Ask PG: Have you ever funded startups that eventually compete with each other?

1 points by thomasd 12 years ago | 2 comments

I'm sure you've seen almost every combination and permutation of startup ideas there is out there, and given the large number of YC funded companies, I wouldn't be surprise if some of those companies happen to pivot to similar ideas and markets.

Do you interfere in such cases? How do you deal with that?

brackin 12 years ago |

Stripe, Balanced and WePay are all moving in the same direction. Also WePay and Crowdtilt were doing similar things at the start but WePay seems to be focused on their API.

thomasd 12 years ago | |

Interesting. How would communicating and offering advice to each competing portfolio companies be, with YC having privileged knowledge for all of them.

In a scenario where one company might book an office hour to talk about competition from another competing YC company, I wonder how PG manage what information to release, what advice to give.