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0 pointsWorkaccount21y ago0 comments

Meanwhile, YC has happily and excitedly fed it's start-ups to Google over the years.

So pretty much "We don't want google to develop new things, we want them to have buy those from us"

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6 comments · 3 top-level

kmeisthax1y ago· 2 in thread

What YC is complaining about is that they've been turned into Google's farm league.

The thing is, Google doesn't develop anything new. Everything new they make fails horribly, so they can't and don't compete with YC in the way that you think.

Examples of failed Google homegrown technologies include:

- Social media: Google Buzz, Google+

- Messaging: Google Chat, Hangouts, actually there's too many to list

- Video: Google Video

Almost all of Google's successful products are acquisitions:

- Homegrown: Search, Gmail

- Acquisitions: YouTube, Analytics, most of their adtech stack, Android, DeepBrain (the people who did all the AI work at Google)

Furthermore, whenever Google or Facebook buys any startup, that startup gets an immediate moat and capital injection that can be used to crush any other startup that didn't sell out fast enough. So YC only has one option for an exit: sell the company to Google at a price Google decides.

scarmig1y ago

> DeepBrain (the people who did all the AI work at Google)

"DeepBrain" isn't a thing. Google acquired DeepMind, which was the second biggest research lab in AI at the time. The first biggest was Google Brain. They existed in parallel until being merged in 2023.

Brain was entirely homegrown, and it was responsible for AIAYN, BERT, PaLM. Which is to say, transformers.

threeseed1y ago

a) If YC was so tired of being a funnel to larger companies then they should be selecting companies based on their ability to be self sustaining companies. Not this hype-driven, boom or bust approach to startups they know VCs and acquirers want.

b) Google Cloud, Gemini, TPUs, Pixel etc seem like pretty important products to me.

redczar1y ago· 1 in thread

Can YC prevent startups from selling to Google? Even if they could why should they? There is nothing wrong with believing Google abuses its monopoly and selling to Google.

BobbyJo1y ago

They could almost certainly prevent it in most cases, and they likely promote it in some.

1 more reply

dang1y ago

> Meanwhile, YC has happily and excitedly fed it's start-ups to Google over the years.

I'm curious what you've seen or heard that led you to that conclusion? It's the opposite of correct.

YC supports what founders want, including if they want to sell to $BigCo, but such outcomes are hardly successes for YC. YC's success depends on outlier companies growing much larger than that.

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