One YC company debuted to raucous laughter and applause at Summer 2014 Demo Day. Here's why.…
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The GigaOM Show: Twitter conversations, YC’s controversy and Nokia’s connected car
And we thought we could take the last week of summer off. Nope. Twitter has a re-design, Paul Graham accent-uates some negatives and Nokia's Here Auto.…
Read MorePatterns & fallacies: Why they have no place in my Silicon Valley
If history has taught us anything, then the line between patterns and fallacies is nearly invisible. In a place where we talk about inventing the future, the patterns (or fallacies) of the past can prove to be counterproductive and create unnecessary biases.…
Read MoreIs Quora’s quest for growth worth alienating key users?
With $50 million in the bank this summer and co-founder Adam D'Angelo saying the company wants to grow to 100 times its current size, Quora is clearly on a quest for new users. But the company needs to weigh carefully what it's worth to get there.…
Read MoreSo that’s why BufferBox is so hot
Amazon is increasing the speed with which it is rolling out its Lockers across the country by partnering with retailers such as Staples and RadioShack. That attention is helping lift the fortunes of startups that want to take on Amazon -- BufferBox being one of them.…
Read MoreBorn to help make the rent, Airbnb grew from good design
Airbnb, the darling success story of Paul Graham's Y Combinator, began with a few design guys in San Francisco renting out an air mattress to customers, but the service has grown immensely since then, and Joe Gebbia, the company's co-founder, said it was all about design.…
Read MoreWhat numbers and a new book tell us about the Y Combinator way
What does it take to earn admission into Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's oldest and most prestigious startup incubator? A new book that followed a batch of startup founders from admission to demo day takes a look behind the scenes at Paul Graham's startup institution.…
Read MoreFacebook’s flop doesn’t mean doom for startups — they’ll just need to think long-term
Facebook's IPO flop has some startups worried about finding funding in an over-saturated market. But a group of investors speaking Tuesday cautioned entrepreneurs from reading too much into Facebook's situation, saying there's plenty of room for smart social apps to find success replacing existing human interactions.…
Read MoreHas Facebook popped the bubble or just let off some steam?
Paul Graham of Y Combinator has warned startups they have to be more cautious in the wake of the lackluster Facebook IPO. But did Facebook really pop a venture-financing bubble, or did it just allow some of the steam to escape from an overheated market?…
Read MoreLunch, disrupted: ZeroCater helps startups get fed
If your company gets its food catered every day, you've probably heard of ZeroCater. More than just an awesome service, it's also a great story about one dude that created a business by solving a problem for himself and offering that service to others.…
Read MoreRepeat after me: business is always about the customer
If you are in business, it is always about the customer. Simple as that message is, it is something of a forgotten lesson in modern times. Companies keep confusing who they serve and why they are in business, as an outgoing Goldman Sachs banker reminds us.…
Read MorePaul Graham’s Y Combinator, six years later
Paul Graham started Y Combinator, his unique blend of start-up school and incubator in 2005 and since then has spawned quite a quite a few well known names such as Dropbox, Justin.tv and Airbnb. Here is a video that looks at YC and its impact.…
Read MoreHow Y Combinator Is Remaking Silicon Valley in Its Image
Y Combinator put on a tour de force Thursday in Mountain View, Calif. After five impressive years' worth of molding fresh batches of startups, it packed 150-odd people with money into a room and schooled them in the art of giving its companies funding.…
Read MoreNotes From a Conversation With Y Combinator's Paul Graham
Last week, when down in Los Angeles, I had a chance to interview Paul Graham, co-founder of YCombinator on-stage at the Twiistup conference. The wide ranging conversation spanned a good 45 minutes and generically talked about the Internet start-ups and entrepreneurship. Here are some highlights.…
Read MoreLuke 11:17, Bruce Lee Plays Ping-pong: NTV Station Today
Yep, today we have yet another viral ad appropriating the image of a dead famous person to sell a product. I love…
Read More9 People You Meet at Y Combinator (and what you can learn from them).
I went to Y Combinator’s Startup School on Saturday (that’s YC-founder Paul Graham, in case you don’t know) even though most people…
Read MoreLessons of YCombinator: Things I'd do differently after 2 startups
Editor’s Note: Serial founder Tony Wright recently completed a 3-month stint at the incubator YCombinator, where, in November 2007, he and two…
Read MoreThe Myth of the Startup Miracle
I found this old New Yorker cartoon, by Sidney Harris, courtesy of a columnist over at Inc. magazine, and it made me…
Read MoreYes, Dilbert, you can keep your day job!
There is a well-established rule in our business that you can’t really found a company part-time. Moonlighting sounds great, but it’s a…
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