Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas
April 2005This summer, as an experiment, some friends and I are giving seed funding to a bunch of new startups. It's an experiment because we're prepared to fund younger founders than most investors would. That's why we're doing it during the summer—so even college students can participate.We know from Google and Yahoo that grad students can start successful startups.
- ▪April 2005This summer, as an experiment, some friends and I are giving seed funding to a bunch of new startups.
- ▪It's an experiment because we're prepared to fund younger founders than most investors would.
- ▪That's why we're doing it during the summer—so even college students can participate.We know from Google and Yahoo that grad students can start successful startups.
Paul Graham — Essays files mainly under blogs. We currently carry 219 of its stories.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Want to start a startup? Get funded by Y Combinator. April 2005This summer, as an experiment, some friends and I are giving seed funding to a bunch of new startups. It's an experiment because we're prepared to fund younger founders than most investors would. That's why we're doing it during the summer—so even college students can participate.We know from Google and Yahoo that grad students can start successful startups. And we know from experience that some undergrads are as capable as most grad students. The accepted age for startup founders has been creeping downward. We're trying to find the lower bound. The deadline has now passed, and we're sifting through 227 applications. We expected to divide them into two categories, promising and unpromising.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Paul Graham — Essays.