Ask HN: Is it me, or are more and more YC companies open source?

dkindler · 2023-08-14T12:21:00.000Z

I've noticed that many of the startups in the YC S23 batch are open source. Is that correct? If so, why has this become a trend?

version_five 2 years ago |

* marketing term

* bait and switch

* hold over from zero interest rates - get users and worry later about monetization

* emerging legit business models that use open core

freedomben 2 years ago | |

Exactly. Also, nowadays being "open source" is one of the only ways to gain technical-minded customers. The level of skepticism against closed-source things is high (and for good reasons, between vendor lock-in, guaranteed future enshittification which means you want a fork option, etc). Personally, I won't even consider adopting something that isn't open source anymore unless it's a product that I (or my company) really needs, and even then I take steps to avoid hard dependence.

RadiozRadioz 2 years ago | | |

In the HN bubble maybe. The majority of people in tech do not care at all. For every one of us, there are 10 of them using SQLServer/Oracle/Windows/... without the slightest clue about how the licensing works.

tracerbulletx 2 years ago | | |

A lot of these startups have founders from inside that bubble, which means their initial sales network and the market they know is that bubble. Which probably explains why they see it as a good idea.

throwaway154 2 years ago | | |

I would have said they also have procurement departments that did have a clue so one wasn't needed, but now it's more likely procurement has been outsourced to Accenture who do it for highest fee, paying for the convincing PPTs and golf, and lowest Accenture branded service center cost, paying $900/month fully loaded average across the team - the struggling 'knowledge workers' that know neither your company nor its specific needs.

whyagaintango 2 years ago | | |

Most do SaaS or dynamodb or lambda type app engine. Once it grows significantly then administration will need oracle etc. But hey these can be done by external contractors

freedomben 2 years ago | | |

Great point, and a great reminder.

whyagaintango 2 years ago | |

And it gives the feeling anytime one can self/diy. Like kubernetes. Most can't aa it is too complex(and unnecessary) but gives a safety feeling.

simple-thoughts 2 years ago |

No idea. Open source seems to come and go in waves. It has pros and cons as a business model. Personally I prefer working on open source because my GitHub becomes my resume, whereas in closed source interviews are needed to determine basic skills.

nativeit 2 years ago |

I have zero empirical data to back it up but as a freelance I.T. consultant, my gut instinct is that part of the trend (at least within the realm of I.T. infrastructure/security/management that I am most familiar with) has to do with increasing development of derivatives from other OSS projects, which generally involves adoption of the parent project’s license, in whole or in part, so there’s a function of OSS spawning more OSS.

It could be an interesting data analysis project to work out some mechanism for establishing OSS “family trees”.

mrklol 2 years ago |

There are also more and more people getting paid for doing open source work.

thrown1212 2 years ago |

It’s a cheap, viable, vetted user acquisition model. For most startups it’s about the best CAC you can get without investing in channel development. Close enough to none of them are OSI open source, it’s all source available or open core, laying the cynicism bare.

muzani 2 years ago |

There's a trending model where they give away the magic for free and make money off services built around it. Often those services can be things like backup and monitoring that contain the lock in.

ausudhz 2 years ago | |

"trending" suse and red hat have been doing it for decades. Canonical too, among many others

spacebanana7 2 years ago |

With the ability to get developer attention through HN and the startup ecosystem, YC has a competitive advantage in the open source business.

pyb 2 years ago |

A few of these startups are copycats of successful tools. Open source helps them be a 'virtuous' copycat.

ashishbijlani 2 years ago |

This is something we have noticed as well in our supply-chain security analysis of Github repos. It could be "build it in the open" philosophy as well that offers complete transparency and security audibility.

vince_liu 2 years ago |

* cheap CAC * high customer engagement

both leads to high probability of finding PMF

jqpabc123 2 years ago |

Free labor.

quickthrower2 2 years ago | |

You were downvoted but there is some truth to this.