Can someone explain how Sam is able to run so many things at once? I am working on my startup and I barely find time to scroll HN during my toilet breaks.
Universities don't generate their operating budget on tuition alone. They need to use a mix of grantmaking, IP commercialization, investments, Federal tuition support, broadcast licenses, and (in UMich's case) some state government support to keep the lights on.
In UMich's case, the State of Michigan only covers 3% of the entire funding for UMich. The university needs to foot the bill for the remaining 97% on their own [0].
That's where endowments come in. By trying to be savvy with the rate of return on your endowment, you can create a self sustaining budget for your institution.
Also, UMich Ann Arbor's yearly budget is $10 Billion, but their endowment (aka their piggybank) is only $17 Billion. If they raided their piggybank, they could only keep the lights on for 2 years at most.
> professional sports organization or the vestigial academic departments
Professional Sports is self funded by the athletics department.
What's a "vestigial academic departments". For example, Computer Science was "vestigial" in most universities until the 1970s, often being a wonky major in the Math or Physics department. What makes you an arbitrator for what field is more important than others?
Which universities in Australia? Most of the student accommodation is independent (especially ones associated with the sandstone unis, see https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/broderick-revie... for why that's sometimes a problem), and there's no requirement to use student accommodation. International student tuition is a major funding source, but I've never heard of accommodation being much of a money spinner.
They do. They also own lots of intellectual property and will provide some amount of financial support to startups that grow out of the university commonly. At the end of the day, they have endowments and they want to grow those.
Specifically, regarding property, at schools I’ve attended they owned real estate in the city around the campus, not just the campus itself. Part of that is investment and part of it was looking to the future for when they run out of space on the current campus to build new facilities and need to grow the campus
We don’t think of pension funds as hedge funds either but they also invest heavily to grow the fund.
Lets go back to the beginning of YC. You can find a photo of the very first class. In that very first class, you'll see the AirBnb guys, the Twitch guys, the Reddit founders, and Sam frickin Altman.
When you have 18 years of connections with virtually every successful YC startup, and happen to run the most disruptive company of the past 15 years, money and influence seeks you out.
Good answer. He basically fostered a reputation for having access to the connections you need. Same time, that don't mean he'll entertain any old idea. I thought he was lunatic for taking over at OpenAI and thought their idea was crazy. But he knew better than me.
Agree and you have a very reasonable comment, and I’m not sure why others don’t agree.
Just one possible correction: the AirBnB guys were about 4 years later than the 1st batch. I don’t think any of them were in the 1st batch with a different startup like the Twitch crew.
My bad. Yes they weren't in the first batch. But hot damn being in that first batch was pretty big. Being the right place at the right time is incredibly important. Also, to be the specific kind of person to do YC so early on should probably not be undersold either.
Agree with you again. It’s not just timing and location either. It’s also your Alma matter in both education and the firms you worked at. If you create a resume for the typically YC member, over 90% of them went to an Ivy League level school and worked at a FAANG, MAGMA or whatever firm has great mindshare or prestige
Being in the first batch wasn’t being in the right place at the right time. Look at all the failures in that batch.
YC succeeded in collecting all the companies that were going to be founded anyway, but were too inexperienced/naive to get real VC money. YC took a big cut of all of them for peanuts.
And they exploit those types of founders to this day. It’s a sweatshop wrapped up in a cult of the fruit-fly startup. The odds of success are low, but YC has a share every lottery ticket, so they come out ahead even though most everyone they support fails.
Altman realized what a great business that is, so he wisely pivoted away from his failed startup to exploit startups instead.
He is just the face. He gets paid for bringing attention and creating a forward momentum to the companies. He has access to highly placed individuals too and that’s more important than you building an actual product in our economy.
> Law 7: Get Others to Do the Work for You, but Always Take the Credit: Get others to do your work for you. Use their skill, time, and energy to further your ambitions while taking full credit. You’ll be admired for your efficiency.
Your jobs are to found the company and Be The Founder, just imagine how many more companies you could found if you had people to do the former. (See also: Elon Musk.)
Or is this the primary/hedge-fund part of the university rather than the professional sports organization or the vestigial academic departments?