Simon Willison's Weblog: siliconvalley

Why was the popular Silicon Valley incubator named Y Combinator?

2013-10-20T09:39:00+00:00

My answer to Why was the popular Silicon Valley incubator named Y Combinator? on Quora

From this interview with Paul Graham http://www.paulgraham.com/frinte...

"It's a function that builds recursive functions without them needing to have names. The Y Combinator is one of those things that seems miraculous when you first encounter it. You wouldn't necessarily have expected such a thing to be possible. We named the company after it partly because we thought it was such a cool concept, and partly as a secret signal to the kind of people we hoped would apply."

Tags: entrepreneurship, paul-graham, siliconvalley, startups, y-combinator, quora

Who was accepted into Y Combinator's Summer 2013 batch?

2013-06-09T10:57:00+00:00

My answer to Who was accepted into Y Combinator's Summer 2013 batch? on Quora

You are unlikely to get any good answers to this question for a while, because YC startups are advised not to announce their participation straight away. Instead, they usually hold the announcement until they are ready to launch something - it's a useful hook for getting extra coverage for the story.

Expect a flurry of announcements a week or two before demo day, though!

Tags: entrepreneurship, siliconvalley, startups, y-combinator, quora

Is it worth accepting an investment from YCombinator if you have an established network in the valley?

2012-11-26T14:07:00+00:00

My answer to Is it worth accepting an investment from YCombinator if you have an established network in the valley? on Quora

Yes. Plenty of the companies in our batch at YC already had well established networks, and they still benefited enormously from the advice and introductions YC could offer.

(I was asked in a comment to specify some concrete benefits, so here some of them are...)

You become part of the YC network. You can contact any YC company (in your batch or alumni) for advice, support or potential business development relationships. In turn, you do the same for other YC companies.
Your batch become your support network. Doing a startup is ferociously hard, and you encounter things you don't know how to do every single day. Having a bunch of other companies around going through the same process makes solving problems much, much easier - one of your fellow companies probably figured out the thing you're currently scratching your head over a few weeks ago.
You get to spend 3 months focusing on your startup and nothing but your startup. YC is the ultimate excuse to ignore friends, family and other commitments and focus on just one thing for 12 solid weeks with no distractions.
You learn how to be a startup, including how to talk to and raise money from investors.
You get awesome advice from the YC partners (that's not just PG - the other partners are amazing too)
You get intros.
You get to spend a full week refining your pitch for demo day in front of PG and the other YC partners.
Demo day! You get to pitch to most of the top class investors in the valley.
Being able to say "we did YC" really helps with getting investor meetings, press interviews and so on.

Tags: entrepreneurship, funding, siliconvalley, startups, y-combinator, quora

Are Silicon Valley entrepreneurs taking less risk than 8-9 yrs ago?

2011-01-22T15:17:00+00:00

My answer to Are Silicon Valley entrepreneurs taking less risk than 8-9 yrs ago? on Quora

I'd guess internet startups today are taking advantage of the fact that there's a LOT more knowledge now of what works online and what doesn't. 9 years ago people were still figuring out what the internet is useful for. Today it's easier to figure out a product that people are likely to want, based on nearly 20 years of experience of how people use the Web.

Tags: siliconvalley, quora

What interesting meetings will be held in March and/or April in Silicon Valley on topics relating to technology startups?

2010-12-31T17:07:00+00:00

My answer to What interesting meetings will be held in March and/or April in Silicon Valley on topics relating to technology startups? on Quora

Try browsing through the list on http://lanyrd.com/places/califor... - or use our search feature.

Tags: conferences, siliconvalley, quora

Airship Ventures

2008-05-12T18:41:24+00:00

Airship Ventures

New startup providing tours of Silicon Valley in a frickin’ Zeppelin. Strangely enough I’ve been complaining about the lack of Zeppelins over Silicon Valley for several years. Really.

Via Gizmodo

Tags: airships, pubchat, siliconvalley, zeppelins