~/writing/yc-larp-school.md

YC Larp School

the state of startups, according to a NGMI rising frosh

A fully-paid trip to SF, the startup capital of the world. YC rented the chase center, invited cracked speakers (Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, Alexandr Wang, etc), and paid millions of dollars in california taxes to cover food and travel

YC

My take: YC is now the new “investment banking/consulting” for ambitious college students who don’t know what to do with their life.

And the math makes sense too. YC takes ~200 companies a batch. That’s ~500 people a batch. x4 that you get ~2000 people a year. If you’re doing CS at HMS, you’re essentially guaranteed a spot at YC. And that’s just YC—there are many pre-seed startup accelerators, such as Speedrun, HF0, and even smaller ones like f.inc. Truly, it’s NEVER been easier to start a startup.

That’s really noble, tbh. Making a startup is waay cooler than banking or consulting, but there used to be a key differentiator. Startups were for people who didn’t really care about the money, who wanted to build, to make something people want, not chase prestiege and raise round after round, hating their life. The YC brand becoming “prestegious” recently invited these bunch into the startup world, which is (imo), the main reason we have so many slop startups and LARP companies.

Culture

I really admire bay area culture. As an outsider, I lowkey thought it would be extremely toxic and hypercompetitive, and it is, to some extent. However, people here really do push you to become the best version of yourself (or LARP it). Idk. If you’re at a top school in the bay, and you’re pretty chill, the amount of cracked people you interact with in a day-to-day basis is genuinely insane.

That’s also why Berkeley and Stanford are so crazy for startups. They’re genuinely a 30-minute uber away from downtown SF. If you’re dropping out of those schools, you keep your network, clubs, and can always go visit friends on weekends, making building much less isolating and more accessible.

The Event??

This is like what I did (to my best recollection):

  • Thursday, I biked through SF, and went to a vc event called SFF for ISEF/STS winners.
  • Friday, emergence had a mixer (that I snuck into), I got food from chase center, and then went to a dinner with Charlie (a YC partner). Then, I went to berkeley, snuck into a crazy club with CS crackheads, and tripled up in poker.
  • Saturday was day 1 of the actual event, the highlight was free food :| I also met really cool people, hit up the AgentMail after, and got carded at the yc after func.
  • Sunday was same as Saturday, good food, boring speakers. I went to the job fair thingy, larped going to MIT, Stanford, Tel Aviv University, Penn State, etc, for fun. I also snuck into the Stanford students meetup :D, and then got kicked out with my claude-generated ID. Went to google deepmind, AWS, and rising frosh afters, and doubled up again in poker.
  • Monday was chill. Went to target to buy a vaccum cleaner. Got some food, and then hit up internapalooza. Then got food again at some ramen place.
  • Tuesday was more biking around SF. There was an acrobatics show. More goated food. Ate the world-cup winning pizza (Tony’s) after a 1 hour line. Accidentally ventured into Tenderloin.
  • Wednesday, went to Sausalito and then Baker point to take flicks with the golden gate bridge. The avocado toast was $25 here. For a single slice. Then traveled back home.

The best part was meeting really fricking cool people. From all parts of the world. International kids. Cracked but thoughtful rising freshmen at top schools. Funny af people that I larped going to Tel Aviv University (#8 in unicorn founders btw) with.

However, it kinda saddened me to see a lot of the speakers, partners, and higher ups in SF distancing themselves from the culture and problems that their own city face. I was talking to one very rich person, and they said: “Uber drivers shouldn’t exist because it’s a low-skill job.” Another narrative was: “Homeless people should just work harder.” You can deadass see the permenant underclass developing in Tenderloin LMAO. You can’t use the terms “NGMI” and “GMI” unless you’ve visited SF imao.

Overall, the trip was 1000% worth, and it made me realize that I was probably going to be staying in school for a while, possibly until figuring out what exactly I want to go into. Startups shouldn’t be something we larp. We should truly have a vision that you have an insane amount of belief in, to the point where you can go all-in.