I have been at times vocal in opposition to the type of companies that YC has funded in the past few batches, as the possibility of them improving life quality for people that actually need the improvement seemed quite small, largely based on a prospect of trickle down technology, which turns out to be as likely as trickle down economics, in that it rarely trickles out of San Francisco. Not saying those start-ups were easy, or not worth doing, as doing any start-up is by nature incredibly hard, and following your passion is always worth doing. But, YC's prominent role seemed ideal for doing something more, and it just didn't come.
I'll be equally vocal in support now. Watsi was the first sign of light, Immunity Project the second. This is what needs support, what needs money and hype. Realistically it won't get as much money as it needs, but with someone like YC pushing nonprofits like this, it's a huge step in the right direction. I can't wait to see the other nonprofits.
I know I sound like a bitter communist (is there any other kind?), but this really feels like an island of reason in the bubbly ocean of SF. Good luck to this batch.
Out of curiosity, how do you approach non-profits from an investment point of view? Is there some equivalent to equity? Is the goal to break even, or are you essentially just providing a large initial donation?
Really cool to see yc taking things in this direction.
Maybe I'm blind or searchiotic but cliffs on what the other 6 are doing?
I think YC is one of the few places that could actually disrupt the academic publishing and reputation-bargaining field so I'm hoping some nonprofit will tackle this eventually.
Incidentally, Scribd started out as a way to disrupt academic publishing. To do it they wrote a lot of stuff for handling PDFs, and as often happens in startups that became the tail that wagged the dog.
Looks pretty cool. Having lived in Africa for a bit I like this idea (and hope they can get around certain issues). Just created an account and completed a loan request by one of the borrowers (might be the first 0% loan I have ever given outside of my family) :)
