Jul
22
An Assembly Line for Start-Ups
Filed Under Inspiration
Max Chafkin wrote a great cover story for Inc on Paul Graham and his Y Combinator consortium that helps start-ups get from idea to company.
The article is a great lesson on leadership, focus and results. One of the closing paragraphs in the story captures the essence of Graham and Y Combinator quite nicely.
Twenty-seven more companies will join Y Combinator in June, the program’s biggest class yet. Earlier this year, Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firm that backed Google, agreed to give Graham $2 million to put to work. Graham hopes to use the money to expand Y Combinator, to fund 60 companies or more every year. I ask Graham why he is so intent on growing. Why does the world need so many little software companies? He looks at me as if I’m insane. “Imagine that instead of starting Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin had taken jobs in some research lab,” he says. “They would have written a little piece of an operating system that might not even get used and maybe some boring academic papers. Think of how much more they did for the world as start-up founders.”
It would be great to see Y Combinator-type companies for a variety of different industries, including the nonprofit world.
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