Introduction at Startup School NY 2014

Key Takeaways

hi everybody you all realize this is the first startup School here in The Amazing one-of-a-kind unparalleled New York City it's exciting yes this is the city that made me I'm from Brooklyn anyone from Brooklyn here there's some I expected that lots of good Brooklyn noise Annie anyone here from the Bronx Bronx representing that's good loud and proud how about Queens woo juk has been going to work Queen's Tech showed up and how about Staten Island that's what I yeah you know Noble effort probably a few of you from Manhattan as well right you had the easiest nice were those booze is that Brooklyn boo and I we know we know Brooklyn's the best burrow we don't need to rub it in their faces I'm gonna get in trouble there's a bunch of people here though who aren't even from New York City you've traveled quite a ways to be here right Make some noise for yourselves yes thank you thank you for coming I hope you have a wonderful time here in New York as you can see it's another beautiful summer day in New York City very mild temperate you know I I love it here though I really do and the first startup school this is some yator history that was up in Boston and I was lucky enough to participate in it uh my my co-founder and I Steve Huffman I'm Alexis uh my co-founder and I Steve started Reddit and we were at the very first startup school and trust me YC was just begging people to come and show up this was such a new thing this new idea back in ' 05 about helping you know early stage Founders just get insight from their peers from people who are doing it and have done it in a way that was approachable in a way that was helpful and in a room full of people who are all actually doing great stuff right we don't want to have scenesters we don't want to have people who are just sort of talking about doing startups we want to be with people who are doing it and so know that you're in a really special audience right now right everyone around you look to your left to your right they all the breaks these are all people doing cool stuff so please take advantage of the discussions you'll have here during the intermissions just as much as you'll enjoy the talks that you'll hear on stage uh so this is exciting and I know I know a lot of you have decided to come out in spite of the fact the World Cup is going on right now which is impress I wonder about your priorities but clearly you're the right kind of Founders and just so you know I think Chile is still up on Spain one Z don't know how you guys feel about that b upsets I'm very Happ Chileans here uh but we'll see what happens uh but but look I just wanted to point out one of the thing you know we're also lucky enough to have I think it's there are now 28 ycombinator companies that are based here in New York and this is kind of exciting we got companies Let's see we got Amicus hacker school one month rails vable rent hop weave rocket trip and I think ton is here from pars and scribs these are all members of the YC family who spent three months out in the valley right they worked on their companies they did YC they took advantage of all the sort of Silicon Valley Network and then they came back here to grow their companies and that is awesome because obviously our food is better because obviously the quality of life here is better and because obviously this is one of the greatest cities in the world and so I'm happy you guys are all here I'm so happy startup school is here and I hope the rest of this afternoon is as valuable and entertaining for you all as I know it will be for me and so you know I I had one other thing that I wanted to mention uh and this is something make sure I got my notes here yeah this is something that I cannot stress enough right I've just gotten done an 80 University tour across the country all right I got to visit 80 universities and well and Canada are hat to the north yes Canada and I've seen firsthand the fact that entrepreneurship is alive and well and students are taking it upon themselves to just start building and start learning and start coding and this is crazy to me because nine years ago I would have killed for any ounce of this kind of energy back when I was just an undergrad at UVA getting Reddit started and I can assure you some people here in this audience are going to go on to do amazing world changing things so be nice to everyone uh but also take full advantage of this moment we are so lucky to be talking about this stuff right now we are so lucky to be sitting in a nice air conditioned Auditorium talking about these amazing opportunities we have because of the new economy because of technology and because if you want to change the world you know in the internet age you don't need to open a factory you just need to open a laptop right that's a really big deal and we're really lucky to be here taking advantage of it