| A lot of the comments in here are about the debate on whether companies should be remote or in-person. That's an important debate but orthogonal to what I wrote. The YC batch is not a company. It doesn't really have a close analogue, but if you forced me to choose, I'd say that doing YC is more similar to going to college than working at a company. And as all we all know, while many companies are staying fully remote, hardly any university is. Having now done this back-to-back, I can tell you exactly the ways in which in-person YC turned out to be better than remote YC. 1). Most founders in remote YC didn't make strong connections with their batchmates. When I ask founders from remote batches "how many founders in your batch are you still close with?", they typically give an answer that's 0-3. When I ask founders from in-person batches the same question, it's 10+. 2). When YC really works, it's because it not only conveys some factual advice, but changes the way founders think and behave. When founders go through in-person batches, they're usually significantly different by the end of the batch - tougher, savvier, and more formidable. Whatever causes that did not translate well to zoom. 3). In-person YC is simply more fun. YC has always been in part about being fun experience, because startups need to be fun or they'd be too difficult and demoralizing. Zoom is very effective for communicating information, but no one has fun at Zoom parties. |
> YC is more similar to going to college than working at a company.
The 3 ways you mentioned are also critical for a successful company.
1. Strong connections: you want to make strong connections in your company. That is what your network is and those connections help you in countless ways like referrals, job search or mentorships.
2. A company with "tougher, savvier, and more formidable" employees can wipe the competition against a company who doesn't have this kind of workforce. If zoom didn't work for YC to foster this, then why do you think it will do the trick for companies?
3. More fun - I really prefer a workplace which is fun than the one which is not. A fun workplace also helps with stronger connections with colleagues (#1).
My actual experience also aligns with these observations. In-person workplaces really produced stronger connections, more fun and better/stronger teams. Fully remote companies simply never had that level of camaraderie.