Y Combinator's First Batch: Where Are They Now?

[Mystalic]

This is a fantastic article with a lot of in-depth interviews and analysis. This is an example of what tech journalism should be.

Another note: the beauty of YC isn't that Paul & co. pick home runs every time -- they don't -- it's that they pick teams that eventually hit home runs. Justin.tv is doing okay, but YC's investment in Justin in 2005 has netted it Socialcam (acquired for $60M) and Exec. YC's investment in Reddit also netted them Hipmunk.

And I'm only scratching the surface here -- YC founders always recruit great people into the YC program.

[espadagroup]

I've been curious about this, is it definitive that YC investments pass through like this, i.e. from Justin.tv to Socialcam and Exec?

[codex]

Isn't this how all VC deals work?

[sama]

One thing that struck me reading this is that many of us from the first batch are still in the YC orbit. Exec (JKan) and Hipmunk (Steve, Alexis, and Chris) went through YC, and Justin, Emmett, and I are part-time YC partners.

[tomasien]

Sam why is your posterous password protected now?

[amix]

One of the missing people that this article does not mention is Simon Carstensen, a danish dude that was a co-founder of Infogami. I met Simon in an university class and I knew him for some time before I knew he was part of Y Combinator's first batch :-) Simon traveled back to Denmark after his round finished.

[juanbyrge]

Yes this is called survivorship bias. Only the successful people end up being in these news articles, thus leading people to believe that everyone going through YC ends up successful.

[stcredzero]

What I like best about this news is the long term orientation of it. The more thinking about long value, virtuous cycles, and underlying principles and values, the better for the SF bay tech community.

[allenbrunson]

Excellent idea for an article. I'm surprised I haven't seen such a thing before now.

[KMBredt]

Would it hurt TNW to link to the mentioned projects?