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Mr. Startup: Paul Graham, founder of YCombinator, and his "no asshole" rule

Robert Scoble1 HN recommender · recommended in 1 month, 2010–2022
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interview · general · 2010–2022 on HN

Robert Scoble interviews Paul Graham at Y Combinator's Mountain View headquarters as 36 new startups debut. They discuss what YC is, and Graham's no-assholes rule.

Linked as a source for Paul Graham's no-assholes rule and his comments on early YC funding.

4 comments from Hacker News

@ashleyreddy2010-11 · in “My site looks like $hit any designers want to make a couple of hundred bucks”

Your comment is mean spirited. It's meaningless and adds no value. Perhaps you should watch this video. ▶ this video It's about Paul Graham's no asshole rule.

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@O__________O2022-10 · in “Ask HN: What Happened to YC?”

Related links: PG 12 years ago saying average was $17,500 per startup ▶ this video Last batch count was 240: link FAQ saying current standard offer is $500,000 link

@harryf2019-07 · in “Assholes: A Probing Examination”

> Sorting people into bins: assholes and victims, is problematic. This is true of anything subjective. There are people (intentional assholes in this article) who absolutely _are_ assholes because it gives them pleasure - their ego or otherwise gains something from hurting others. Everyone in a company knows who they without needing to go through a labelling process. Ultimately it's a problem for leaders in a company, those that should be caring about the culture, to remove such people. Paul Graham described this long ago here - ▶ this video (starts at 4m20s) - a leader in YCombinator he makes the judgement calls.

@Hitchhiker2011-10 · in “Why female entrepreneurs should apply to YC”

This low rate may also have to do with biases extant in engineering / sciences etc. Couple that with YC's preference for hard-core tech founders ( a perfectly reasonable delimiter ), these results are not surprising. You can see similar composition in YC leadership where Jessica is the only female partner ( link ) and from my limited understanding, she brings in a much needed balance to their approach. A system that produces great results should perhaps focus on ".. but by the content of their character " - Martin Luther King, Jr. This I think, pg emphasizes via ▶ this video