Stanford Review: Is YC for Cowards?

Stanford Review: Is YC for Cowards?(stanfordreview.org)

49 points by hedgehog0 93 days ago | 21 comments

> Take the legend of Lake Lagunita Island. In the early 1990s, the Kappa Alpha fraternity decided to embark on an audacious plan. One fraternity brother rented a commercial bulldozer, another cleared sand from around the house, and a third charmed Stanford’s head groundskeeper to sneak the equipment across university land to reach the lake. A Cabo-themed island was constructed in the middle of the lake overnight. They later rigged a zipline from their roof to the sandbar.

This hits close for me. I have immense respect for the students who pulled this off. 2 years ago, a much (much) smaller stunt got me nearly fired at $FAANG, and all I could think was "where has the culture gone?"

jhatemyjob 93 days ago | |

You mean those people in the 90s? Sacramento, mostly. Lake Shasta goes hard.

trogdor 92 days ago | |

> 2 years ago, a much (much) smaller stunt got me nearly fired at $FAANG, and all I could think was "where has the culture gone?"

Okay, I’ll ask. Details?

ajkjk 93 days ago |

I get the impression this is not at all confined to Stanford and is really just everywhere in the country at the moment. Not sure the word 'coward' is right though. Feels more like... people are far more interested in being 'normal' than ever before. Maybe a side effect of there being so much economic opportunity in regular jobs and career trajectories that nobody considers riskier paths?

roxolotl 93 days ago | |

I honestly think it’s the opposite cause. The odds of success have gotten way narrower than they used to be. When kids at Stamford are afraid of failure that says to me that failure is way more likely for everyone. People are taking safe options because the unsafe ones can lead to bottomless pits that even Stanford grads are concerned they cannot climb out of.

jhatemyjob 91 days ago | | |

I agree they're right to be scared. The culture has regressed. When I was a teenager / in my early 20s I didn't really believe that was possible, and I thought the older folks were just bitter. But now that I'm older and have a firmer grasp of history (both from what I've read, and my own lived experience) it is so obviously the case that the cracks in this decadent society continue to grow bigger over time. Sadly younger generations will repeat the same error I did and waste their precious time taking poorly calculated risks, trusting the wrong people, and suffering the very real, sometimes permanent, consequences. It's a positive feedback loop that only gets more ruthless as the decades pass. Don't stick your neck out, it's not worth it, freedom of speech isn't real. The silver lining is, freedom of thought is real. There are ways to bend your speech to avoid persecution, and reach the people you want to reach. It's a skill that takes time to master. Some people have mastered it. They have been mentioned by name elsewhere in this thread.

pesus 93 days ago |

This is a very strange article. The lament about how Stanford students "said things that made people mad and didn’t immediately apologize", but the example linked is a newspaper story about students screaming homophobic slurs at people and telling them they hope they die of AIDS. This is the supposed "courage" Stanford students used to have?

sapphicsnail 93 days ago | |

Even weirder that the author complains about people being mean to a Federalist Society judge right next to that. This whole thing reads like an incoherent rant.

UncleMeat 93 days ago | | |

The Stanford Review has been a right-wing outlet for weirdo students going on rants for ages.

localbulldog57 87 days ago |

The article getting flagged should answer all one needs to know.

It's extremely concerning that the 'courage we've lost' refers to former Stanford students not being reprimanded for saying outwardly offensive things, but for someone who writes about cowards, it's a shame that he would rather write reactionary points about an arguably very courageous startup acceleration program than construct strong arguments. Part of the 3.7% of those accepted into Stanford, as he refers to, are sure, manicured, but many also simply just have their parents pay their way to get barely or unqualified students in. For context, Bassel is of the latter. Once he achieves something, anything, on his own merits, I will reconsider the material of the article.

phoronixrly 93 days ago |

Is that the Peter Thiel dinstancing himself from the homophobic student the author calls brave (referring to the newspaper article scan).

Imagine being such an asshole that even Peter Thiel condemns you...

Oh and it also makes it very obvious that the author and I apparently don't share an understanding of what brave and daring is...

georgeburdell 93 days ago |

Both YC and Stanford have had their admissions process cracked for some time by resume maximalists. Those institutions are largely free to design their admissions process, yet I haven’t really heard of any innovation going on in that space. For example, Stanford could use their admissions data, correlated with college grades and starting salary, to figure out what is the cut-off for “good enough” and allocate 20% of the slots to a random lottery of good-enoughs. It’s akin to temperature in tuning a model

koakuma-chan 93 days ago | |

Of course there is no innovation. This is the case for all of higher education where old farts are in charge.

pilingual 93 days ago |

Ironical that this article was flagged.

kjkjadksj 93 days ago |

YC acceptance rate is 1%? Sure beats the job market right now!

koakuma-chan 93 days ago | |

I don't think that's true. I've been getting so many interviews lately. You just need to apply early or read the job description, they sometimes include some sort of alternate way of applying (to avoid the bots). A lot of companies are now asking for personal projects, etc. So you need to have that.

hedgehog0 93 days ago | | |

> they sometimes include some sort of alternate way of applying (to avoid the bots)

This looks interesting, could you please elaborate? Do you mean like on social networks?

JojoFatsani 93 days ago | |

Skill issue

skmurphy 92 days ago |

Key quote: "People misunderstand what built Silicon Valley. It wasn’t just intelligence. It was the stamina to endure embarrassment, the courage to diverge from the 'ideal path,' and the sheer will to keep going."