The speaker attended Y Combinator Startup School in San Francisco with speakers like Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk. The real value wasn't the talks but the networking at hackathons and after-parties. RSVP early, pick sessions that matter to you, introduce yourself to people, and show up fully.
Y Combinator Startup School is the most stacked startup event in San Francisco. It's happening for the second time ever in 6 days. I went last year for their first event. Literally changed my career trajectory. So if you're going for the first time this year, I wanted to share what my experience was like. Hopefully you can make the most out of it. Obviously the speakers are the highlight. You get Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, and some of the most influential people in Silicon Valley. Last year I think Sam Altman was the first talk after Gary Tan. I'm pretty sure we woke up at 5:30. When we got there, there were already about 300 people in line. We still managed to get a pretty good seat. It was really cool to see Sam Altman in person, especially with Elon Musk on the same day. It was also really cool to hear from Chelsea Finn, John Jumper, and a bunch of other research scientists other than just the CEOs or the corporate executives. I learned a lot from the talks, but for me, the most memorable part of the event was meeting new people in hackathons and after parties. You get to RSVP to some of the events beforehand, but there were also some last-minute things. You'll probably meet people who are going to another thing that you didn't hear about. Oh my gosh, it's like storming outside. Best part was living with people who were in the startup system. So many kids from Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Cambridge. I also saw some pretty cool tech influencers, but I was a little shy to reach out. Definitely helpful to be extroverted, introduce yourself to people. I was quite disoriented even though I did have friends to go with. I didn't know that much about startups at this point last year. I was even surprised that I got in because it was apparently very selective the first time around. Talking to the people there, especially some of the founders at YC, encouraged me to go into startups. If you know anything about San Francisco, you could probably expect what the crowd would be like there. Very male-dominated, a lot of very technical people. I felt non-technical even though I am a computer science major. I don't think there's any point of having imposter syndrome. It's just a really fun event to get to know people. You don't need to go to every single event. Go to the ones that interest you. Just fully immerse yourself in the experience. Post on LinkedIn, record everything. That's it.
