Oh, and Santa doesn't exist.

If a kid asks "Is there a Santa?" you can tell him "No" and feel not-so-bad. But if he says "When will Santa come?", if your response is "Don't be silly, Santa doesn't exist," then you're being a jerk.

Don't be silly, YCombinator doesn't exist.

:O

Good luck, btw!

I have no clue, to be honest. I don't know half of the YC companies that exist.

Realistic is fine, but he's not saying "Do you think I have a chance?", he's saying "When will we hear back?" It's rude to answer a question that hasn't been asked.

We did once fund a pair of founders neither of whom were hackers. One of them had majored in physics in college though.

The auctomatic guys had studied PPE and Law I think. It wasn't till at or after YC that they merged with a hacker. Or maybe I get the details wrong...

I think you're right, Major. But those two had founded and worked on an eBay clone for students prior to that.

Does physics majoring help start-ups? Were they a physics-central startup? Or is it just proof of dedication, similar to how a math major would be?

Anyone who understands math will at least get what the issues are in hacking, even if they don't understand random details. They won't panic at the sight of formal notation.

physics is a pretty common major to lead to internet/tech startups, I know quite a few guys that made that transition.

Results?

I believe he's talking about Octopart. They were doing well the last time I checked.

No, Auctomatic. The Octoparts were physics grad students, but they could hack.

Auctopart, Octomatic, who can keep these things straight?

;-)

Yep this was Kulveer and Harjeet Taggar from Auctomatic, as far as I know they only met up with their hackers (Patrick and John Collison) once at Y Combinator. And Auctomatic was an extremely successful investment, I doubt we've seen the last of those guys.