Y Combinator CEO AMA: “I Got Kicked Out of Yale Then Sold My Startup for $1B”
In this 2018 acquisition retrospective, @jkuria reflects on the journey of bootstrapping and successfully selling their business. The deal highlights significant financial milestones ($1B).
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Unsolicited buyer inquiries versus running a deliberate auction process require very different negotiation leverage.
Bootstrapping for years without external capital provides extreme freedom, but exits are often triggered by energy depletion as much as financial gain.
Retaining ownership of code and operations creates pride, but transitioning to an acquirer requires letting go of absolute autonomy.
Community Debate Themes:
Hacker News peers debated transaction structures (cash vs earnout), founder tax strategies, and life after liquidating a long-term indie asset.
CATEGORY Startup Exits →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 12 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 3 comments
I've always wondered how its possible to fund something like Twitch from the outset. Did they have a lot of capital at the beginning? I would think the costs of storage and servers to support a bunch of high quality streaming video would be huge. Does anyone have insight into this? Is it feasible for someone with little capital to do something like this? Just curious how streaming sites stay alive before they monetize.
I truly admire the guts it must have taken to walk away from such a derailment, and not only keep going, but thriving. That’s one view of what exceptional looks like, to me.
Didn't Dick Cheney also get kicked out of Yale?