Y Combinator’s “No Idea” Round Isn’t a Bad Idea, It’s Awesome

Am I the only one that's tired of the absolutist arguments without any substantive evidence that seem to plague social news sites?<p>We have no idea if Y Combinator's "No Idea" thing is good or bad. I suspect YC doesn't know either and once they do, unless they let us know how it worked out, we still won't know. No amount of prognostication will answer the question. It's a real pet peeve of mine when people who don't know what they're talking about not only answer questions, but go above and beyond that to answer them definitively.

In my opinion this is just like the way record labels started creating bands out of thin air without any substance.<p>They gathered potential talented people, form the band write songs for them, decide their image, their sound, etc.<p>This doesn't mean that this model won't work, it just means that they are not really artists.<p>The same thing is happening here. How can you be called an entrepreneur if you can't even come up with an idea?<p>Entrepreneurship is not for everybody. But if you don't have an idea, then you really should not be looking to be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs undertake something; "The French infinitive 'entreprendre' translates as 'to undertake' " (from Wikipedia).<p>If you have no ideas to undertake, then undertake other people's ideas by joining an existing company.

A fairly tawdry argument in this article.<p>Dustin said, simply, that you shouldn't become an entrepreneur just for the sake of becoming one. You should have an idea that you're energised about and want to build.<p>The fact that Zuckerberg had ideas before Facebook doesn't mean that YC's "no idea" round is a good idea.<p>Zuckerberg was building things and tinkering before Facebook: that's the exact opposite of not having any ideas. Literally, that is the opposite. He had ideas. He worked on them.

Oh! I think I get it now! I know why people write about YC when they aren't in YC, aren't affiliated with YC, and run businesses that are orthogonal to YC. They want to get to the top of hacker news and maybe get their job advert read by the selective crowd of hacker news:<p>"We're currently looking for a lead interaction designer. If you think you're up for it, email jobs@yipit.com" -sidebar of author's website

I don't agree. As a person who has applied in the past, a developer and a sole founder, why would I submit my idea with no NDA to basically a think tank of clerical ivy league wunderkind waiting in the wings for a call from PG for a shovel ready project or a "pivot." All this in exchange for a "thanks but no thanks dude!"<p>I was on the fence before about applying to "incubators" (I know YC is technically not a incubator), but this solved it for me. Ideas are worthless, execution is only slightly more valuable and YC is an idea execution factory. To be honest, it's an enviable position. I do appreciate the transparency.

Pretty sure @kn0thing got into YC essentially with no idea (PG wasn't into the food ordering idea but liked them). Hard to argue that was a mistake.

YC views the idea as proof of experimentation and in turn a bias for doing and not only thinking. It would be like NFL scouts watching tape of prospects doing home improvements around campus instead of placing football to decide what they physical school sets were. The idea is a lense in which to judge talents they consider statistically more likely to produce a successful entrepreneur.<p>The other good point already made was that YCs investment best leveraged if you ready almost right away. No matter how you smart you are, identifying a problem, creating a solution and assembling a team takes time, valuable time. In most cases this process would put you a bit further out from some of the expertise that YC has to offer.

I think what the 'No Idea' misses is that if there is a team which is absolutely amazing and can theoretically come into YC and amaze everybody with their capabilities, don't you think they'd be able to come up with an idea?<p>PG even gives a list of things he'd like to see built, take one of those if you don't have your own, but not having anything to me seems like a bit of a cop-out.

So let's say me and a superstar cast of Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk are accepted as a "no idea group".<p>.... What do we do the next day? What do we work on? I can totally get behind the idea that they're funding the founders and not the idea but there has to be some idea at some point, right? Why not the day before the application instead of the day after?