Want to become a billionaire? Then you should try building one of the following seven companies, says Y-Combinator founder Paul Graham.
Y Combinator Managing Partner Paul Graham (blue jersey) and his Y Combinator statrup class of young tech entrepreneurs (Click Image To Enlarge)
Graham knows a thing or two about building companies. Y-Combinator is a startup school that helps young entrepreneurs get their companies rolling. He's seeing thousands of applications to Y-Combinator annually, so he knows what people are trying to build.
The following ideas are "frighteningly ambitious," and would take an extraordinary amount of work to make happen. However, Graham thinks it's possible.
Here are the ideas:
- A better search engine. Google was once an awesome search engine. It is now bloated up with all sorts of extra features. Graham says, "Google search results used to look like the output of a Unix utility. Now if I accidentally put the cursor in the wrong place, anything might happen." He suggests building something closer to that old-school, super simple version of Google.
- Make email better. Email is just a "todo" list says Graham. As it's built right now, it's a terrible todo list. We need a new protocol for email. "As a todo list protocol, the new protocol should give more power to the recipient than email does."
- Kill off universities. There has to be a better way to do education than what we've got right now.
- Deliver great TV programming through the internet. The content companies have been slow to embrace the Internet. So, some startup needs to figure out a way to deliver the drama that people love on TV through the Internet. Says Graham, "There are two ways delivery and payment could play out. Either some company like Netflix orApple will be the app store for entertainment, and you'll reach audiences through them. Or the would-be app stores will be too overreaching, or too technically inflexible, and companies will arise to supply payment and streaming a la carte to the producers of drama. If that's the way things play out, there will also be a need for such infrastructure companies."
- Be the next Steve Jobs. Graham believes Apple is toast without Steve Jobs. As a result, there's an opportunity for a visionary to come up with an idea for a new hardware company like Apple.
- Re-invent Moore's law. This one is a little complicated. Graham says Intel can't deliver faster CPUs, just more CPUs. "It would be great if a startup could give us something of the old Moore's Law back, by writing software that could make a large number of CPUs look to the developer like one very fast CPU."
- Improve medical diagnosis. In 50-100 years, Graham thinks people will consider our current methods for diagnosing serious health conditions "barbaric." There has to be a better way to figure out if we have cancer, or if our arteries are being clogged up.
For a more complete look at Graham's ideas, as well as his tactical advice on how to make it happen
COMMENTARY: I am really disappointed that Y Combinator's Paul Graham gave this sort of advice to young technology entrepreneurs wanting to be Billionaires. First, nobody is every going to build a better search engine than Google. Second, email doesn't need to be fixed, its those spammers. Third, great TV programming is already being delivered over the Internet--tons of it. Fourth, there is never going to be a another Steve Jobs thanks to some help from NASA and E.T.
Graham's idea to "kill off universities" smells like what I call the "dumbingdown" of America's educational system--the Illuminati's master plan to order increase the pool of low-wage workers so that big corporations can hire them below minimum wage so they can compete against the low wages in China. If you add this to their plan to eliminate government regulation, this lays the groundwork for legal sweat shops right here in America, all for the benefit of the one percenters. Sorry, Paul, but I smelled you out.
I was hoping to see some truly inspirational advice from Paul, like 1) disrupting the health care industry to dramatically reduce costs and providng truly affordable healthcare insurance to everyone, 2) develop breakthrough green technology to completely eliminate the internal combustion engine and man's reliance on fossil fuels, or 3) make the internet truly free as it was originally intended. Paul, I am really disappointed in you.
For the record, I have had at least half a dozen Y Combinator tech graduates approach me for venture capital over the years. I found them interesting but unfundable because all of them were internet startups that depended too heavily on the ad-supported revenue model which I believe is deeply flawed. If you've been reading my bosts posts, you know by now how I feel about the ad-supported revenue model and social network's in particular.
The success rate Paul has had is actually lower than average success rate of small business startups (with more than one employee) Everyone always quotes a 10% success rate after 1 or 2 years. That is, as Paul suspects, a myth. True success rate is around 66%. Y-combinator's success rate was 50%
66% OF SMALL BUSINESS STARTUPS LAST 2 YEARS http://www.smallbiztrends.com/2005/07/business-failure-rates-highest-in.html
Here's X Economy's estimate of Y Combinator's failure rate:
Click Image To Enlarge
I don't know who is right or wrong, or how you define failure, but for me this means a successful exit returning at least a 500% ROI fter five years.
Courtesy of an article dated March 11, 2012 appearing in Business Insider
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