier to learn things when there's something that you want to build versus doing it in a very abstract, classroom way.</p>
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<h4><span class='t-orange'>Ali :</span> How did you find your first users?</h4>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Ben : </span> So we released the app and I did probably what everyone does–emailed all my friends and kind of hoped that it would to take off. And no one really got it, to be totally honest with you. Neither the people on the East Coast that Evan knew nor the people on the West Coast that I knew. They were just really polite, like, "Oh, looks interesting... Very interesting."</p>
<p>But there was a small group of people that were enjoying it. And those folks were not who I think stereotypically you think of when you think about early adopters. They were folks that I grew up with, people that were using it for regular stuff in their life. You know, "What is my house going to look like? What kind of food do I want to eat?" Things like that.</p>
<p>And we really thought, where are those people congregating? Who's their community? I ended up going to a conference for a lot of the blogs that those people were reading. I met these bloggers and they seemed like the kind of people who would really enjoy it. So we organized a marketing event with those bloggers where we had each of them introduce the service to their audience.</p>
<p>But we did all kinds of pretty desperate things, honestly. I used to walk by the Apple store on the way home. I'd go in and change all the computers to say Pinterest. Then just kind of stand in the back and be like, "Wow, this Pinterest thing, it's really blowing up." [Laughter]</p>
<p>Slowly we started to get folks who really loved the service. And since it took us so long to get those users, we cared about them so much. I used to have my cell phone on all the customer support emails. I would take customer support calls all the time so when the service would go down I'd have this problem where everyone would start calling me like, "Hey, I can't get my pins."</p>
<p>I think that that for me there were these two lessons. One is that there's a stereotype of where early adopters come from and they should be these technology forward folks. I just think that that idea is really outdated now. So many people have these amazing computers in their pockets, so many people of data, that early adopters are coming from everywhere. It could be a taxicab drivers in India or Midwestern folks who are planning their home. I think if we had been really dogmatic about wanting cool Silicon Valley people to like it we probably wouldn't have made the service that we made.</p>
<p>And I think there's a lesson in really taking care of users. All the time I would sit in coffee shops and ask people to try the service just to watch them and see what they were doing and see where we could smooth out the edges and improve the service.</p>
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The YC Effect: Charting How YC Makes Your Company Betterhttp://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/11/the-yc-effect/2016-11-03T05:51:38-07:002016-11-30T15:08:29-08:00Oleg Rogynskyy<style type="text/css">
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<h2>Oleg Rogynskyy is the CEO of <a href="https://people.ai/">People.ai</a> (S16).</h2>
<p>As the founder of a startup that graduated from Y Combinator last August I’m often asked about my experience - particularly by other founders. Was it valuable? What did we get out of it? What did we learn? There’s a perception in some corners of the Valley that Y Combinator is like an elite Ivy League institution whose main benefit has less to do with education, and more to do with networking. Y Combinator, it is said, is all about introducing you to the “right” people and photoshopping off your blemishes like a cover model so that you look attractive to potential investors on demo day.</p>
<p>Having gone through the process, I can tell you that that’s not what YC is about. Y Combinator is about understanding the metrics you need to hit to grow and thrive, how to be laser-focused on your company’s goals and lots and lots of hard work. I tried to explain this to those who asked, but “YC takes work” doesn’t quite cover it.</p>
<p>So, in an attempt to quantify what we experienced, I charted the hours worked by myself and my fellow batchmates in YC S16 during both the lead-up to our time in Y Combinator and the three months that we spent in the batch (June - August 2016). In order to calculate the hours I used People.ai’s AI engine. </p>
<p>The People.ai engine automatically collects data on emails sent and received and time spent in meetings and phone calls to present an accurate picture of how teams are spending their time in a single dashboard, as seen below. Different colors correspond to various categories of activities as seen here:</p>
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<p>Here are the results I got when I ran the numbers for myself and some of my fellow batchmmates:</p>
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<a href="http://themacro.com/images/articles/yc-effect-oleg-cc7ae308.png"><img alt="YC Effect Oleg" src="/images/articles/yc-effect-oleg.png" /><figcaption></figcaption><b>Oleg Rogynskyy, People.ai</b></a><br><br><a href="http://themacro.com/images/articles/yc-effect-debra-34e8cda1.png"><img alt="YC Effect Debra" src="/images/articles/yc-effect-debra.png" /><figcaption></figcaption><b>Debra Cleaver, Vote.org</b></a><br><br><a href="http://themacro.com/images/articles/yc-effect-lei-1c256082.png"><img alt="YC Effect Lei" src="/images/articles/yc-effect-lei.png" /><figcaption></figcaption><b>Lei Xu, Emote</b></a><br><br><a href="http://themacro.com/images/articles/yc-effect-michael-15b9583b.png"><img alt="YC Effect Michael" src="/images/articles/yc-effect-michael.png" /><figcaption></figcaption><b>Michael Henrich, ohmygreen</b></a>
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<p>A few points stand out to me: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>In early June, at the very beginning of their time in the batch, founders’ hours seem to decline because they are spending time “outside the system.” June, particularly early June, was a time where our batch focused on tweaking their original ideas and ensuring good product/market fit for the vision that our companies would eventually become. But, starting in early July, the change was tangible. </p></li>
<li><p>Nearly universally beginning in early July, and continuing through August, the hours that founders logged increased dramatically. Take me for example, I logged about 50 hours in the first week of June, a number that doubled to 100 hours two months later during the first week of August. While my hours would decline towards the end of the month they remained much higher than my previous peaks in May and June. </p></li>
<li><p>In fact, with the exception of Michael, the hours logged by the rest of us founders ranged from 150% to a truly earth-shattering 400% of our previous peaks before taking part in YC. </p></li>
<li><p>Each founder was unique in how they spent their time. Some focused on meetings while others spent longer on email. </p></li>
<li><p>Almost no time in the batch was spent on the phone - there was an overwhelming focus on attending meetings (whether internal or external) in person, or at least dealing with issues over email.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>There’s a reason that acceptance into YC includes a demand that founding teams move to Silicon Valley for the duration of the batch. Participating in Y Combinator requires you to put all other distractions aside and focus on just two things: developing your product and delivering growth. As a YC founder you gain a certain drive to get results and hit the challenging targets set by your mentors and batchmates.</p>
<p>The reason that Y Combinator alumni like Airbnb and Docker are so successful isn’t because YC teaches you Jedi mind tricks or because it gives you access to an elite network. It’s simply a result of the age-old equation: smart people + focus = good things. YC can’t make you smart, but it can, and does, teach you to focus solely on the metrics that are going to make you successful as an organization.</p>
<p>So there you have it. At the risk of sounding cliche, there is simply no alternative to hard work, sweat and tears. While we received myriad benefits from attending Y Combinator, by far the most important was the batch’s effect on our team. At Y Combinator you learn how to get shit done.</p>
<p>As our group partner, Michael Seibel, would say - <em>boom!</em> that’s it, the “secret” of Y Combinator’s success and what you get from participating in the batch.</p>
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Ask a Female Engineer: Employees with Kids and Relationships at Workhttp://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/10/ask-a-female-engineer-4/2016-10-27T08:42:32-07:002016-11-30T15:08:29-08:00Cadran Cowansage<style type="text/css">
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<h2>We’ve recruited a group of female engineers with years of industry experience to try an experiment with us called “Ask A Female Engineer.”</h2>
<p><a href="http://themacro.com/articles/2016/09/introducing-ask-a-female-engineer/">Read our first post</a> to learn more about the series. We recognize that the opinions of a few people by no means represent the opinions or experiences of all women who code. We’d love to hear feedback and more perspectives on these questions, so we’re continuing the discussion on <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12551623">Hacker News</a>.</p>
<p>I'm a software engineer at YC and will be moderating these posts. If you have questions you’d like to anonymously ask, or if you’re a female software developer who would like to participate, please email <a href="mailto:ask@ycombinator.com">ask@ycombinator.com</a>.</p>
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<h4>How can startups make the workplace more parent-friendly? What are the opportunities and challenges of starting a family? Are there mother-specific initiatives my company should consider?</h4>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Edith :</span> During pregnancy my first trimester was awful – I could barely eat and I was bone-tired. Things like brushing my teeth were pretty much guaranteed to make me vomit some days. Luckily I was working remotely and could just alternate between working from my bed and couch. I honestly don't know what I'll do if I become pregnant again now that I have an office job.</p>
<p>That experience made me realize that creating a workplace where it’s normal to work from home when needed is critical. Pregnant women may want to keep their pregnancies private during the first trimester. But if a woman is unwell during that time and starts working from home often when no one else at her company does, it may make her feel uncomfortable or draw attention to her and potentially give away the fact that she’s pregnant. If instead working from home is commonplace at her office and it’s considered normal to work from home for a few days in a row, then no one will ask questions.</p>
<p>Another important piece is to have a policy on parental leave that’s clearly spelled out in writing when you’re first making a job offer to a potential employee. Short term disability (STD) can help cover maternity leave, but the policies can be confusing and often employees don’t think about it until after they’re pregnant. So, if your company requires that an employee take action within a particular timeframe in order to qualify for STD, let them know up front so they don’t wind up losing out on the benefits. Also, real paid parental (not just maternity!) leave is critical if you want a welcoming and equitable environment, since the notion that only women care for children is outdated. A paternity leave policy can help remove the stigma women experience taking time away from work since both men and women at your office will take leave. If executives are mothers and fathers, it’s great to set the example that they take advantage of leave too. If your executive team members all choose to take the minimum amount of leave, employees may feel uncomfortable taking more leave, even if it’s offered by your company. </p>
<p>Also make sure your company’s policy accommodates maternity leave for adoption, too. I think an increasing emphasis on viewing parental leave as "bonding leave" as opposed to pure "physical recovery leave" is important to making sure adoptive parents have the time they need with their kids, too. There is absolutely a physical recovery requirement for biological mothers, yes, but it's important not to overlook the bonding needs for non-birth parents – whether those parents are adoptive parents, or surrogacy was involved, or if it's a gay or lesbian couple, or whatever. </p>
<p>Separately, I think encouraging people to view leave this way may help reduce the "mommy tracking" that sometimes happens. And by that I mean the “motherhood” career path where mothers need to leave work early or work from home when others are not, which can lead to fewer opportunities for career advancement. If the policies at your company are for parents in all sorts of situations, it means more men are likely to be taking time off and so women may be less likely to be penalized for doing so too.</p>
<p>To clarify for anyone who does not have kids, "bonding leave" doesn’t mean gazing lovingly into your baby's eyes for hours on end. Bonding, for me, was, "What the hell does this nonverbal thing want?" training. I think a metric for how much time you need for leave is when you the parent are able to tell a non-parent caregiver how to take care of your kid. For me, that was pretty much a full three months. It seems unfair to me to ask a parent, whether or not they had physically given birth, to return to work until they have a chance to figure out all of this stuff. This is just as important for non-child-carrying parents as it is for the person who did give birth.</p>
<p>It means a lot to me in my current job that my boss, the CEO, has two young kids and he holds his family time very dear; he leaves at 5 PM every day, too. When I had to bring my daughter in for an afternoon because my childcare fell through, he was completely nonchalant about it and pulled out a few of the toys he keeps around for his kids. I've had male reports tell me it’s meant a lot to them that I’ve led by example and worked from home when childcare fell through because they've been in the same situation and weren't sure if it was kosher for them to do the same thing. I found that as a manager, setting that example set a precedent not just for women with kids, but for the men too! The flexibility to make up time, work from home, or have unlimited sick days to deal with the realities of small humans getting sick, having childcare fall through, or whatever is so important. I want to work! I want to do my job! And as long as my company is willing to work with me, I'll get it done while doing my kid stuff, too. </p>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Jean :</span> Flexibility is key. Everyone's situation is different– e.g. pregnancy, having children or taking care of parents. Work from home, part-time options, and flexible hours benefit everyone. One very enlightened small company I worked for paid for a few days per year of ParentsInAPinch (now care.com), which is vetted emergency backup child or elder care. I only used one day in my time there, but it was so helpful that day.</p>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Kay :</span> There is one benefit I had at my workplace 20 years ago, which I liked a lot. At that time working remotely was just emerging as a concept. Nowadays, as we all know, there are times when we really want or need to be at work, and if that's the day when your child gets sick, it's very frustrating.</p>
<p>My then-CEO, who was a single mother herself, had a sick room in our office. This room had sleeping bags and pillows, and a VHS player (these were the days before Netflix), and other things for kids. It was a big relief that I could take a sick child with me to work (of course only when the illness was not serious). I could see my child at any moment and know how they were feeling, give them medicine, and decide myself what to feed them without trying to figure it out on the phone with a sitter, feeling distracted and guilty.</p>
<p>That same CEO would go to my house and stay with my kids when we had emergency technical issues requiring all of the tech staff to stay late.</p>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Mary :</span> Having access to emergency paid time off and/or accessibility to emergency childcare is so important. I can’t forecast when my child will become sick to plan my PTO accordingly. I sometimes have to miss work because of a sick kid and when I am out of PTO, I have to work long hours trying to make up the time or take a no pay day If making up the time is not an option. In those moments, I sometimes feel an internal battle between being there for my kids when they need me and being a productive employee. When I feel like I can be both a mom and business professional I can focus on my work and I am happier. </p>
<p>Providing benefits for parents and catering to engineers with kids is a great way to have an edge recruiting experienced talent. Benefits might include an area for kids to play and do homework and discounts for childcare and children’s activities. You can make it clear your company is parent-friendly by having company events during lunch rather than after work or making after-hours events kid friendly.</p>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Grete :</span> I'm not a mom, but I think seeing what happens to senior technical women influences women's perception of their career path within the industry. I want to see people advance at a company I work for based on accomplishing goals rather than whether they stay late or attend all the company social outings, since parents don’t always have the time to stay late or socialize after work. It starts at the top. I want to see that senior leadership sets an example spending time with their families if they have them. Those sorts of actions communicate priorities to the broader organization. Employees with families should have the same opportunities for career growth as those who don't. That means clear career paths with clear milestones. I used to think clear processes were terribly bureaucratic, but now I appreciate the tangible benefits to having yardsticks for measuring career progress that a person can point to and make a case for advancement.</p>
<h4>What policies would you like to see on employee dating?</h4>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Ada :</span> Never assume that all your employees are straight, all your employees only date one person at a time, all of your employees define dating the same way you do, or that you’ll know if your employees are dating. I think a flat prohibition of romantic relationships in your company is going to be very hard to enforce; most likely, your employees are not going to disclose their relationships. It's probably safer to try and ensure that your employees are comfortable disclosing their relationships to their managers if they believe it will impact their work lives, at which point you can compassionately figure out a solution that protects the company, the team dynamic, and the employees who are dating. It’s important that employees should be comfortable disclosing non-monogamous or non-heterosexual relationships to their managers or the appropriate HR personnel without fear of reprisals or malicious gossip.</p>
<p>If you're going to have a policy on employee romantic relationships, my suggestion would be to focus on relationships where one partner is in a position of authority over the other and to create a system where the other employee can report to a different lead or manager. And yes, this policy should be clearly spelled out in a company handbook – it shouldn't be something your team is confused about or has to ask about.</p>
<p>In addition, I strongly recommend that relationships between full-time employees and interns are prohibited for the duration of the internships.</p>
<p>I should hope that it's obvious that any abuse, harassment, discrimination, or non-consensual sexual conduct towards a fellow employee, customer, intern, etc. – regardless of whether the two persons involved are in a romantic relationship or not – should not be tolerated under any circumstances.</p>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Dorothy :</span> I've never seen policy on employee dating that was effective. I’ve seen policies that made sense in theory – i.e. like don't date within your reporting chain – that lead to bad outcomes in practice – people hiding their relationship. In a perfect world it'd be great to just have people "do the right thing" but sadly that just doesn't provide enough guidance to people who haven't been around the block enough to "know better".</p>
<p><em>If you have questions you’d like to anonymously ask, or if you’re a female software developer who would like to participate, please email <a href="mailto:ask@ycombinator.com">ask@ycombinator.com</a>.</em></p>
Marc Andreessen at Startup School [Video]http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/10/marc-andreessen-at-startup-school/2016-10-25T05:28:25-07:002016-11-30T15:08:29-08:00The Macro<style type="text/css">
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<h2>Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz cofounder and general partner, at Startup School 2016.</h2>
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<h4>In his conversation with YC Partner and COO Qasar Younis, Marc outlined two tests investors run on entrepreneurs before working with them.</h4>
<p><strong>1. Can they get a warm intro?</strong></p>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Marc : </span> The way that most of the top end venture capital firms work is basically they'll take you seriously if you come in introduced by somebody they've worked with before and they won't take you seriously if you don't. There's an argument that plays out in the Valley which is that that's sort of unfair and unreasonable and what about all these founders all over the world and why can't they have access the way the people who are already connected can?</p>
<p>The argument in favor of the warm referral is that it's the first test and it's the first test of your ability to basically network your way to the investor. The way the investor thinks about it is if you can't figure out a way to network your way to a VC firm, which is, of course, in the business of meeting founders, then you're unlikely to be able to network your way into hiring a great team or network your way into selling your product to customers.</p>
<p>I think that the role of the warm referral is misinterpreted. It's a test you just want to pass. You don't want to take any chances on that. The good news is if you're connected to YC, if you're connected into the Valley angel/seed ecosystem, that's a very easy test to pass. If you're not connected into YC then the thing to do is to get to the Valley or get into the network.</p>
<p><strong>2. Can they successfully present to Andreessen Horowitz's full partnership?</strong></p>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Marc : </span> Usually the process is a first meeting with one of the junior people which might then lead to a second meeting with a broader group of those folks, maybe with one or two general partners. </p>
<p>Then the big event is when you progress through one or two or three meetings and you get invited to present to the full partnership. Usually at most firms that's on a Monday. And that's a formal thing, including all the general partners at the firm. Sometimes we'll have 40 people in the room for that. </p>
<p>And this gets into another debate, which is, okay you guys go on and on about creativity and all this stuff, why do you want the founder to stand up there like an idiot for 50 minutes reading off powerpoint slides? Why don't we just have a conversation? Why don't we do things casual? Why don't you do more research up front?</p>
<p>Again, I think that's misinterpreted. I think the formal presentation is another test, which is as a founder if you're good enough at your job as a CEO to get up and present to an institutional investor for 60 minutes and sell them on your thing. We're easy. VC firms exist to give out money. We love when somebody walks in and has a compelling pitch and we can give them a check. That's a successful day for us. </p>
<p>In contrast, every other pitch you're ever going to make will be to somebody who's going to be much worse than us, right? Customers are going to be like "No, I'm not gonna give you any money" as their default position. You're going to try to recruit engineers and they've got 20 other job offers. Why is your pitch going to be so much better than the other 20 startups? </p>
<h4>Later in the conversation Qasar asked Marc who he looks up to.</h4>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Marc : </span> I'm a big fan of history. There's sort of a classic cliché in the Valley which is we don't respect history very much. And for a lot of people who visit the Valley for the first time that's their impression because they want to drive around Silicon Valley and it's like "good luck with that." There's a freeway. There's a strip mall. There's an office park. There's a security guard that won't let you in the office park. There's no physical history here, really.</p>
<p>And we're all about the future. We're building the future. So I think there's a natural tendency to assume the past isn't very relevant. And I actually criticize a little bit the Elon [Musk] school of thought, which is very strong in the Valley, which is about thinking from first principles. It has its huge strengths for sure but it does kind of dismiss the idea that people who came before us had anything to teach us.</p>
<p>My general view is the people who came before us had a harder time doing what they did than we do. The world was in a more immature state. Startups started before 50 years ago didn't have venture capital. Startups before 20 years ago didn't have the internet. Things were harder in the past. </p>
<p>So the people who were successful in the past I think were often better than we are because they had to be. I'll recommend a few books.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471414638">The Maverick and His Machine</a> by Kevin Maney<br>
If you think that Steve Jobs was rough on people, he had nothing on Thomas Watson Sr. The book has transcripts of executive staff meetings at IBM in the 1930s and 1940s and let's just say he was an absolute terror. And built an extraordinary company. So he's a role model–though not the terror part.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591841526">Bill & Dave</a> by Michael S. Malone<br>
It talks about how Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard built HP over the course of 30 or 40 years.</p>
<p>Then I like going back further. I like what was called the Second Industrial Revolution where you got electricity and cars.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400047633">The Wizard of Menlo Park</a> by Randall E. Stross</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1451645589">I Invented the Modern Age</a> by Richard Snow<br>
If you go back and read the history of cars a hundred years ago, Detroit was a lot more like Silicon Valley today than I think people understand. In fact with Henry Ford, Ford Motor Company was not his first company. There are all these interesting backstories.</p>
<p>And you can go back even further. This is not to compare us to this but just as inspiration and role models. Florence at the time of the Medici and Leonardo DaVinci.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/3540284400">Leonardo's Lost Robots</a> by Mark Rosheim<br>
It turns out DaVinci, while he was doing everything else that he did in life, he was also designing robots. And in his sketchbooks there are fully fledged designs for like everything mechanical. Things like all the Boston Dynamics projects. He was trying to invent all that stuff 500 years ago and didn't quite have the technology to pull it off. Couldn't quite go to TI and get the microcontroller. So he had some issues but, you know, he's an inspiration.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374528888">The Lunar Men</a> by Jenny Uglow<br>
It's about the Lunar Society, which was in England about 250 years ago. James Watt who invented the steam engine and all these other guys who were doing this kind of thing back then all worked together. They had sort of a YC thing going back then.</p>
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Announcing Our Guidelines for Edtech Productshttp://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/10/announcing-our-guidelines-for-edtech-products/2016-10-21T05:25:32-07:002016-11-30T15:08:29-08:00Karen Lien<style type="text/css">
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<h2>Karen Lien is an Edtech Principal at Y Combinator.</h2>
<p>At YC / Imagine K12, we work with an <a href="http://www.imaginek12.com/for-educators.html#advisory-board">educator advisory board</a> that guides our work with edtech companies. Over the past year, the advisory board has helped us compile a collection of guidelines for edtech products. The guidelines touch on everything from data format, to account setup, to customer support, and they focus on things that might not seem very significant to edtech founders, but can make a big difference to teachers, schools, and districts. </p>
<p>We created <a href="http://www.ycombinator.com/guidelines-for-edtech-products/">this resource</a> to help YC / Imagine K12 edtech founders better understand how to meet the needs of education customers. We’re sharing it here in hopes that it will be a useful reference for other edtech companies as well. </p>
<p>We did our best to include a diversity of perspectives in creating these guidelines. We also invite your comments (<a href="mailto:karen@ycombinator.com">karen@ycombinator.com</a>) to continue improving this resource.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ycombinator.com/guidelines-for-edtech-products/">Read the guidelines</a>.</p>
Reid Hoffman at Startup School [Video]http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/10/reid-hoffman-at-startup-school/2016-10-14T12:15:16-07:002016-11-30T15:08:29-08:00The Macro<style type="text/css">
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<h2>Reid Hoffman, Cofounder of LinkedIn and Partner at Greylock Partners, at Startup School 2016.</h2>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ysz1xLMd37Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>Here are a few excerpts from Reid's conversation with Sam Altman:</p>
<h4><span class='t-orange'>Sam :</span> What’s something you believe to be true that very few people agree with you on?</h4>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Reid : </span> The people in this room may agree with this but, when you count the globe, one thing I believe is there’s an extremely high likelihood that within the next 50-100 years we create another cognitive species–a species with better cognitive abilities than ours. People in this room probably tend to think that’s artificial intelligence but I actually think it’s a jump ball between that and a different version of Homo genus. </p>
<p>We’re in a relatively unique period in which Homo Sapiens are the only part of the Homo genus. There used to be Homo Floresiensis, Neanderthalensis, and so forth. And when you consider a longer time frame, 40,000-50,000 years ago wasn’t actually that long ago. What happens depends on particular breakthroughs in AI–I think there’s still some invention and magic necessary for a truly generalized AI, which may or may not happen quickly. If it does then AI is likely, if it doesn’t then the Homo Genus is likely.</p>
<h4><span class='t-orange'>Sam :</span> What’s something you believe that very few people in this room agree with you on?</h4>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Reid : </span> One of the things that’s really important for inventing products is a fairly deep sense of a theory of human nature and humanity. Anyone that’s inventing the kinds of products that we typically do should be able to articulate a relatively robust theory around “What is human nature? What is humanity like now? Where is it going? And how does your product or service fit into that?” </p>
<p>Most people here might not disagree though most people I talk to can’t articulate a robust theory of human nature. That’s one of the reasons why years back I started saying, “I invest in one or more of the seven deadly sins”, because I was trying to get people to think about common human psychology. If you’re trying to create a mass market consumer application, what parts of what it is to be human are you actually triggering? </p>
<h4><span class='t-orange'>Sam :</span> Do you think people give up too early? In this culture of - try something, fail fast, stop - I think you can lose a lot of great companies.</h4>
<p><span class='t-orange'>Reid : </span> Definitely you can. When I’m talking to an entrepreneur for the first time one of the things I test for is what I call “flexible persistence”, which means they'll both listen to and hear the things I’m saying but they’ll also have conviction in their point of view. If you don’t have both you'll almost certainly fail. People without that conviction will say, “I’ll just pivot my way there.” No. Have a deeply thought theory around what you’re heading for. Plan B frequently is not something entirely different. Usually Plan B is a slight variation and test. </p>
<p>For example, one of the thoughts we had early on at LinkedIn was that even though we made a very heavy bet on individuals, would we have to shift to companies and groups? Turned out we didn’t have to do that but that was a Plan B. In terms of staying persistent I think you need two or three points that really reduce your confidence before decide to pivot.</p>
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