I'm curious, what's the next step after the interview? If they do an interview in a no visa location and you get in, wouldn't you still need to get a visa to join the program?
Or are you saying that once you get in then getting the visa is worth the time, but it isn't worth it just for the interview?
There is a shorter period to prepare for a YC interview than to get into the program after passing the YC interview.
Once you get into YC, you can take your time and it is easier to make a case at the embassy.
First of all, the US visa spaces are fully booked. The next open interview slots are somewhere in April so instead of founders trying to prepare for their YC interview, they are spending an enormous amount of time trying to get an earlier slot for a US visa interview.
After managing to get a slot it is another many days of preparing and hoping not to be rejected.
It costs at least $200 per interview in a country where the minimum wage is hoping to be increased to $80/month later this year.
All this is happening as their contemporaries from US and Europe only have to book a flight in 5 mins and return back to preparing for their YC interview and building their startup.
Generally speaking getting a visa after you are accepted is pretty easy. Your visit has structure, a clear deadline, and nay number of student/internship/etc visas may apply.
Visas for “I just wanna go to USA for a meeting” are harder if you aren’t from a visa waiver country.
(funnilly if you are from visa waiver land, getting visa after acceptance is more work than for the interview because you actually need one)
It might be much more difficult to a get visa for an interview than for the program in some parts of the world, because people are much likely to stay illegally if they are rejected.
FWIW, not one of over >30 people interviewed and rejected from Nigeria stayed back in the US illegally. That includes myself and my co founder who were the first Nigeria based founders to get an interview in 2014.
After all, there is a business to be built back home.
I didn't mean Nigerians or YC program in particular, but the general idea, that visa applications from different countries might be treated differently. Therefore, the idea of interviews in a "no visa required location" makes a perfect sense to me.
This is something we've been searching for solutions to, and was part of our thinking in trying this out. We'll be releasing new locations as we finalize them - stay tuned.
I'd recommend Qatar. Qatari government would probably be willing to cover costs/admin and potentially deep discounts on QR flights. You might even be able to do it all airside at Doha Airport, otherwise they'd do hotel + meeting rooms.
That’s an excellent point (and a pretty cool website). Looks like there are direct (and cheap!) flights to Addis Ababa from London, Shanghai, and Mumbai. And visa-free or visa-on-arrival for almost everyone. It’s not super-accessible from North America, but I don’t think that’s the issue here.
If YC is serious about finding the next wave of Unicorns, they should really be doing a lot more to accommodate Indian and African founders.
I bet the comments would have be less sceptical if it was about an 11 year old Nigerian cyber fraudster.
Sorry lads, positive stuff comes out from my country from time to time. Just don't get too upset when it makes Hackernews.
Personally, I'd like to see comments on how such a young and extraordinary talent from a very humble background (even by Nigerian standards) can develop to become a much more rounded artist.
I'm not interested in prejudiced minds questioning the legitimacy of my young and talented compatriot.
This is a good question. If you need to be evacuated to get medical treatment you will be evacuated to the nearest hospital that is qualified to provide the medically necessary treatment.
I had a similar issue a long time ago. I was able to circumvent the roadblock by signing up on a different device, and then signing in on the original device.
I and a friend signed up for signal a few days ago. I received verification code after few minutes, he received it on next day. Smells like underpowered server to me.
Would have been more helpful if specifics were mentioned. E.g what Remittance service was used to pay with your US bank account? What network of telco? What did you use to build your app. PWA?
That way people that are well versed with Uganda can give feedback.
I never thought of the idea of using PIN terminology rather than password. I'll have that in mind.
I'm quite surprised that 100GB is $450. Uganda is known to have better rates. MTN is less than half of that [1]
Have you considered how this will impact people who are running a business with 50+ employees 10000km and 9hours time zones away from the Bay Area?
As it is, it's definitely optimized for US companies who can afford to fly in for the weekly dinners without allowing their companies suffer from their 3 month absence.
YC is US centric, and more specifically SV centric. If you are not in a position to benefit from this that will no doubt skew the situation even further away from a level playing field but that is how the rest of the world feels anyway. All attempts to duplicate Silicon Valley to date have failed.
It sounds like you're upset about capital inequality around the world, which is fair. YC abstaining from taking advantage of such knowledge concentration for ideological reasons, though, would not help global inequality. All that would happen is that YC would be usurped by another organization that isn't afraid of such issues. Problems like income and capital inequality are definitely growing issues in our country and world, but they probably won't be solved by individual companies within a capitalistic society.
There's nothing on a Snapchat profile really to share, as it should be. Stories are for friends, not public consumption. What content is actually needed to be seen outside of Snapchat?
If you want to post at a more public and linkable level, there are many other services and nothing stopping you. That feature would do nothing for the current users of Snapchat and would really be against the purpose and spirit of the format. As mentioned, they would lose millions of users over it I am sure.
Will this transparency be available to the Russians? Saudi Arabians? Egyptians? Nigerians? Brits? French? Iranians?
Even though all nations interfere in everyone's business,the undisputed number one interferer in others countries business is the United States government.
Anything short of of making these tools available to everyone would position Facebook as an agent/agency of the US Government.
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As an aside, the Russia brouhaha is a ridiculous sideshow led by people who are yet to come to terms of defeat. If a Less than a million dollars of Facebook ads shown to a few thousand people can determine who becomes president in the US, then there is a much bigger problem.
>If a Less than a million dollars of Facebook ads shown to a few thousand people can determine who becomes president in the US, then there is a much bigger problem.
Do we know that that’s all that happened? Or is this just the tip of the ice berg.
>Anything short of of making these tools available to everyone would position Facebook as an agent/agency of the US Government.
Facebook is an American company. So is Apple and Google. Even if they are not legally bound to serve the interests of the country, their employees are overwhelmingly American and probably patriotic and so we have to expect that when push comes to shove the interests of the US will come first.
>"Facebook is an American company. So is Apple and Google. Even if they are not legally bound to serve the interests of the country, their employees are overwhelmingly American and probably patriotic and so we have to expect that when push comes to shove the interests of the US will come first."
85% of Facebook users are outside the United States. Taking the position of "when push comes to shove, we work for the US government" is probably not the best way to be seen.
There is nothing stopping them to be equally transparent for everyone while keeping the laws of every jurisdiction in which they operate.
It isn't even "US government". It is a part of US government that is gripped by paranoia-of-the-day and wants to grab powers Constitution does not give then, because paranoia is excellent grounds for power-grabbing.
Facebook has over 2 billion users. If they want to stay relevant in the global scheme would be taking a risk by giving preferential treatment to American authorities. Especially given Germany's power in the EU and the rising European hostility towards digital platforms.
There's a lot of folks to advertise to on this side of the pond, and we're having elections to ;)
The confusion, backpedaling, retractions, straw grasping and general abuse of the concept of computer security is extremely troubling. This is clearly an example of such nonsense. I'm not a huge fan of FB, but can you imagine being put in this position? 'Russia hacked the election! You WILL do something about this RIGHT?' Probably a new and unique position for Zuckerberg.
You're sounding as if Facebook were a global site and not just American company caring only about American controversy-of-the-day...
> If a Less than a million dollars of Facebook ads shown to a few thousand people can determine who becomes president in the US, then there is a much bigger problem.
"If". It is obviously not the case, but it's much easier to scream "Russians stole our presidency" than own up to actual mistakes made. Especially if one of the mistakes would sound like "selecting me as a candidate"...
Any plans to have one in a "no visa required" location for people from other parts?
The struggle and stress attending YC interviews puts on Nigerian founders is - to put it mildly, very unfair.
Rwanda, Ethiopia and Kenya are 2 countries with visa on arrival for everyone and a great air network.[1]
[1] https://www.passportindex.org/byWelcomingRank.php