Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA - <AUTHOR> YC applications for the Summer 2017 batch are due in a week, so I thought I'd do an AMA to answer questions about applying to YC, how the program works, or anything else.  I'll start answering questions at 10am. <comment><USER3> How do you feel about _non-profit_ startups developing pure Open Source software and services in exchange for donations, in the interests of bettering the ecosystem itself? Could a nascent Mozilla be a YC nonprofit?

<comment><USER4> I'm extremely interested in this, as the current funding model for startups restricts new technology to companies that are fiduciarily compelled to monopolize their market, siphoning user data and (potentially) damaging civic society in the process. Startups are still a very good vehicle for most problems, but for certain classes of problems, sometimes make things worse, and I'm curious if YCombinator is interested in helping out with those types of initiatives.

<comment><USER5> To be clear: YC accepts non-profits each round.

www.ycombinator.com/nonprofits/

The question of whether open-source producing non-profits fit into YC is still a good one. I couldn't find an info on whether they have already accepted such non-profits, but the incubator Fast Forward has:

> Intelehealth built an open-source intelligence engine for assessing primary > care conditions

[https://qz.com/792685/silicon-valley-wants-to-save-the- world...](https://qz.com/792685/silicon-valley-wants-to-save-the-world-by- investing-in-nonprofits-like-startups/)

<comment><USER4> Sure, and I'm aware of the non-profit initiatives. I don't think many people have considered producing actual software under a not-for-profit (except for Khan Academy?), probably because it's insanely expensive. Would YCombinator help facilitate funding a fully open Facebook or Twitter clone, for instance? It sounds outlandish to consider, but it seems equally outlandish to consider the 2020 election happening over essentially the same social stack & people will just be okay with that.

(Obviously, a clone itself wouldn't suffice, you'd need to start with federated identity, and....)

<comment><USER6> FWIW, YCombinator has funded a fully open, federated Facebook clone:

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/diaspora#/entity](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/diaspora#/entity)

It didn't work out so well, mostly because a.) actually cloning Facebook is pretty hard and b.) _users_ don't seem to want to switch to fully-open Facebook or Twitter clones.

<comment><USER4> Haha, interesting, I didn't know they went through YC at some point.

I'm making a strong bet that people _do_ want to switch to fully-open social clones, because it's hard for me to imagine citizens of 2024 or 2028 conducting an effective political system using today's monolithic social technology. But the current ecosystem sucks for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hi Michael,

YC-funded companies are known to be large-scale consumers of free and open source software. They are able to leverage the competitive advantage provided by this digital infrastructure to build successful, high valuation businesses. Some of those companies have gone on to make great contributions to the Open Source community themselves.

Would YC ever consider setting up a fund for the builders and maintainers of the infrastructure that your companies depend upon?

<comment><USER8> I may be a bit dense here, but who are the 'builders and maintainers of the infrastructure'? Can you give an example?

I'm thinking Docker, GitLab, NPM are both in some ways doing both the development of their businesses, and maintaining the infrastructure and open- sourcing their code.

Are these not the sorts of examples you're thinking of? Does this require a separate fund?

<comment><USER7> That is a great question. @Alex3917 pretty much nailed it but I do have another example.

On April 7, 2014, CVE-2014-0160 aka Heartbleed was publicly disclosed. At the time, 66% of websites used OpenSSL (via Netcraft). Also, OpenSSL had 1 full- time engineer, and only a few volunteers. Yearly donations were about $2,000. 17 days after Heartbleed Jim Zemlin from the Linux Foundation as well as thirteen companies stepped up to the plate and created the Core Infrastructure Initiative and pledged to donate $100,000 a year for 3 years to help prevent the next Heartbleed.

The point is this, Open Source isn't free. Docker, GitLab and other 'open- core' businesses stand on the shoulder of giants. If they raise a round of fundraising or whatever Press Release hits the wire, they get praise (which is fine, I love it). But the only time a project like the OpenSSL project gets press is when something goes wrong which I don't think is fair to them.

We can keep being reactive or we can start being proactive. I believe YC has the capital and influence to change this thinking of Open Source doesn't cost anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hello Michael,

I was suggested by few YC Alums that YC will not accept a startup if the founders are not working full time on it.

Question: In my case I am working full time because it's helping me fund my startup and It's actually helping me grow it due to connection to my peers (I am M.D from India working on a Health Startup). Is this a bad sign ?

I simply do not have the resources (and enough revenue) to quit my job Yet. But I am dedicated 200 % towards my startup and the vision. And I spend most of my time (outside of work) on my startup.

<comment><USER10> He answered a similar question (mine) below:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13895615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13895615)

<comment><USER9> Thanks. But for me, I am NOT looking for any external validation. Except my users, whom I deeply care about. My situation (being in a Developing country) is a little different from your IMHO.

<comment><USER11> Your question was "Is this a bad sign?" And the answer to that is NO. You're doing just fine. But if you're looking for a funding from YC (which is an external validation btw), they would rather fund someone who are willing to quit their job and commit 100%.

Like I said there's nothing wrong with your approach. If you believe you're doing the right thing and you can see the growth then you are doing it right.

You WILL know when it's time to quit your job and commit when the time comes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What's the best way to pick between two ideas when you like one idea better but the other is more feasible given your skill set?

>>>>>>>>>>>

We're two founders working on products for people of color.

We have two ideas we want to work: 1) a networking type idea 2) a media and entertainment idea.

We love both these ideas deeply, we've committed most of our time to idea 1 bc we can make an MVP for it but we want to work on #2 bc it will have more promise given market trends and we like the idea more.

The problem with #2 is that it requires a lots of capital to make video content and we don't have domain expertise in film production.

As a result we're torn as to what we should write about on the YC app. Our app focuses on the 1st idea but we mention the 2nd idea plenty of times. We would love your thoughts.

Thank you Michael for taking the time to be accessible to the community.

<comment><USER13> FYI, you should take a look at the application itself, it allows for multiple ideas

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hey Michael,

How do you when the right time is to quit a business that just isn't working? And how do you distinguish between normal obstacles and hardship vs real signs that signal the business isn't viable?

</comment><comment><USER15> I want to be a farmer. I want to treat the farm like a startup. At which point in the application process can I try to convince you that you need a farmer in your portfolio? Also, when and where can I go into details to describe how it would be different from today's conventional operations?

<comment><USER16> YC has backed at least one startup for indoor farming lighting, Transcend (S15), and one for indoor gardening, Click & Grow (S15).

<comment><USER17> Farmlogs went through YC in 2012.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seeing some of the recent startups that have come out of YC and learning about what they're working on; I can't imagine how they'd scale to a billion dollar business. Question: Is this a signal that YC is now investing in companies that don't have such lucrative paths? If so, how does YC justify such a decision to their partners.

<comment><AUTHOR> To be honest - it was impossible early on to see how Justin.tv (a guy wearing a camera on his head 24/7) or Airbnb (airbed rental) could turn into billion dollar companies. Often times we invest in great teams and just see what they can do. Remember hindsight is 20-20.

<comment><USER19> Don't you think the web is maturing and consolidating quickly and there will be fewer and fewer opportunities for a guy with a camera to build a billion dollar business?

<comment><USER20> "There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

The status quo is _always_ broken. Change is unceasing. Assumptions that are true today need not remain so in the future. This can happen to any product, business and their culture. Opportunities are everywhere, but we get normalized to reality pretty soon, the status quo fervently resists change, new things by virtue of being new are hard to do and fail often, and so we conveniently avoid spotting them.

<comment><USER21> This is such a motivational response, not sure if you intended it to be so (to that degree). Either way, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hi Michael, thanks for the AMA. When you evaluate an early stage biotech startup, what would you say is the most important thing that you look for? - clinically validated products, or a solid long term business model?

With Trump picking Scott Gottlieb to be the next FDA commissioner, the FDA approval process is expected to get more lenient. Would you say that YC (or investors in general) would be open to take more risks with high tech startups that do not have a clinically validated product as of now?

One more question - Given that the FDA process takes a lot of time, quite a few biotech companies often get acquired or merged with bigger companies that can afford to do so, without ever having actually gotten their product out on the market. Would you say that you look at the company's potential return in that sense when you evaluate startups? I'm not entirely sure if this question makes sense, so let me know if you want me to clarify!

</comment><comment><USER23> Hi Michael, I'm wondering if you can comment on how you think the current political comment will affect the startup scene?

For example, I remember reading (sorry, no source) that YC is starting to hold events in Canada in order to welcome those who may not be able to come to the U.S. due to the current administration's executive orders. It looks like this may push startups out of the United States.

I'm hoping you can comment on this action, and other actions that might affect the startups in America and around the world, including, but not limited to actions involving education, public funding, military spending.

Thanks!

<comment><USER24> I think this is the source you're looking for: [https://blog.ycombinator.com/us-visas/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/us- visas/)

<comment><USER23> Thanks for the source!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What percentage of YC companies are founded by solo founders? And what observations do you have of such companies viz-a-viz companies with founding teams?

Would you advise someone against being a solo founder? If not, is it much harder for a solo founder to fundraise?

</comment><comment><USER26> I've once heard PG say that if you are an international startup, an important question is who will stay with the company back in your home country in your absence during the YC period. My founder and I would obviously both love to be there and we don't have a good answer for that. Any tips?

</comment><comment><USER27> What do you think of teams that are working part-time (e.g. while in full time education/employment) on an idea with decent traction, but who are waiting for external validation (such as YC or other investment) before going full-time on it? Do you take it as a sign of low commitment?

<comment><USER24> You're basically asking YC to bet on you before you bet on yourself. If you aren't willing to go all in, what does that say?

Startups are really fucking hard. You have to have a serious belief and commitment to build a billion dollar business (which is what YC is investing in.) If you're unsure, that's totally fine, but you need to be the first to believe in your company and get used to being the _only_ ones who believe in your company, in order to make it through the hard times.

<comment><USER28> > If you aren't willing to go all in, what does that say?

That you are smart enough not to weaken your negotiation position if you don't actually have to?

<comment><USER24> Unless you are weakening your negotiating position because you can't raise money?

This isn't a game theory experiment. It's not unreasonable for investors to want you to be full-time invested (if you can) before putting in money. Also, some people may want to run their company until it is profitable enough that the company can pay them a full-time salary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Can you provide some info on how does YC support hardware startups? More specifically, what is a good stage to apply?

We are working on building a demo-quality HW prototype, with the ETA of ~6months. That means we will not be focused on growth, but on tech development. Should we wait until we have a working system and apply to YC when we are ready to scale and grow it (this is our current thought).

<comment><USER30> You want to join YC because you want the money and investors, but your product isn't ready yet so what's the money for? If you only need to pay your own living costs and small development costs for R&D, maybe you should look for an angel investor and a pre-seed round.

Speaking of, there's a void in the VC market for funds that invest in the R&D stage like this.

<comment><USER17> YC has traditionally been seen as provided seed round funding and its investment as being for living expenses and early development costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Hi Michael, is it a good idea to apply to YC to find quality co-founders? or in other words what is the right way for a single founder to apply? thanks.

<comment><USER32> Follow up: What would be the fastest, most efficient way for someone highly technically proficient to learn just enough business operations/basic 101 stuff to be functional?

<comment><USER33> Read a book

<comment><USER34> Perhaps a bit less snark and bit more "here's some books to get you started"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Hey Michael, thanks for this - should be a real eye opener!

Q: What are some of the top weighing attributes you're looking at for companies applying today, and how heavy (1-10 scale) would you say they count towards an acceptance decision. I'm envisioning a "credit score" for application.

<comment><AUTHOR> The top 5 things I look for in an application are (in no particular order): 1) Can the team clearly communicate what they are working on? 2) Does the team have the technical talent to build and grow the v1 of their product? 3) Is the team moving quickly or are they waiting for approval from YC? 4) Did the founders have a personal or professional relationship before deciding to start the company together? 5) Does the team understand something about their space that is controversial or non-obvious?

<comment><USER36> > Does the team have the technical talent to build and grow the v1 of their > product?

This means they can join YC without a v1? But I guess you should have validated your hypothesis in any other way, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can certainly get into YC pre-launch!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I haven't worked on the idea/MVP I applied with last time, instead working on scaling my existing business. Last time I didn't get an interview.

Is there a point in applying again with the same idea? The only thing that would have changed is that my other business, listed as an accomplishment, is now 5 times as successful. (In the 350k range vs 70k.)

I was also thinking of applying with that business, but it's not really a YC kind of company. Would YC fund an e-commerce company with no particularly unique approach, just selling on 3P marketplaces, and ambitions of growing to maybe pharmapacks level (100 million in yearly revenue, around the biggest such company)?

<comment><USER38> We got in on our second try with the same idea :). I think it's a good sign if you stuck with it and got some traction. We had even written this (embarrassing) medium post on how not getting in was a good thing: [https://medium.com/@Open_Listings/what-we-learned-from-yc- su...](https://medium.com/@Open_Listings/what-we-learned-from-yc- summer-2014-a419e7ffb55c#.vk1m50b99)

<comment><USER37> I didn't work on it at all because I was doing better with my other, boring business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't know all the YC startups so this might have an obvious answer, but would YC consider a video game company for a batch, rather than software or tech?

Like a company trying to make something as disruptive as Pokemon Go, which required quick scale and reached a massive audience in a very short time.

<comment><USER40> There have been multiple video game and video game related companies in YC. Examples include Machine Zone(one of the more successful YC companies afaik), OMGPOP, Minomonsters and A Thinking Ape. Game related startups that did YC include Twitch and Humble Bundle, who are now both game publishers, even if they don't directly develop games themselves.

I think if you're doing something interesting in mobile, AR or VR, YC will definitely be interested in your application as long as you can demonstrate the potential for massive growth, probably a game as service product that is free to play. I don't see them funding indie game studios or traditional console game developers that are unlikely to scale.

</comment></comment><comment> d--b Hi again Michael, another quick one for you: how important is charisma to be a succesful founder?

Do you think YC's application process is skewed towards accepting people who are great at talking?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it's important at all. PG has a saying that good founders become more formidable during their time at YC. Also, demo day prep and fundraising is pretty intense at YC so most founders get much better at talking about their startups after going through the program. That might explain the signal you are seeing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's midnight here in india and i just noticed this session. I really want to know if there's any quick tip regarding international founders such as from india. I've been in touch with other Indian YC alums and have been getting feedback and suggestions for my YC application. I really am in doubt about how should i go with the application, i mean what exactly YC partners look for in the application the very first time, considering and international founder?

<comment><USER24> Just go with the basics:

1) Here is a massive opportunity

2) Here is the awesome founding team

3) Here is why we will be the ones to win this huge opportunity

4) Here are some proof-points (e.g. customers, product development, etc.) that back us up

YC goes out of its way (like to Vancouver!) to find the best startups in the world. If you can nail those 4 things, it doesn't matter where you're from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Hi Michael,

As international founders (Egypt), our team is a bit worried about the whole visa situation. I heard the interviews are generally held 2 weeks after the invitation. Do you help with obtaining a visa for the interview and is 2 weeks enough time to go through the whole visa process?

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> We do help founders with visas. We prepare invitation documentation and work closely with an immigration law firm that we give founders direct access to. We also have late interviews for founders who need more time to get a visa and will even do interviews outside of the country or remotely if required (see here: [https://blog.ycombinator.com/us- visas/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/us-visas/)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> What do you think the most over-saturated space is right now? What are the biggest unaddressed opportunities that you have seen?

</comment><comment><USER44> What happened to pg, is he still involved in YC day to day operation or the application process?

<comment><AUTHOR> (edited for tone) PG and Jessica are currently on sabbatical in the UK - <USER2> running YC for 10+ years they are taking a little break spend more time with their kids

<comment><USER45> > after running YC for 10+ years they deserve a little break no?

With all due respect what is so special about running YC that means you deserve a sabbatical?

They are taking a sabbatical not because they deserve it but because they can afford to do so financially and have left their organization in what they feel are very capable hands.

It is actually atypical in most professions in the US (at least outside of teaching or academics) to be able to step away other than for a somewhat short vacation. And business? It moves to fast and the competition is most likely hard at work step away and someone else is there to take your place.

Hats off to them for creating an organization where they can do this but most people who are in either traditional businesses or professions (medicine, law as only two examples) can't do something like this.

Edit: Predictable downvotes. Everyone looks at this through a lens that says the commenter surely is showing disrespect or lack of knowledge for how special YC is.

Edit2: Noting that it has been edited for tone so...

<comment><USER17> With Graham, taking a break (or 'hammock time' as Hickey might phrase it) appears to be a pattern if one can draw a pattern from two data points. After selling Viaweb and working a Yahoo for a bit, Graham wrote and painted and created a new dialect of Lisp for several years before the experiment that led to YCombinator (there may have been consulting and investing in there too, it wouldn't surprise me but since I've never seen anything directly stating there was, it would not surprise me if there wasn't)...and Graham's descriptions of why he did a startup includes not having to get 'a real job' so to speak.

When Graham turned over the public face of YC to Altman, I was like, huh? Since then, I've come to think that 'I'm going to take my money and learn to paint' is one diffs between Altman's and Graham's personalities...though in fairness Graham was well into his thirties when he made his first millions and Altman was just 29 when he became president of YC.

<comment><USER46> It takes 3 points to confirm a pattern. :) Otherwise, it is nice and fortunate to be able to take time off (if you choose) to raise your kids, especially as a family. Especially when they are young and before school starts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Hi Michael,

If a startup has taken a lot of dilution before applying for YC, is YC flexible enough to not dilute the founders but come up with a structure that makes them get 7% through a secondary sale or some other tactic which makes sense for that specific situation?

I have mostly come to the conclusion that the answer is no because YC likes to do stuff in a standard way and there is no room of flexibility w.r.t that aspect of the program terms. Just wanted to confirm that though.

</comment><comment><USER48> Does YC have any evolving thesis as it comes to particular technologies, such as Blockchain or Quantum technologies? For example, are there attempts to achieve internal consensus on the use of Ethereum?

(Full disclosure: I applied with an Ethereum wallet one year ago and got an interview but was told that the path to market wasn't clear enough. The project was ultimately absorbed into a different incubator. )

<comment><AUTHOR> At YC we don't have strongly held opinions on exactly how technology will develop over the next 10 years. We simply want to fund the strongest teams and help them accomplish their goals.

<comment><USER48> Is that equally true of the incubator side and Research?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> i know you've funded a handful of single founders but what is the current outlook on them?

also, how developed must a startup be to apply. should the product already be developed?

<comment><AUTHOR> While we prefer that a team have co-founders we regularly fund single founders. Also, we fund a wide range of companies from those who are just starting to those who are post-launch and have raised seed funding (and everything in between).

<comment><USER50> What do you look for when considering a solo-founder? Given that the bar is higher.

<comment> gingerbread-man I'm also curious about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> From Paul Graham's tweets ([https://twitter.com/paulg/status/322219801525223424](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/322219801525223424)), it appears that YC ranks startups when they are accepted into YC.

Do you really do this for every startup in YC?

If so, are your internal rankings accurate predictors of startup success?

</comment><comment> d--b Hi Michael. You've done YC twice, why?

It sounds like if you do it once, you already get a solid network, and you probably don't need the cash. So I don't really understand what made you go back there.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a great question - I'm actually going to post a blog post about this early next week. Quick summary: 1) It is motivational to work around a bunch of other super hungry startups 2) YC is a great tool and the more experience you have the better you are at using it 3) While I did have a good network I didn't have a ton of relationships with current early stage founders

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Hello Michael.

How would you characterize the effectiveness of the scaling that YC has done over the last few years? Meaning, the increase in partners coupled with broadening of the scope of markets, not to mention YC Research.

Too much too soon, going well as planned, could still do more...

</comment><comment><USER53> Hey Michael, with getting rid of the Fellowship, and moving to the MOOC, does that mean YC will look at some of the early stage companies the Fellowship would have looked at thus expanding their scope, or is that the purpose of the MOOC?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think both - we always want to accept early stage companies to YC. Also I think the MOOC will be a great way for any company to get value out of YC.

<comment><USER54> How will the MOOC tie into your investment decisions now that the fellowship is no longer available?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> How does YC feel about funding on AR, VR and mobile games technology?

<comment><USER56> He wrote about VR two months ago: [https://blog.ycombinator.com/vr/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/vr/)

> Recently I've heard a lot of investors say "There isn't a whole lot of new > stuff to do in consumer. There's already an app for that." With VR, there > isn't already an app for that.

> I think we are no more than two years away from an explosion of new consumer > startups and I cannot wait to start funding them at YC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hello Michael,

Thanks for the AMA

Question: Is there are more stringent criteria for accepting international founders and companies, focused on their local markets?

The reason I am asking this is because most of the companies from India in the latest batch, seem to have a lot of traction and/or significant amount of funding before being accepted into YC. Most looks like good candidates for Series A.

Vs other US based founders and startups in the current and previous batches

<comment><AUTHOR> There isn't a higher bar for international founders or companies working on a non-US market. The number one reason why companies don't apply to YC is cause they don't think they can get in. I think this applies double for international founders and is why we have increased our international outreach. My best guess is that you are seeing more post launch international companies in YC cause they are more confident in applying.

<comment><USER9> Thanks that makes a lot of sense.

<comment><USER57> we (RedCarpetUp) were accepted to YC with extremely minimal levels of early funding.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have India/YC questions.

<comment><USER58> What is the best way to reach you for YC related questions?

<comment><USER57> My email is my profile

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Hey Michael, Thanks for the AMA. How do you approach an application when you have no domain knowledge of the field in which the startup is working in?

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a great question! First I look at how clearly the founders communicate their idea and their insights. When someone has a truly deep understanding of their domain, they are able to explain it to intelligent people from any background.

<comment><USER60> Hi Michael, as a tech person, I'm not articulate enough to sell my ideas (and I have lots of them :)) or explain problems that need to be solved. Does YC sees that articulate founders (speech & presentation/looks) is a pre- requisite? Looking back at recent YC allumni, there have been 'easy' problems solutions (eg, tea bot, uber condom, smart mattress etc). I have a feeling that it was not easy for Mark Z to explain what Facebook all about. I understand that founders need to be able to sell ideas to VC. How can YC help companies with not-so-articulate founders? Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Where do you see the trend of companies being politically active and taking a side in the debates happening in society going in the next 5-10 years?

</comment><comment><USER62> Hi Michael,

Thanks for doing this!

My question is: How can we make a better environment for discovering cures/vaccines? Can we create a almost like a "YC" for research of biological sciences.

Although, I don't know much about this area, I feel there needs to be a better way to allow the most intelligent people have the resources they need to discover cures/vaccines etc, with no external barriers. Thank you.

<comment><USER63> The modern biotech sector as a whole (excluding pure pharmaceutical therapeutics) is a pretty small compared with the tech sector. It's really challenging to build a company in a new ecosystem like that. Getting resources into the system in order to get the flywheel running is tough. Good ideas on jumpstarting what will inevitably a valuable technology would be great to hear. But like all research, it's an investment - obvious returns might not come in the short-term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Do you think the startup ecosystem is too focused on the Bay Area? Is YCombinator funding startups that don't have a Bay Area presence?

<comment><AUTHOR> Over 35% of the current batch is international (moved from outside of the US to participate in YC). Almost all of my startup friends from when I did YC came from outside of the Bay Area. One of the great things about YC (and why I'm a partner here) is that we run an open application process with no pre- requisites. You don't have to know anyone, come from some particular background, go to some specific school, or be from the Bay Area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Out of all the companies that YC has funded, which one do you consider to be the best? How about the second best?

By best I mean one which has had the most positive impact on people's life, where positive impact is some function of just two variables - the number of people affected and the intensity of that affect.

Also of these two variables which one do you weigh more and why?

</comment><comment><USER32> Thank you for taking the time today. It's neat and rare to have a somewhat direct line to someone in your position.

What's the "big thing" 10 years from now? Ie Are smartphones still the rage and hottest "endpoint"? Did security wind up being the highest demand/pay IT career path? Etc

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly, this is not how I think about YC. We don't spend a lot of time thinking about what is going to be "the rage". We are excited about funding great founders and some subset of what early stage founders are interested in today will become the rage 10 years from now.

<comment><USER32> I was looking more for your prognostication - somewhat like Gates did in "The Road Ahead." I figure you're in a somewhat unique position to speak to what's upcoming on the horizon and likely to be disruptive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> How does YC feel about funding seed stage projects that have to test market before actual growth? I'm currently CTO of a new distributed entertainment platform, and the investors we're talking to all want us to grow now. Conservatively, we feel if we seek growth now we'll be in some minima of quality that is too similar to competing products and not actually different enough to be sustainably disruptive. We ideally want a year of experiments before we commit to attempting explosive growth. Thoughts?

PS. We are raktor.org, working on telepresence participatory theatre, which we believe is the future of entertainment. Currently in VR, though whether it's VR or not is not relevant to our long term goals of being an Uber-for-theatre- performers.

</comment><comment><USER67> BTW this Chrome Extension makes it track users in HN comments: [https://github.com/brhs/hnuserlist](https://github.com/brhs/hnuserlist) (e.g. read all of mwseibel's comments)

</comment><comment><USER68> Does YC typically invest on startups that may possibly have overlapping market segments?

For example Boom Aero focused on supersonic and another startup applies to YC with subsonic aircraft.

From what I read typically VC firms usually don't fund two companies as such example.

<comment> gingerbread-man [https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/#q8](https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/#q8)

Q: Will you fund multiple startups working on the same idea?

A: Yes. If you fund as many companies as we do it's unavoidable you'll end up with some overlap. Even if you tried not to accept competing companies, you'd still get overlap because startups' ideas morph so much. The way we deal with it is that when two startups are working on related stuff, we don't talk to one about what the other's doing.

In practice it has not turned out to be a problem, because most big markets have room for several slightly different solutions, and it's unlikely that two startups would do precisely the same thing.

<comment><USER68> Thanks,

I read that a long time ago and forgotten that was there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Is there a chance for non technical founder if we dont have a prototype and no programmers in the team? We only have an idea and a lot of passion of it...is it still worth applying?

</comment><comment><USER70> What are the current in-between steps for YC? What normally happens after application submitted but before acceptance e.g. in person interviews, video interviews? What other steps are involved and what's the reason for them?

</comment><comment><USER71> Hi, Michael. Thanks for taking the time to do an AMA.

Where do you fall on the spectrum of looking for high probability wins vs black swan hunting? To put it another way, how high of a failure percentage would you accept so long as it maximized total cohort value?

E.g. would you accept see it as a loss if you funded the best single startup of the decade and all other YC funded companies failed? How about a 90% failture rate, but huge winners bringing a bigger return than YC has historically had? How do you balance the desire for a good hit rate vs a good total return?

</comment><comment><USER72> Personality type question. For a two founder (technical & business) startup it would be important for at least one of them to be conscientious and the other to be creative. For example you might have a genius but unruly technology lead, tempered by a focused product and business partner, or you might have a visionary and rule breaking CEO tempered by a hard working diligent technical workhorse. Both appear to be a successful combinations.

Which pairings of personality type and role works better in your experience for YC applications?

</comment><comment><USER73> How important is the video?

<comment><USER50> Very important. It's mentioned on their site

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Considering the current evolution of automation and the global forecast of high unemployment rates, that will be a problem for the whole economy (with Bill Gates suggesting a tax on robots), what are your thoughts about education? We currently educate kids based on a system that assumes the current jobs are going to be there in 15-20 years and for the rest of their lifes. Can startups and technology help in improving education considering the future world considering the current pace of automation in most fields?

</comment><comment><USER75> What are some of the more well known YC companies of the previous 3 years? Some posterchilds like Dropbox and AirBnB were a few more years ago. (from traditional IT category, not FinTech, etc)

<comment><AUTHOR> In no particular order here is a small subset of YC companies from 2-3 years ago that I bet will become household names in the next 2-3 years: Theorem, Algolia, Bellabeat, Flexport, Cruise (I guess a lot of people know about these guys already), Gobble, Front, Ginko Bioworks, Rigetti, Checkr, RazorPay, WayUp, Gitlab, Lob, Remix, TripleByte, Lugg, Jopwell, Gigster, and GiveCampus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Based on the S17 batch, what %age were People of color, women and LGBT?

<comment><AUTHOR> 13% of startups in this batch have either a black or latinx founder and 22% have a female founder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> In what ways have your criteria for selecting great startups changed or evolved over the past 5 years? (either your criteria personally or YC's general criteria)

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think the criteria has changed much. I think personally I've had to learn not to get caught up by pet ideas. It is easy to ignore obvious red flags when you read an application where you would love to be a user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Hi Michael,

How will computer science ever be taught to the general K-12 population if software engineers make $102k and teachers make $45k in the US on average? This gap seems to only be increasing too.

How should we think about developing solutions to solve the problem of affordable CS education for everyone?

Even with the best textbooks, curriculums, etc., it is probably not enough for the average teacher (definitely without a CS background) to teach CS effectively.

</comment><comment><USER78> What should I do to become the next CEO of Y Combinator?

<comment><USER79> 1\. Be bros with the current one

2\. Make sure there is enough online sniping so the current one thinks it isn't worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Will YC start branches outside of Mountain View sometime? I know the Boston branch existed at the beginning and eventually was consolidated into MV. In particular, I'd love to see YC go out and tap the untapped talent markets in Middle America. This seems unlikely considering that even Boston was considered too detached. Remote classes are also an interesting prospect IMO.

</comment><comment><USER81> The most recent answer I could find re YC funding multiple competing companies is Harj's from 2010. What's YC's stance now?

</comment><comment><USER82> hi Michael, thanks!

considering the 1% rule, do you think our culture of media consumption is in our nature or something we've created? is it a trend? do you think there will be more room in the future for companies that serve amateur producers? can we create more producers?

sorry for so many question marks. it's a single question- poorly formed. :)

</comment><comment><USER83> How much do you value the idea v.s. the person(s)? I.e., do you evaluate more on the idea or the people behind the idea?

</comment><comment><USER84> Hi, any advice for solo founders, if the startup isn't launched yet, but expected to launch in 1 month? Thanks.

<comment><USER85> As a solo founder: my main advice is just do everything you can to create value and hustle. I don't want to paint a rosy picture --- being a solo founder is a hell of a lot of really, really hard work. It's not enough to just be good at writing software. My top recommendation is to find a cofounder you have worked with before that you really trust, and barring that, make sure you have a solid support network of friends and (hopefully) a supportive partner. The emotional rollercoaster is real and it can f_cking hurt.

The number one skill you can have as a solo founder is a tremendous amount of self-awareness and self-reflective ability. You're not going to have a business partner telling you when you're f_cking up, and you can't rely on really early stage investors too much for this, either (even after they've invested) because as empathetic human beings it's often better to give somebody the chance to figure it out on their own than risk alienating them. So be the person that figures it out on their own.

Aside from that, listen to the advice people give you, and take it seriously, but judge them by their motivations and actions, not necessarily the content of the advice at face value. A question from a prospective investor like, "how do you compete with [X]" isn't necessarily looking for an answer - if their _action_ is they don't invest, it's probably more of a signal that the story you're telling them is raising red flags about [X] and you're not going to convince them today and move on. Figure out how to take [X] out of the equation in your story. (But it's good to know, for the sake of the business, how you plan on dealing with [X]. Storytelling-by-pitch is only a high level overview of a robust business strategy.) Similarly, keep in mind many active founders have motivations around self-interest of talent / IP acquisition first and foremost --- there are many, many helpful ones but at the end of the day they all have a business to grow just like you do.

Finally, with all of that in mind, trust your gut. If you believe in what you're building, and you're creating value for your customers, that's all that matters. Find believers. They're out there. Love others and accept love that others are willing to give. _Listen to your believers when they speak._ (Early investors, employees, etc.) They've already made _actions_ you can trust (re: above), so their words are an order of magnitude more valuable.

Re: YC specifically, I can't be helpful there, but thought I'd jump in. I hope Michael has valuable advice about timelines and such.

<comment><USER84> Thanks for the advice.

<comment><USER85> No problem. For what it's worth, I'm still pretty close to the beginning of my journey and wouldn't be here without a fantastic group of amazing, supportive friends, family, colleagues and investors.

I wish I had received more advice like this earlier on, and hope that's helpful for you. You'll probably hear, "find a cofounder" a heck of a lot but it's not _necessary_. It is _extremely helpful_ , so always have your head on a swivel looking for the right people, just try to understand what you're getting into from the start. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Hi michael

What are the top three things that you'd look for in a healthcare startup from India applying for YC summer batch 2017?

</comment><comment><USER87> Hey Michael, thanks for doing this. Can you comment on the responsibility of companies like Y Combinator (or more generally, Google, Apple, etc) to be involved in causes for social change? How does a company like yours draw the line on profitability vs activism, and how do you choose which causes to stand behind?

</comment><comment><USER88> We applied for Y Combinator Winter 2017. We were not selected for the in- person interview. The company has faced lots of restructuring after that. Some founders left and new people came. Product changed but the vision is still the same. Do you think it will have the negative effect on our application ?

</comment><comment><USER89> Hi - Thank you for doing an AMA.

One factor when evaluating startups is how long it will take to get everything ready. Some can launch in a month, but some depend on breakthroughs or environment shifts that will take a decade to happen.

Is there a Goldilocks zone that lends itself to better outcomes? How far into the future is too far?

</comment><comment><USER90> Last year it was reported that YC was considering a China program. Given that the competition here is so poor, and Chinese domestic capital currently so readily available, it seems well timed. Can you confirm if or when we can expect this to come to fruition?

</comment><comment><USER91> How does the $120k get allocated to the startup? Can cofounders take a tiny piece as a monthly income?

<comment><USER92> Founders spend the money in any way they choose. Its stated on the site.

<comment><USER91> Is it allocated on day one? Full amount? Or gradually throughout the 3 month batch?

<comment><USER24> All at once. Timing of the payment is based on how long it takes to fill out the paperwork, which is highly variable based on company structure, maturity, organization, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Hi Michael, what are the biggest companies you've missed out on? Do you keep an anti-portfolio like BVP? [https://www.bvp.com/portfolio/anti- portfolio](https://www.bvp.com/portfolio/anti-portfolio)

<comment><USER9> I think SendGrind, Buffer, Couchbase and Ionic Framework are a few notable ones that were previously discussed. BTW: great to see you here. I used Feedly(get stream) a while back in a project of mine and it worked liked a charm.

<comment><USER93> Small world :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> If founders have a product already deployed but have many future plans for it, do you recommend they focus on explaining what the product is currently, or what the plans are for the future state of the product? (for the question "What are you going to make?")

</comment><comment><USER95> How long is too long for nonprofit explanations of what they do? I tried a hyper-dense at 171 words but few found it understandable. I wrote a more comprehensible version but it's currently 325 words.

</comment><comment> d--b Hi Michael, how do you guys do your financial analyses / reporting? Any pain there?

Just asking cause you may be interested in my product, (or in accepting me in your summer session haha).

Seriously though, startup accelerators never talk about their internal tools, any insight?

</comment><comment><USER70> YC sends out emails to previous applicants who were in some percentile but weren't accepted to encourage them to apply again.

Are their chances any better? What could've happened since the last application that would make their current application worse?

</comment><comment><USER96> How are companies in the program paired up with mentors? Do mentors specialize in specific business spaces? Do companies work with different mentors for different parts of the program, eg marketing/technical advice/fundraising?

</comment><comment><USER97> I know a lot of VC funds really don't favor Services and Solutions companies really well - and of course prefer SaaS due to obvious reasons. What does YC think about Services related companies? Would it be a waste of time to apply?

</comment><comment><USER98> Hi Michael, Is YC actively looking for partners with hardware startup experience? Correct me if I am wrong currently YC doesn't have any.

The only one I recall is Luke Iseman (great guy) that left this year (currently a YC alumni).

thanks for taking the time to reply.

<comment><AUTHOR> Luke is actually in the current YC batch. There will be a YC alum working with hardware companies in the next batch - announcement coming in the next month or so.

<comment><USER99> $100 says it is Eric Migicovsky

<comment><USER98> I will second that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> For AI companies, they might have to do things manually in the beginning to collect data and train their algorithms. Many people criticize them as wannabe AI companies. What are your thoughts on such early stage companies applying to YC?

</comment><comment><USER100> I don't have a co-founder at this moment. But I am working on an MVP that make sense more in India than here in the USA. I am from India but live in Bay area. Can you suggest what is the best way to build this product into reality?

<comment><USER9> Fellow Indian Founder here. PG once said (I think to AirBnB) go where your users are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> What things will we take for granted in 10 or 20 years that we don't have now?

<comment><USER32> I'm hoping it's eink displays in everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> Hi Michael,

Has YC ever considered moving from the Bay Area due to the high cost of living there?

What advantages does YC see in being in the Bay Area that prevents them from moving elsewhere, or setting up a satellite office in, perhaps, Vancouver?

</comment><comment><USER103> How long can a company that sells to the public (the term is escaping me) avoid the draw of B2B? Should they?

Is there any unintuitive advice would you give to companies that might want to start selling to companies?

</comment><comment><USER104> How important is founder/product fit for successfully applying for YC? If a founder is doing something totally outside of his domain expertise/experience, how can he still pursue it?

</comment><comment><USER105> The tone of your comments makes it sound like you are really focusing on international investment. Did the recent elections lead to you making that your focus, or was it a focus beforehand?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't mean to set that tone - I think international founders disproportionately believe that YC is only focused on the US so that is why we talk about it a bit more. YC has always accepted large numbers of international founders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> Will top teams from Startup School MOOC be accepted into Summer 2017 funding cycle? Or they will have a completely independent path and own demo day not related to the main program?

<comment><USER107> The programs are independent. We hope that some top MOOC teams will apply to YC and join the summer batch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> What are key things international (UK) applicants should be aware of?

</comment><comment><USER109> Hi Michael!

What advice do you have for _technical_ solo founders who have also been doing user acquisition at a reasonable high conversion rate, applying to YC S2017? (besides go find a co-founder)

</comment><comment><USER110> Cheers Mr. Seibel,

(I'll assume you're rich and were smart enough to take a vacation somewhere along the line.)

Where is the coolest place you've ever visited ? (and what about it did you enjoy ?)

</comment><comment><USER58> For early stage companies who don't have real metrics on their user acquisition channel, what is expected as an answer to the "How do you get users.." question?

</comment><comment><USER111> Being at the edge of your field seems important if you want to succeed at a startup. How much time spent developing skills should someone spend before starting a startup?

</comment><comment><USER112> What's an upcoming changes to YC you're excited for?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm really excited for the Startup School MOOC we are launching soon and excited about all the new software we are building to help the new YC batch and all the alumni. Most people don't realize how much of a software company YC is. We run our own internal mini-facebook, internal quora, and a host of other sofware to track companies and read applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER113> Has YC thought about doing a campus per batch and would it allow a startup to do this for YC as launching point for further growth both inside and outside of YC?

</comment><comment><USER50> What do you look for when considering a solo-founder ?

</comment><comment><USER114> What do you think is the best way for a non-profit to get funding 1) to prove market fit, and 2) ongoing funding to sustain the organization?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the best way for a non-profit to succeed in general is to have a business model that doesn't require it to raise money from donors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> What funding options, other than VC money, shall early-stage companies explore more? E.g. r&d tax credit are great in UK.

</comment><comment><USER115> Should an application explain the founders' vision of how the startup is expected to scale or should it focus on the now?

<comment><AUTHOR> both!

</comment></comment><comment><USER116> Hi Michael,

What advice do you have for some who is happy with their current trajectory, but might want to start their own business in say 10 years?

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER117> For global SaaS companies applying from out of US, is sitting outside of the core market, Bay Area etc, a red flag?

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely not!

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> Why do you think Silicon Valley is so prone to armchair political science? How can we fix this approach?

</comment><comment><USER119> If I have a great product that people love but without a clear business model. Do I stand a chance at YC?

<comment><AUTHOR> Short answer: yes. Longer answer: what business model do other products in your space use and why isn't that a good business model for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> what is your definition of a superstar salesperson for an early-stage post product market fit startup? what differentiates the top 10% of salespeople from the rest?

what resources do you recommend to learn sales if you're young and inexperienced and want to begin your startup sales career?

</comment><comment><USER121> Do you think that YC, startups, and VCs should seek viable models to support wildlife and animals?

</comment><comment><USER122> At what point exactly does YC transfer funds? Upon acceptance or at the start of the program?

</comment><comment><USER123> Why are YC companies having more difficulty raising Series A than they were a few years ago?

</comment><comment><USER124> Hi Michael, has YC considered funding founders not based in (or able to move to) California?

<comment> gingerbread-man I'm not Michael, but I think I can answer that. Moving to CA for the 3-months of YCombinator has traditionally been non-negotiable. After the 3 months is up, you can move wherever you like, and many do.

The only exception to this I'm aware of is that, in light of recent US immigration policy, YC is optionally holding interviews for S17 international founders in Vancouver, and is reportedly planning to "experiment with allowing founders who can't get visas for the duration of our 3-month program to participate remotely." [https://blog.ycombinator.com/us- visas/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/us-visas/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER125> How does YC look at companies solving sizable problems but not necessarily tech focussed ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you be more specific?

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> Where do you see e-sports in 5-10 years and what role do platforms like Twitch play?

</comment><comment><USER127> Here's a short question: how do I decide between grad school and startup land?

</comment><comment><USER128> What kind of furniture are you using? Standing desk, special ergonomic chair?

<comment> gingerbread-man "For most startups the model should be grad student, not law firm. Aim for cool and cheap, not expensive and impressive. For us the test of whether a startup understood this was whether they had Aeron chairs. The Aeron came out during the Bubble and was very popular with startups. Especially the type, all too common then, that was like a bunch of kids playing house with money supplied by VCs. We had office chairs so cheap that the arms all fell off. This was slightly embarrassing at the time, but in retrospect the grad- studenty atmosphere of our office was another of those things we did right without knowing it." [http://paulgraham.com/start.html](http://paulgraham.com/start.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> With the continued concentration of many tech positions to a handful of tech hubs in the country, are you doing anything to improve the economic conditions of the Midwest US? Or are you primarily investing in the coastal areas alone?

edit: I find your lack of response to this question telling.

</comment><comment><USER129> What skills / traits are you looking for in nontechnical founders?

<comment><USER130> Propensity to/rate at which they are becoming technical?

</comment></comment><comment><USER131> currently thriving in the UK urban scene with our platform and we want to introduce products that help artists generate revenue. What advice would you have for niche in accomplishing this?

</comment><comment><USER132> Should companies apply if they haven't coded their product yet?

<comment><USER133> If you have a track record, they would be interested, like any investor.

If you don't have a track record, no revenue, no users, no product, most likely not, just like any investor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Is applying to YC for the third time a bad indicator/sign?

<comment><USER9> Not official YC advice. But I believe I read somewhere Avg. YC company gets rejected twice before being accepted. What matters is are you making progress in the direction of your vision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> How important it is generating revenue before applying to YC ?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not particularly important in and of itself. I would say though that if you have a product that people should buy (instead of using for free) the earlier you start charging the faster you will learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER134> Is it possible to participate in YC without selling equity?

</comment><comment><USER135> Hi Michael. Do YC invests in Indian Startups ?

</comment><comment><USER136> What do you think about conversational interfaces?

</comment><comment><USER137> Why do you keep banning DHH from the hacker news?

<comment><USER80> Is DHH really banned?

<comment><USER137> No really banned, but any of his articles will magically be removed from the front page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER138> Are there any types of companies or areas of interest that you are focusing on in this batch? And if so, would you please elaborate on it.

</comment><comment><USER139> are you guys considering decentralized web apps as well? e.g.) ipfs/ethereum based web apps

<comment><AUTHOR> We consider every single application. There is no point in guessing what areas we are interested in. Assume we are interested in every industry and every type of product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> you stole my name! bastard! ...also I have the same question

edit: sort of forgot to abide by community norms here and keep my comments on- topic. apologies

<comment><USER140> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13896017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13896017) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER4> thanks.

<comment><USER141> If your comment was the worst sort of thing we had to deal with here I'd get a lot more code written.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER142> Is there any appetite at YC for a non-profit that is _pro-_ Trump and plans on working with the new POTUS to further his agenda?

<comment><USER80> This is a great question. It seems like it'd be difficult for YC to be neutral on such topics, considering they are actively pursuing pilot projects on things that very left-wing, like a basic income.

From the perspective of a non-profit, it's probably less likely because the argument is probably less "invest and see what thrives [so we can make money off anything that makes money]" and more "help craft the world in our image". While YC is, in general, pretty good about staying above the partisan fray (even if they do clearly prefer left-wing policies), I think they'd have a harder time supporting a non-profit whose beliefs and/or values they didn't feel properly aligned with their own. I'm not sure what the value proposition in that would be for them.

Personally I'd be worried that YC would even accept a pro-Trump _founder_. It was nice that they didn't shun Thiel despite public pressure, but they did feel the need to write a blog post justifying his presence and disavowing his political beliefs. One has to wonder how far they'd be willing to go for a lowly founder whose tweets, Facebook posts, or HN comments didn't mesh with the party line.

<comment><USER143> Wasn't this basically answered by the Pinboard fiasco a while back? ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633517](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633517)) It wasn't really over left-wing/right-wing political differences but there was a clash.

<comment><USER80> Thanks for the link. I do vaguely remember seeing a controversy around that, but not really having the time to get into the threads. No one really knows what happened on the call between "kevin" (who I guess is important) and idlewords, but it does seems like they were quick to dismiss him.

I could probably understand if they tried it for a month or so and it fell apart; it is true that some people have personality clashes that are not really worth the investment to overcome vs. having each party just move on independently, but he seems to expect a "connection" to materialize in a couple of minutes.

That speaks to the bubble that these VC types end up believing to be reality, and unfortunately it means that a lot of people who aren't necessarily convinced that there's any reason they _should_ be pitching a VC are written off as low-energy merely because they're being compared to all the sycophants who will say anything to get a check.

The next question is whether someone being conservative, a Trump supporter, and/or both is enough to make the YC partners feel like they can't establish a "connection". One would hope that Thiel is proof to them that it _is_ possible. The question is whether they'd give the benefit of the doubt to someone who doesn't already have billions of dollars.

<comment><USER142> > The next question is whether someone being conservative, a Trump supporter, > and/or both is enough to make the YC partners feel like they can't establish > a "connection". One would hope that Thiel is proof to them that it is > possible. The question is whether they'd give the benefit of the doubt to > someone who doesn't already have billions of dollars.

I'm convinced they wouldn't. The various opinion pieces posted by sama made it pretty clear that they've got a particular agenda and the choices for YC applicants going forward are either 1) hop on the wagon, or 2) keep your beliefs to yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER144> Hi Michael, I am a UC berkeley student and along with a few friends we have made a daily newsletter service (www.wokenews.co).

As a bipartisan political newsletter whose primary user base right now are college students in Berkeley, would you have any recommendation on how to expand beyond this bubble of student subscribers? Maybe on how to reach out to influencers who may be willing to help?

</comment><comment><USER145> Sam Altman wrote about the current make up of YC founders based on their gender and ethnicity. If I recruit two co-founders of color and one woman primarily for the purpose of getting into YC is that shunned upon?

<comment><AUTHOR> I would recruit founders you have had either a personal or professional relationship with and who you think you would want to work with for 10 years.</comment></comment>


Cloudflare Workers Recipe Exchange - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-workers-recipe-exchange/ <comment><USER2> Cloudflare Workers are a very good piece of tech. We have been using this in production for some time. Some gripes we have with this though:

\- There is a limit of about 1k requests per minute per IP - this limit is possible to change only on Enterprise plan. - this hurt us because we use Workers as protection layer for our API, and some our API users use more than 1k requests per minute, they get blocked by Cloudflare.

\- Workers Routes are case-sensitive - yes I know URLs on Linux are case sensitive but on Windows they are not, with this its very difficult/impossible to use Routes for websites hosted on Windows platform (Azure/IIS)

<comment><USER3> Workers tech lead here.

On the first point: As others have noted, we're happy to lift the rate limit for any customer (not just enterprise). If a support person told you otherwise, I apologize! Please e-mail us and let us know who said that so we can make sure they have the correct info.

On the second point: You could always map your worker to "*", and then write JavaScript code that uses a case-insensitive regex to do the real URL matching. We've been trying to keep the configuration around Workers as light as possible since most things can be implemented in code in the worker itself.

<comment><USER2> the limit has been lifted! Thanks Cloudflare.

yes you got point about case sensitivity. in our case it would not work though because we wanted to use Routes to save on API calls to worker due to limits. Now with no limits we don't need this workaround using Routes.

<comment><USER3> Sorry you had to go through all that trouble. We need to improve the process of lifting the rate limits so that people don't think they're stuck with it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The title is misleading if one doesn't know that Cloudflare Workers are a thing. I honestly thought that it was about Cloudflare employees sharing food recipes with each other.

<comment><USER5> For a moment I also thought it was a bunch of food recipes like [https://github.com/owen2/NerdyCrockpot](https://github.com/owen2/NerdyCrockpot)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We have a Recipe for [https://teampa.ge](https://teampa.ge) which removes the need for our customers to embed our javascript snippet! It feels so much more better then having to ask people to change their website code. See: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pVFZN8ZQiiQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pVFZN8ZQiiQ)

</comment><comment><USER7> While I really like the idea of creating more complex policies at the edge, please remember that Cloudflare Workers are a vendor lock-in. If you proxy your servers with Cloudflare and use their API for more than simple request handling, you rely on their good will to stay online and keep the functionality you outsourced to their Worker API.

<comment><USER3> (I'm the tech lead / architect of Cloudflare Workers.)

CF Workers is based on the Service Workers API, which is a W3C standard that has existed in browsers for some time. The only real vendor-specific additions we've made are flags to turn on/off other Cloudflare features; most people don't actually use those flags. So, even today, a worker you write for Cloudflare can potentially be moved to run in the browser with minimal code changes. (Of course, not all scripts are safe to run in the browser, e.g. access control checks.)

Unfortunately, many competing edge compute and "serverless" products have chosen to invent their own, proprietary APIs, rather than use a standard. My sincere hope is that this will change, and in the future, we'll see a convergence on Service Workers. It fits this use case very well, and it's already a standard.

More generally, I think the future is in code that can seamlessly move around, between your servers, client browsers, "the edge", even other people's servers, running wherever it's most useful, perhaps without the developer even needing to think about it. There's far less value in a closed platform with immobile code. And in any case, we aim to win by building a better (larger, faster, less-expensive) network, not by trapping people.

<comment><USER7> Thank you for the reply!

> _CF Workers is based on the Service Workers API, which is a W3C standard > that has existed in browsers for some time._

> _Unfortunately, many competing edge compute and "serverless" products have > chosen to invent their own, proprietary APIs, rather than use a standard. My > sincere hope is that this will change, and in the future, we'll see a > convergence on Service Workers. It fits this use case very well, and it's > already a standard._

That's really nice to hear. After the fallout the Github acquisition produced the last days one cannot stress enough how important standardized APIs are for migration operations. I know that vendor lock-ins are profitable business models, but I feel like the damage it does to flexible architectures and data- owning produces more costs in the long run.

> _While Cloudflare does use V8, we do not use Node.js_

Was this ever an option? Did you consider using other languages besides JavaScript? Like Python or Elixir?

> _And in any case, we aim to win by building a better (larger, faster, less- > expensive) network, not by trapping people._

Even though I agree with you (as written above) I wonder how Cloudflare aims to do this. To me, it seems like Cloudflare does have way too much websites behind their services. Given that Cloudflare has a history with policing [DS] customers, trust is also an essential feature I'd give top priority. I would therefore argue that decentralization should also be a feature for resilient networks, though it's difficult to implement in your case.

Btw, does Cloudflare have any serious competitors besides CDN providers?

Thanks again for your reply, very interested in your expertise!

[DS] [https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily- stormer/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/)

<comment><USER3> > Was this ever an option? Did you consider using other languages besides > JavaScript? Like Python or Elixir?

I answered a lot of these sorts of questions in the original announcement blog post:

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-cloudflare- workers/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-cloudflare-workers/)

The short version is, edge compute calls for an architecture that scales to extremely large numbers of tenants per machine, since every customer wants their code to run in every location. Giving each tenant a whole process does not scale. But we also need secure isolation. So using a JavaScript engine -- built for multi-tenant-per-process secure sandboxing, fast start time, and low overhead -- is pretty much the only reasonable option.

> Cloudflare has a history with policing [DS] customers,

(Disclaimer: My opinions, I don't speak for my employer.)

With respect, I think the history shows the opposite of what you say. Cloudflare has a history of steadfastly refusing to police content, even in the face of intense public pressure to do so, including major press articles essentially calling us Nazi sympathizers. The incident you reference is the only time Cloudflare has ever terminated a customer for objectionable content, and it came with a lengthy explanation from the CEO explaining why he thinks this is dangerous and does not want to do it again. Other cloud infrastructure companies terminate customers like this all the time and don't say anything public about it, so it generates no press.

If you don't believe tech company CEOs should be making decisions about what people can and can't say on the internet, then Cloudflare is your ally, not your enemy.

> I would therefore argue that decentralization should also be a feature for > resilient networks, though it's difficult to implement in your case.

There's network decentralization and there's business decentralization. Cloudflare's whole product is network decentralization, on a technical level. But I think what you're arguing for here is business decentralization -- avoiding giving too much power to any one business entity. On that note, keep in mind that Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook are each around 100x the size of Cloudflare on most business metrics.

> Btw, does Cloudflare have any serious competitors besides CDN providers?

Not sure I understand this question. CDN is a core part of our product, and of course all our competitors are also CDN providers. Why exclude them?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla car EXPLODES after autopilot failure saw driver slam into truck in Russia - <AUTHOR> https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9700731/tesla-car-explodes-autopilot-failure-driver-truck-russia/ <comment><USER2> You know a company makes safe cars when these kind of accidents become newsworthy.</comment>


Effort to Expose Russia's 'Troll Army' Draws Vicious Retaliation - brown9-2 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/world/europe/russia-finland-nato-trolls.html <comment><AUTHOR> In an effort to be entirely objective:

disagreeing with a person is not trolling, and Russians do not agree with NATO- which makes sense given that NATO was orchestrated specifically against Russia.

I can't help but pity them, it's like having a pit-bull in the corner that nobody loves because it defended them before in a savage way, so they keep putting up gates and fences and pushing it into solitude. I agree that Crimea was not exactly an ideal scenario but I can see both sides of that too. And neither side is as black as they're painted.

Realistically, with the exclusion of Crimea, Russia has done nothing that any other large country hasn't done with regards to borders, the difference is that when a British fighter jet comes close to France's border nobody cares because we're allied. But we crucify them for it.

As a wise man once said. We make peace with our enemies, not our friends.

(The reason I'm talking about this is because of the recent advances of NATO in putting US military installations in Poland to "combat ISIL", and Russians complaining about it has been tagged as trolling somehow.)

<comment><USER2> Crimea. Georgia. Transnistria. It's become a pattern for Russia to use military force instead of diplomacy to resolve disputes.

The notion that "Russia has done nothing that any other large country hasn't done" is entirely wrong.

<comment><USER3> I'm not an expert on the history of Russian foreign policy, but there are a lot of credible voices outside of the MSM that tell a different story than the U.S. administration does. For example:

1\. [http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world-war-has-begun- break-t...](http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world-war-has-begun-break-the- silence-)

2\. [http://www.alternet.org/world/exclusive-interview-seymour- he...](http://www.alternet.org/world/exclusive-interview-seymour-hersh-dishes- saudi-oil-money-bribes-and-killing-osama-bin-laden)

Those focus largely on other topics, but both touch on how the attitude towards Russia (and others) has been manipulated by U.S. media.

Given the U.S. administrations' track records for deceit in manipulating foreign affairs, I'm not inclined to dismiss the alternative narratives easily. Western governments do their fair share of astroturfing and media manipulation as well (can give many sources on that, if necessary).

<comment><USER4> So Obama is a blood-thirsty imperialist who plans to conquer Russia and turn them into American colonies? Wow, you could have fooled me.

If he is pursuing such wildly aggressive foreign policy, then how come all the hawks in this country continually condemn him for being a wimpy surrender- monkey?

<comment><USER3> The GOP criticizes Obama like he's the anti-christ for literally everything. They've opposed their own bills _that they sponsored_ just because Obama later made public remarks about them being good bills.

If you're referring to stuff like the "red line" fiasco in Syria, Hersh explains that too. See: [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose- sarin](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin)

<comment><USER4> So you do think that Obama is a blood-thirsty imperialist who spent his whole eight years as president planning to invade and conquer Russia? Including explaining to the American public why that would be a good idea?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So both China, Russia and Israel have state sponsors social media presences that are intended to uphold the state's perspective? I think the US does similar things in Middle Eastern countries as well, although not aimed at domestic audiences.

It this the direction we are headed for the rest of the world?

</comment><comment><USER6> The biggest elephant in the room is: Why pay _people_ to do this?

FB, Apple, Amazon, Google, etc could easily make astro-turf 'bots to do this job for them, by a billion+ more, and with very good 'masking' that the 'bots are useful idiots. Surely, these highly funded agencies could do at least a tenth as well in terms of masking and the number of bots.

The real question is then, why pay people to do this for them? It is too fishy for me to pay many people all that money and not to just take it themselves with a shell company or some such thing.

There are things that are unseen or poorly understood in the West. Is this just some glorified jobs program to pay people to scream at their screens and not riot? Are they really all 'bots that are that good now and we are too dumb to realize it?

Perhaps Occam's Razor is the right though, the simplest explanation is the best: Trolls be trollin'.

<comment><USER7> > Why pay people to do this?

At the moment bots cannot gain neither trust of the people nor reputation and without that they cannot be effective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> hey Wow so I stumbled into a Natoist troll army barracks here right I guess. No mention anywhere of the right of the population of Crimea to self determination. They held a vote right ?

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Russia's "Troll Army" probably doesn't speak Finnish.

We're talking about "Troll Special Task Force" at maximum.

<comment><USER9> They obviously have sections for various foreign languages, including (but not limited to) Finnish.

Native Finnish-speakers have mostly been eliminated in Russia, except for some old people who are not up to working in the troll army.

But some people there still do study Finnish, and moreover, the troll army can direct volunteer trolls - e.g. people who were Communist sympathizers and hate USA and NATO.

Their dream is gone but their hate is still there. You'll find the "representative of Donetsk Republic" Johan Bäckman running in the elections for the "Finnish Workers Party", a fringe leftist party that got about 0.03 % of the popular vote. That doesn't stop him from representing "the Finnish view" in Russian media.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some part of me wonders if these Russian astroturfers might be behind the recent /pol/ Trump obsession, given that Trump and Putin are on friendly terms with each other.

Edit: before Hillary shills jump on this, her astroturfing campaign on reddit is just as deplorable.

<comment><USER11> I strongly also suspect that this might be the case- there are a couple of other motives too: (1) They see Trump as destabilizing or disruptive to the US and its international allies, and (2) they see Trump as ideologically aligned with Putin's own highly nationalistic and oligarchial platform and worldview (Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort has direct close ties to Putin's oligarchy)

<comment><USER12> But it's not as though for example, people in Hillary's team don't have connections to the nomenklatura. So I don't think those connections are especially illustrative of anything extraordinary.

<comment><USER4> Huh? You present that as something everyone knows, but I have never even heard anyone make the accusation.

I may be wrong, but I am guessing you are following a standard Russian troll tactic. This is when someone makes an accusation, accuse the West or someone in it of the same thing. For instance, when someone says the Russian government is immensely corrupt, say there is corruption in the West, too. The goal is not to make people think well of Russia, that is simply not possible, but to make everyone so cynical and discouraged they won't fight back.

<comment><USER13> > I may be wrong, but I am guessing you are following a standard Russian troll > tactic...

There are ways to word this paragraph that both don't accuse the parent of trolling, and still get across the point that you don't think a specific bit of evidence is as damning as may have been implied, or if just unsupported. Do you really think accusations of trolling are really going to result in a more useful discussion?

<comment><USER4> Trolling does take place, and we need some way to defend against it. A key way is to educate people so they can recognize it. Do you deny that Russian trolls do regularly use this tactic?

>There are ways to word this paragraph...

Could you present an example of this?

You're right, though, that it was somewhat problematic for me to make a semi- accusation against a particular comment. It makes me think what we need is a page describing common Russian troll tactics, and it could be linked to whenever there is a discussion of Russia, and people could decide for themselves if any comment is a troll.

>Do you really think accusations of trolling are really going to result in a more useful discussion?

It's awfully hard to have a useful discussion when trolls are trying to take things over. I need to do some thinking on what might work.

<comment><USER13> > Do you deny that Russian trolls do regularly use this tactic?

I don't have information either way, but attacking motives instead of arguments never seems to lead anywhere useful, in my experience. The response from a troll or an innocent is often the same; indignation. This often results in confirmation bias taking over, and an argument from one side believing the other is acting in bad faith, and the pother believing they are talking to assholes.

> Could you present an example of this?

"First, while you've stated Clinton has a link to Russia, I'm unfamiliar with the parties involved or the evidence, and you didn't substantiate your claim. Can you point me towards resources where this is explained?

Secondly, while there may be a link with Clinton, a link, by itself, does not mean anything. A link is not the same thing and _influence_. I am probably linked to President Obama through a chain of three to four (or less) people. I also likely have an almost zero chance to get a specific message to him, much less exert influence. Not all links are equal, and I would be surprised if most the career politicians didn't have links to people in almost all the major nations, on _purpose_. If I was in that career, I would cultivate these links and people with more of them, as those can be extremely useful in communication. Do we all truly believe the Obama and Putin communicate purely through speeches and official visits, and have no way to express specific desires and sentiments through back-channels? What's a back-channel but a link by another name?

The important thing to consider here is not whether there is a link, but what type of link it is and what influence it may exert."

> It's awfully hard to have a useful discussion when trolls are trying to take > things over.

Keep in mind that the purpose of trolling might well be to stir the pot enough that normal discourse has no chance, not just to discredit a specific idea. Who cares if a good discussion happens if nobody is around to see it as it's lost in a sea of vitriol? There was even a moment prior to my original reply, when I wondered where _you_ were trolling in this manner. I quickly discounted it, but I imagine if I had acted on that thought, our conversation would be much less useful to all involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm sure these comments will be filled with Russian propaganda operatives, either the paid or "useful idiot" variety. I used to think the web would be an engine for democracy and transparency but now that view just seems naive. With powerful surveillance and propaganda tools the web is and will continue to be a powerful force for state control. And states will increasingly use it to exert power outside their borders.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure they were here long before you posted your comment. As usual for subjects like this.</comment></comment>


University could lose millions from "unethical" research backed by Peter Thiel - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/university-could-lose-millions-from-unethical-research-backed-by-peter-thiel/ <comment><USER2> Thiel knows as well as anyone within pharma that the reason innovation in medicinal chemistry has slowed down is not the FDA, it's the financing model. His business is venture capital, he knows about finance. So - what is this game about, why is he baiting the FDA?

<comment><USER3> I'm not convinced he knows that.

Quoting [https://www.thedailybeast.com/peter-thiel-funds-unethical- of...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/peter-thiel-funds-unethical-offshore- herpes-vaccine-trial) :

"Thiel has been a vocal critic of the FDA, claiming in an interview that its approval process was so unwieldy "you would not be able to invent the polio vaccine today.""

If he does know, he's not letting his other investors know. From the same link:

""This is a test case," said Bartley Madden, a retired Credit Suisse banker and policy adviser to the conservative Heartland Institute, who is another investor in the vaccine. "The FDA is standing in the way, and Americans are going to hear about this and demand action.""

In any case, the FDA head is Scott Gottlieb. Gottlieb's history sounds like he thinks that the FDA is overcautious. [https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/donald- trump-vs-the-fda-be-...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/donald-trump-vs-the- fda-be-afraid-be-very-afraid-of-the-loosening-of-drug-approval-standards/) .

If your mindset is "move fast and break things" then go ahead and sell an effective anti-nausea pill - what's the chance of getting another Thalidomide? Structure the company so you can get the profits without the liability.

Or, if you think the FDA will weaken its protections, then there's profit to be made.

And for some people, if you don't sometimes get a yellow card (metaphorically speaking), you aren't trying hard enough.

_EDIT_:

[http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/11/14/not...](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/11/14/not- how-you-speed-the-process-up-exactly) says :

"Back in April, Halford and his associates press-released an investment in Rational Vaccines by Peter Thiel's investment fund. That has generated a lot of headlines about "Peter Thiel funds illegal human trial!" and so on, but (as much as I'm skeptical about his pharma ideas), this coverage is unfair. The investment occurred after the offshore trial had already taken place, and in fact, Thiel's people insisted that further work on the vaccine be done in a more, well, rational manner.

<comment><USER2> The investment came after offshore human trials with poor recordkeeping. Why someone would throw good money at poorly documented science is beyond me. The comments in the _Pipeline_ are not gentle and hark in the same direction.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Ads tracking you - <AUTHOR> http://www.aroundglobe.net/2009/03/googles-new-ads-may-be-watching-you.html

<comment><USER2> I always had critical doubts that Google is going to track users in such a way, as Google is always looking for a way to collect users' info - Look at Youtube and all of other Google's acquisitions!

Specially after their acquisition of Urchin - currently known as Google Analytics.</comment>


Andreessen invests $22M in PlanetScale's database-as-a-service - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/23/planetscale-vitess/ <comment><USER2> I really admire any DB that helps with zero effort scaling. I have immense respect for engineers that solve DB scaling problems. However i have to say this: The last DBaaS we used was FoundationDB. They left us and many others hanging dry. Ever since our blind choice has been AWS RDS Multi-AZ.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey I am on the team at PlanetScale and you are 100% correct about that. One of the great decisions we made was that our SaaS is the OSS version of Vitess so even if we went away you would still be able to continue with Vitess. Also we are working on rolling out BYOK ( bring your own Kubernetes ) as a deploy option so the databases and Vitess components all reside in your Account not in ours.

<comment><USER3> > OSS version of Vitess

Isn't Vitess already open source (Apache 2.0 from their site)? Or did you mean to say _managed /hosted/DBaaS_ version of Vitess?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is Apache 2 and thats the only version we will deploy, there isn't a Proprietary version that planetscale will use in the background. This isn't a fork or even a re-licensed version of Vitess. Everything we develop goes into the Apache 2 OSS project

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The scaleout relational db world is definitely interesting. There's about a dozen competitors now consolidating around mysql and postgres dialects with both strategies of building on top of the native engine and building a new one to emulate it.

What does the Planetscale team see as the main differentiation with these other companies?

</comment><comment><USER5> These guys did a presentation about running/optimizing Vitess (the tech behind Planetscale) on Kubernetes. Cool stuff.

[https://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/running-a- highp...](https://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/running-a- highperformance-kubernetes-cluster-with-amazon-eks-con318r1-aws-reinvent-2018)

(Vitess is barely mentioned on slide 28 but that's what the demo was running on, not sure why)

<comment><AUTHOR> That was a talk sponsored by the EKS team at Amazon, we ( at planetscale ) were working with them and our partner to show off how well we could scale, but since it was part of the EKS track we wanted to highlight the details of Kubernetes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, for a more Vitess heavy presentation also on Kubernetes. Take a look at this talk we gave at KubeCon Europe [https://youtu.be/OZl4HrB9p-8](https://youtu.be/OZl4HrB9p-8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What kind of customers is PlanetScale going after and how does the product compare? This seems like a very niche product.

<comment><AUTHOR> The product is drop in compatible with MySQL so if you are using MySQL today its likely you would see some improvement. Also if you have large data sets or if you want a Highly Available database running alongside your applications in Kubernetes it would be a good fit for you. That last case is extremely powerful. You can treat your Database as a first class k8s citizen right along side your applications and have a performant scaleable, and highly available database with no more management then what you would give any k8s application.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What was the internet like before search engines? - <AUTHOR> I believe search engines have changed the way we understand the internet: you ask something and you get something immediately.<p>What was the experience like before search engines? Does anyone have any stories? <comment><USER2> Imagine going down a Wikipedia hole where you're just clicking through a random path of links..

I kind of recall the mid 90s like that - while there were search engines, like lycos, AV etc.. for those who were early teens and not in a university exposure to word of mouth of what to check out could be more limited...

But curiosity always finds a way.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a bit too young to have been online before search engines, but I do remember a time before search engines were generally useful.

Portals (Kind of like a human curated search engine), and bookmarking was way more important back then.

I also remember the local Library having (Pulp) books that featured interesting websites to visit.

</comment><comment><USER4> There was a web page related to Mosaic that would list each day all newly created websites, maybe 5-10 of them. They had a form where website creators could submit their new domain/URL.

It took less time to read than looking at a daily facebook or twitter "newsfeed" \-- and it was much more arresting.

<comment><AUTHOR> So it was something similar to today's ProductHunt?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are you asking about the Internet or the World Wide Web? The first search engine predates the Web. Anything remotely like the Web you know today has always had search engines.</comment>


Photons cooled down to room temperature, made into a blob of matter - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40358307/ns/technology_and_science-science/

<comment><USER2> A slightly more informative article, which references the paper published in nature (unfortunately, I couldn't find a copy of that that wasn't behind a paywall).

[http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/full/news.2010.630.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/full/news.2010.630.html)

Note that the photons weren't made into matter. They were made into a Bose- Einstein Condensate, which is where all of the component particles share quantum properties and interact with the rest of the universe in "lockstep".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate)

<comment><AUTHOR> To be a little more clear though (from the Nature article): "Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) are a bizarre quantum phase of matter. "

I can email people the copy if they want, I won't post it though.

<comment><USER3> Is it readable by those of us who fall under the "layman" category?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What does "temperature" mean with regard to photons? A photon has an energy level given by its wavelength or frequency. But temperature is a macroscopic phenomenon (equivalent to the kinetic energy of a group of particles).

<comment><USER4> So reading more about this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon_gas> , it looks like a scenario where a blackbody container was created, with a Boltzmann "temperature" peak equal to the energy level of the incident photons. Thus, all absorbed photons would be re-emitted at with the same distribution as the blackbody walls. And apparently, this phenomenon was tested in an ultra-low temperature scenario.

Still, I wonder. Given the low temperatures, the Boltzmann distribution suggests photons in the microwave or lower frequencies.

<comment><USER5> Actually the article says the photons were in a room-temperature scenario.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "The physics behind the Bose-Einstein condensation is the transition from a particle-like behavior at high temperatures to a wave-like behavior at cold temperatures"

I'm no physicist, but isn't this backwards?

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm probably a very shallow individual for asking but are there pictures of this?

</comment><comment><USER8> Noobie question: how do they know that this actually happened? I would have thought that having some sort of detector inside the tiny mirror box would disturb the experiment? How do you measure something like this?

<comment><USER8> Should've read the other article linked on here ([http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/full/news.2010.630.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/full/news.2010.630.html)):

 _The team could tell when the transition had occurred because the small number of photons in the BEC formed an intense beam of yellow light — like a laser — in the centre of the cavity, surrounded by the 'gas' of remaining normal photons. To double-check that they were seeing a BEC of light, the researchers repeated the experiment with different numbers of photons. In each case, once the transition had taken place, they measured the spectrum of light leaking from the cavity and found that it matched theoretical predictions for the corresponding BEC._

(BEC == Bose-Einstein Condensate)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Should it be called matter if it's mass-less? Or is the article wrong and did this have a mass?

<comment><USER10> Not a physics major, but my guess is E=mc^2 still applies.

<comment><USER11> A physics major, this is correct, in the sense that if the photons in the "matter of photons" have total energy E, then it acts like an object of mass m (under the condition that the total momentum is zero, which I presume is approximately true because the photons are moving in random directions?). However, photons do not have rest mass. The formula for photons is E = pc, where p is the momentum of the photon. The full form is E^2 = (mc^2)^2 + (pc)^2, where m is the rest mass and p is the momentum. Taking p = 0 for an object at rest gives E = mc^2, taking m = 0 for a photon gives E = pc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> tele-transportation is just years away!</comment>


Google reportedly manipulates search results to hide controversial subjects - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/google-manipulates-search-results-report-2019-11 <comment><USER2> [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=Google%20search%20results%20&sort=byDate&type=story)</comment>


Mammon_'s Tales to his Grandson: Linux on the Half-ELF - <AUTHOR> http://mammon.github.io/tales/linux_re.txt <comment><USER2> Has it been 20 years since I read this? That brings up some memories!</comment>