Y Combinator's Michael Seibel: "Stupidity or genius"

The Times Tech Podcast

Will Morley

Business, Unknown, Technology

4.9 • 654 Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2018

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Michael Seibel, chief executive of Y Combinator, the storied Silicon Valley startup bootcamp, to talk about why chaotic markets are good for startups (3:50), how he ended up at YC (6:20), the importance of clarity (7:50), why it’s both easier and harder than ever to launch a company (9:10), the power of the big guys (11:35), the need for regulation (13:45), what has changed since he arrived to Silicon Valley in 2006 (18:05), why bigger is better for YC’s model (20:30), peak accelerator (24:05), getting pitched his own idea (26:10), tackling the diversity challenge (27:30), tech’s number one problem (30:10), how startups are like the NBA (34:30), stupidity vs genius (37:00), how Facebook and Google are cautionary tales (39:30), competing against Big Tech’s money (42:45), artificial intelligence (46:40), and whether scooters are overhyped (49:20)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Danny in the Valley before we get to today's show, just a quick production note.
0:06.7	This is the last show of 2018.
0:10.3	Can you believe it?
0:11.8	Don't fret.
0:12.6	We will be back in the first week of January, January 3rd, so just a short hiatus while I will try to catch up on my sleep and juggle two very small humans, not literally,
0:23.7	figuratively, of course. But then we'll be back to normal service and we have some great stuff in
0:28.8	the oven for you, bacon and broilin, et cetera. Lots of very exciting things coming for 2019,
0:35.2	but I also just want to thank you. It has been a tiring but very exciting year,
0:40.1	and I just want to say that I appreciate you coming along for the ride, for listening, for
0:44.5	rating and reviewing the show. If you haven't done yet, I know you'll do right now. So thank you for
0:50.5	that. As I mentioned before, I started this thing on a bit of a whim. Basically,
0:54.4	no one was listening when we started out, which wasn't the worst thing in the world because I had
0:58.7	no idea what I was doing. But now we have thousands of subscribers, loads of great guests,
1:03.1	both in the catalog and on the docket for next year. And I'm hoping, hoping that very soon I'll be
1:09.7	able to make a very exciting announcement about something I have
1:13.0	been working on these last couple months in the background.
1:16.1	It is very exciting, but we're not quite there yet.
1:19.6	But all is looking good.
1:20.5	And like I said, hopefully I'll be able to share that with you all very soon in the not too
1:26.4	distant future.
1:27.2	So I think it would be a lot of fun.
1:29.1	So fingers crossed. Okay, that's it. Enough of me talking. Let's get to today's show.
	...

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