alt Hacker NewsYC has always been founder first.
Back when they started in the 2000s, most traditional VCs didn't recognize that high impact individuals can easily pivot or define product categories, and only concentrated on financial engineering (DCF go brrrrrr).
YC often also mentors founders on pivots (I'd say at least a third of all startups that make it to demo day were mentored into some sort of a pivot).
YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z Speedrun and PeakXV Surge, both of which really center on the founder first approach or Operators-turned-Angels - which I assume this marketing shift is about.
Replies
> YC also needs to pivot it's marketing
Depends who you're marketing to. Do they need to follow what others did or should they stay in their own niche? Because I'm not hanging out on a16z forum because they make fancy marketing materials, I'm one of the thousands of people who bought into the YC brand which was build over decades. Would be stupid to become one with the crowd of sleeky VCs.
As European I'm quite happy I didn't see YC involvement with the current administration, and if they stay a bit clear of the AI supergau I'm sure they'll be fine.
> YC also needs to pivot
It's been reported that the ratio of mentors to founders had become quite bad. Seems quality has gone down since they tried to scale something that doesn't scale
> YC often also mentors founders on pivots
Interesting. I once talked to an investor (not YC) and they asked me what I would do if the product failed. I said one thing I can do is pivot. And they literally responded with "we don't invest in founders who think about pivoting"
> YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z Speedrun and PeakXV Surge
Maybe. A write up about the new design would be cool I think
> YC has always been founder first.
Internally yes there is a "founder community". But publicly I would argue it was product-first.