Occasionally in YC founder circles a new founder will raise a bunch of money and then ask something like "What's the best way to invest all the money our company just raised?"
The responses are always along the lines of "Your startup is already risky. Don't innovate in areas of your business where the status quo is known to work. Innovate your product + technology, don't be innovative with your company's finances, HR, etc"
That advice always stuck with me. It just makes a lot of sense to do things in the most boring way possible, except where it matters (your competitive advantage <-- that's where you innovate, that's where you set yourself apart)
Running a startup is distracting enough. Doing things non-standard just adds to the list of distractions that you don't need as a founder.
show comments
KnuthIsGod
Sounds like a camouflaged IQ test for the founders...
Or perhaps Y Combinator is great at funding startups,
but incredibly bad with financial decision making.
In which case it is an IQ test for Y Combinator,
which they have failed.
show comments
wmf
Stablecoins make a lot of sense in countries like Argentina where the national currency is a shitcoin. But YC doesn't fund startups in Argentina. Stablecoins can also be used to pay remote employees but that should probably go through an employer of record so that people aren't paid under the table. This sounds like more crypto for the sake of crypto.
show comments
throw03172019
If they aren’t a crypto startup where it’s normal to pay others in stable coins, what is the benefit?
show comments
tombert
Despite still not really showing any utility these tech companies want so so so much for cryptocurrency to catch on.
It feels like the entirety of cryptocurrency, outside of being a thing people used to buy drugs, has been an example of Chesterton's Fence, with half of Silicon Valley in denial of this fact.
show comments
JumpCrisscross
Might help them win crypto deals. Or expand into shady geographies. Otherwise, I guess having a signal that your founders will donate the interest they’re owed is…something.
j-pb
How about receiving funds in car-park vouchers and ramen?
Then I could at least save the time I spend at the asian supermarket to get more work done.
Edit: Also vouchers for a good cafe with wifi please.
j45
Exploring the simplest version of this - I wonder if stablecoins are cheaper / easier to financially to transfer that much money.
Indirectly it might provide some more public visibility initally anyways.
UqWBcuFx6NV4r
Indisputable evidence that YC loves smelling its own farts. Pure absurdity. America truly is reaping what it’s sowing.
Animats
YC's previous recommendation was to use Silicon Valley Bank.
That ended well.
show comments
reducesuffering
Remember when YC funded (and boosted reach of) ~50 crypto scamlike co's during the heyday of the craze? Like the Stablegains scam fiasco:
I hope we aren't too close to "territorial currencies" where each feudal lord was authorized (or not forbidden) to mint his own currency, which couldn't be carried over the next feud. Think awarded "miles" by your credit card, or tickets in a games center.
As evidenced by the comments on this post, HN understanding of crypto is typically ten years out of date, so I'm going to post this top level:
- Transferring money across regions with the best 'normie' tools (eg Transferwise/wise.com) is multiple orders of magnitude more expensive than $0.0000015 (tranferring USDC or another GENIUS-compliant stablecoin on Solana).
- You can easily put stablecoins in a Lulo savings account and get 5% interest instead of 0.1% or whatever your bank provides. Yes Lulo has insurance.
- The Genius act regulates stablecoin provision. US-issued stablecoins are backed by government bonds with proof of reserves. USDC and PyUSD are compliant already, USAT exists because USDT isn't compliant.
- There's no offramp fees for PyUSD, and you, random American, have a Solana address in the 'crypto' tab of your Paypal app. 1234.56 in PyUSD means you get 1234.56 in Chase or Wells Fargo or whatever. In future your bank will hold these assets directly without need to off-ramp at all.
If you want to throw your investors money away to outdated percentage point cross border payments systems you're welcome to.
show comments
grim_io
Why not in gold while we're at it?
Both are equally stupid, and you have to exchange them to buy most of the things you might need.
show comments
CuriouslyC
Between this and Canada being dropped as an investable country shortly after the recent US/Canada fracas, I'm starting to wonder about YC's current political affiliations. Also, if you want to put your tinfoil hat on, Michael Seibel and Dalton Caldwell were publicly anti-Trump, and they both left months after the Trump admin took over, a very paranoid take is that the big shot VCs tied to YC made a push to "clean house" or "toe the line" and they were either gently pushed out or decided to leave because they didn't like the new vibes.
This is intersting.
Occasionally in YC founder circles a new founder will raise a bunch of money and then ask something like "What's the best way to invest all the money our company just raised?"
The responses are always along the lines of "Your startup is already risky. Don't innovate in areas of your business where the status quo is known to work. Innovate your product + technology, don't be innovative with your company's finances, HR, etc"
That advice always stuck with me. It just makes a lot of sense to do things in the most boring way possible, except where it matters (your competitive advantage <-- that's where you innovate, that's where you set yourself apart)
Running a startup is distracting enough. Doing things non-standard just adds to the list of distractions that you don't need as a founder.
Sounds like a camouflaged IQ test for the founders...
Or perhaps Y Combinator is great at funding startups, but incredibly bad with financial decision making.
In which case it is an IQ test for Y Combinator, which they have failed.
Stablecoins make a lot of sense in countries like Argentina where the national currency is a shitcoin. But YC doesn't fund startups in Argentina. Stablecoins can also be used to pay remote employees but that should probably go through an employer of record so that people aren't paid under the table. This sounds like more crypto for the sake of crypto.
If they aren’t a crypto startup where it’s normal to pay others in stable coins, what is the benefit?
Despite still not really showing any utility these tech companies want so so so much for cryptocurrency to catch on.
It feels like the entirety of cryptocurrency, outside of being a thing people used to buy drugs, has been an example of Chesterton's Fence, with half of Silicon Valley in denial of this fact.
Might help them win crypto deals. Or expand into shady geographies. Otherwise, I guess having a signal that your founders will donate the interest they’re owed is…something.
How about receiving funds in car-park vouchers and ramen?
Then I could at least save the time I spend at the asian supermarket to get more work done.
Edit: Also vouchers for a good cafe with wifi please.
Exploring the simplest version of this - I wonder if stablecoins are cheaper / easier to financially to transfer that much money.
Indirectly it might provide some more public visibility initally anyways.
Indisputable evidence that YC loves smelling its own farts. Pure absurdity. America truly is reaping what it’s sowing.
YC's previous recommendation was to use Silicon Valley Bank. That ended well.
Remember when YC funded (and boosted reach of) ~50 crypto scamlike co's during the heyday of the craze? Like the Stablegains scam fiasco:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31686140
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31431224
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31461634
I hope we aren't too close to "territorial currencies" where each feudal lord was authorized (or not forbidden) to mint his own currency, which couldn't be carried over the next feud. Think awarded "miles" by your credit card, or tickets in a games center.
https://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/41452/1/112....
As evidenced by the comments on this post, HN understanding of crypto is typically ten years out of date, so I'm going to post this top level:
- Transferring money across regions with the best 'normie' tools (eg Transferwise/wise.com) is multiple orders of magnitude more expensive than $0.0000015 (tranferring USDC or another GENIUS-compliant stablecoin on Solana).
- You can easily put stablecoins in a Lulo savings account and get 5% interest instead of 0.1% or whatever your bank provides. Yes Lulo has insurance.
- The Genius act regulates stablecoin provision. US-issued stablecoins are backed by government bonds with proof of reserves. USDC and PyUSD are compliant already, USAT exists because USDT isn't compliant.
- There's no offramp fees for PyUSD, and you, random American, have a Solana address in the 'crypto' tab of your Paypal app. 1234.56 in PyUSD means you get 1234.56 in Chase or Wells Fargo or whatever. In future your bank will hold these assets directly without need to off-ramp at all.
If you want to throw your investors money away to outdated percentage point cross border payments systems you're welcome to.
Why not in gold while we're at it?
Both are equally stupid, and you have to exchange them to buy most of the things you might need.
Between this and Canada being dropped as an investable country shortly after the recent US/Canada fracas, I'm starting to wonder about YC's current political affiliations. Also, if you want to put your tinfoil hat on, Michael Seibel and Dalton Caldwell were publicly anti-Trump, and they both left months after the Trump admin took over, a very paranoid take is that the big shot VCs tied to YC made a push to "clean house" or "toe the line" and they were either gently pushed out or decided to leave because they didn't like the new vibes.