I think that's the risk-reward trade-off. At the most elite levels, it'll all be about survivor bias. So even if that technique only works some of the time, those that it works on will have a better chance of becoming elite.
>BS. If that was the case, then YC would be a non-profit and they would accept everyone.
I could see the argument for the first (non-profit) but not the second (accept everyone). Filtering down to a set of folks that they think they'd be able to most effectively help would make a lot of sense regardless of reason for doing.
There's probably some bias here where no parent is going to want to admit that they've treated their kids differently (likely unintentionally). Not to say that there isn't useful insight here anyway.
Ironclad | Multiple positions | San Francisco | Full-time Onsite | https://ironcladapp.com/ At Ironclad, we're on a mission to empower legal teams to do great things for their organizations. We're building software that takes the pain out of administrative work, freeing legal teams to focus on legal work and drive business strategy. We are hiring for positions across the company in sales, marketing, design, and engineering. See more details and apply https://ironcladapp.com/careers
Ironclad | Multiple positions | San Francisco | Full-time Onsite | https://ironcladapp.com/ At Ironclad, we're on a mission to empower legal teams to do great things for their organizations. We're building software that takes the pain out of administrative work, freeing legal teams to focus on legal work and drive business strategy. We are hiring for positions across the company in sales, marketing, design, and engineering. See more details and apply https://ironcladapp.com/careers
A few specific positions here:
To be fair, this is true of all departments and all people. Sales can't be successful if engineering and product don't build a good product with product market fit.
The idea of going somewhere where the biggest blockers to success are under your control makes a lot of sense if you have confidence in your ability to execute.
The product matters little in some cases. Marketing can succeed with vaporware. Sales can succeed without an actual working product as long as they focus on the decision maker and have vender lockin. HR, c.level execs don't need a working product just a concept.
Product development rarely provides features that can be self fueling for marketing/sales. Brands rarely need killer product features they need a targeted story.
It is much easier to have a successful company without a product than it is to have a successful company that trys to use product features as a marketing department.
That's a great point. I should probably clarify a bit.
I was really talking about how frustrating the proximity of that failure I could not control was. In a larger or more stable organization, when a different department is failing of struggling, you can at least have confidence in the future. That eventually those people will either improve or move on to something that might be more appropriate for them. Or possibly be replaced with people that are better suited for the task at hand, and things will get back on track.
When I was involved in high stress early companies, where founders and early sales employees are often unlikely to be removed, it can be a especially difficult to deal with emotionally. At some point you are forced to chose between sinking with a ship you are not permitted to save, or bail on something you've poured so much work into.
Ironclad | Multiple positions | San Francisco | Full-time Onsite | https://ironcladapp.com/ At Ironclad, we're on a mission to empower legal teams to do great things for their organizations. We're building software that takes the pain out of administrative work, freeing legal teams to focus on legal work and drive business strategy. We are hiring for positions across the company in sales, marketing, design, and engineering.
See more details and apply https://ironcladapp.com/careers
