This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz
by Christopher Cyll.
Original Post: Startup School in Sunny CA
Feed Title: Topher Cyll
Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/cyll
Feed Description: I'm not too worried about it. Ruby and programming languages.
Some background. My friend Adam was selected as one of this year's
Y-Combinator Winter Founders. For the past few months he and his
partner Josh have been building a startup company named "Tsumobi."
Thanks to Adam, I flew out this past weekend to attend Y-Combinator's
Startup School. All in all, it was a totally unique experience.
(The auditorium was packed.)
The speakers were really good. Almost everyone had some useful
insight. My favorites were Mitch Kapor (founder of Lotus, and no
slouch since then either) and Greg McAdoo Partner (of Sequoia
Capita). And as I understand, Paul Graham's presentation was something of
a novelty because he used slides.
The audience was a very cool collection of geeks. Unfortunately, there
were a few individuals that would mob each speaker as he or she tried to
leave the stage. It wasn't clear to me if they were looking for
investors or new best friends, but some of the speakers got a little
wild eyed trying to escape.
(Thankfully RoboCop was there to escort the speakers off the premise.)
That said, I meet some really sharp other attendees, including several
folks I'd previously only met electronically. I even ran into my
friend Davy who was down from Washington for the weekend.
(Trendy Nightclub or Geek Social?)
I managed to pick up a sore throat on the plane and by Saturday night
I was so exhausted that I feel asleep on the couch in the middle of a
networking event. Not my finest moment. But it was definitely worth it.
(Heck of a view looking down from the hills toward the city.)
Mountain View itself was kind of awful, but the warm breezes of
California were amazing. You know, I'm not sure if I'll end up with my
own startup company at some point, but today it actually feels doable.
I'd say that's the real takeaway from Startup School.
Previous Topic
