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钛媒体注：本文来自于微信公众号Yourseeker（ID：yourseeker2018），作者为曾翔，钛媒体经授权发布。
titanium media note: from the Twitter public symbol Yourseeker (ID:yourseeker2018), which was published under the authority of the Shantun media.
今年是 Y Combinator 成立的第 15 年。
This is the 15th year Y Combinator was founded.
自 2014 年 Paul Graham 卸任 YC 总裁后，他和 YC 就逐渐淡出大家的视野。也难怪，近些年各种巨无霸式并购 case 和屡获巨额融资的独角兽公司，已经牢牢锁住所有人的目光。
Since the resignation of Paul Graham as president of YC in 2014, he and YC have gradually faded away from everyone's sight. No wonder, in recent years, the giant no-many mergers and acquisitions of case and the hugely financed Licorne companies have locked everyone's eyes away.
再加上随之而来、对热点极度敏感的媒体掘地三尺式报道，即便一个人物曾经再辉煌，也会被慢慢淡忘。
In addition to the ensuing three-foot media coverage, which is extremely sensitive to hot spots, a person is slowly forgotten even if he is once more brilliant.
哪怕他是曾经的硅谷创投教父。
Even if he was once the father of Silicon Valley.
YC 的起源有些奇妙。2005 年，Paul Graham 给哈佛本科生做了场演讲。他在现场说：创业者选天使投资人，得选那种有成功创业经验的投资人才行。然后，大家直勾勾地盯住了他。再然后就有了 YC。
In 2005, Paul Graham gave a speech to Harvard undergraduates. He said on the scene, "The entrepreneur chooses an angel investor, he has to choose an investor with a successful entrepreneurial experience." Then, you keep an eye on him. Then you have YC. And then YC. And nbsp;
有人说，Paul Graham 是注定要被写进历史的人物。他和他创建的 YC 大大促进了 2000 年泡沫破灭后湾区乃至全世界的科技创新。
It was said that Paul Graham was destined to be written into history. He and his creation of YC contributed significantly to technological innovation in the Gulf region, and in the world as a whole, in the wake of the collapse of the bubble in 2000.
而且重点是，他不只亲身参与投资、孵化业务，也在持续不断写文章，试图在更广维度上影响更多的人。
And the point is that
关于创业、投资的话题，以 Paul Graham 的观点为讨论起点的文章已经有太多。但他其实涉猎极广。我印象很深的是，他曾趁闲暇之余游历了全世界不少历史、经济、文化名城，还据此写下一篇非常好玩的文章，Cities and Ambition。
There have been too many articles about entrepreneurship and investment, starting with Paul Graham’s point of view. But he's got a lot to do with it. I'm impressed that he spent his leisure time in a number of historical, economic, cultural cities around the world and wrote a very interesting article about it, Cities and Ambtion.
有人把它译为，市井雄心。
Someone translated it into the city's ambition.
再说回 YC 本身。Naval 曾经对 YC 有个判断，他认为 YC 和传统高等教育中的大学、研究生院相比有以下几个区别：
Again, the YC itself. Navar used to judge YC by saying that YC has the following differences between universities and graduate schools in traditional higher education: & nbsp;
第一，你付学费给大学/研究生院，但 YC 付钱给你、支持你做事；
First, you pay college/graduate fees, but YC pays you to support you;
第二，从学校毕业后你需要找一份工作，但在 YC，你为别人创造工作岗位；
Secondly, you need a job after graduation from school, but in YC, you create jobs for others;
第三，你在学校主要做重复性工作，但在 YC，他们鼓励你有自己的原创“作品”；
Third, you do mainly repetitive work in schools, but in YC, they encourage you to have your own original & ldquao; work & rdquao;
第四，在学校你会被“随便的人”随便评价，而在 YC，你会得到真实世界的反馈。
And fourthly, you're going to be & & & & & & & & & & & & & at school; & & & & & & & & & & & &, &, and you're going to get feedback from the real world in YC.
相对感性的事讲完了，下面我们理性地从数据角度来讲讲，这十几年来，YC 到底给外界留下了什么“宝藏”。
So we're done with the relative senses, and then, rationally speaking from the data point of view, what has YC left the outside world for more than a decade and a half? & ldquao; treasure & rdquao;
2016 年中，YC 曾委托数据分析公司对其历年所有申请项目的资料做了研究，主要借由其中的关键词来尝试复盘技术发展、公司兴衰和时代变迁。
In mid-2016, YC commissioned the Data Analysis Corporation to study all of its applications for projects in previous years, mainly using key words to try to replicate technological developments, company growth and change.
这里的背景知识是，YC 申请季每年有两次，一次在冬季，一次在春季。几乎所有你能想到的和想象不到的脑洞，都会有人这里试图把它付诸实践。比如 2011 年就有人钟情于比特币。
The background here is that the YC application season is twice a year, once in the winter, once in the spring. Almost all of the brain holes you can think of and can't imagine are here where people try to put it into practice. For example, in 2011 people fell in love with Bitcoin.
而这次的内部研究，调用了过万份项目数据，也是 YC 历史上首次对外公开 2008 到 2016 这 8 年间的项目数据。
And this in-house study used thousands of project data, the first time in the history of YC to be publicly available for the eight-year period 2008-2016.
第一个研究问题是，YC 曾问这些申请项目的创始人，“谁是你的竞争对手？你最害怕的是谁？“
The first question for 一个稍微反常识的信息是，那些年里把 Twitter 当作假想敌的远多于微软。但要注意，时至今日二者市值相差 48 倍（13000：266）。 & nbsp; a slightly degenerative message is that Twitter was used as a hypothetical enemy far more than Microsoft in those years. Note that the market value of the two is 48 times different today (13000:266). 至于为什么，Paul Graham 于 2007 年给过答案——http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html，大意是说微软已死，如今看来又有新的感叹。 As to why, Paul Graham gave answers in 2007 — — http://www.paulgraham.com/microsof.html to the effect that Microsoft is dead and now looks new. 再看一张图，根据数量算，当年还是创业公司体量的 Uber 和 Airbnb，其实树敌已经不少，超过了谷歌的一半。（注意，下图是有存在竞争关系的创业公司，上图则是存在竞争关系的大公司） If you look at one more picture, the number of Uber and Airbnb start-ups in that year is already more than half the size of Google. (Note that the figure below is for start-ups with competitive relationships, and the figure above is for large companies with competitive relationships.) 由此可见，Uber、Airbnb 能成长到如今体量，一路艰难险阻也是外人不知道的。 So, Uber, Airbnb can grow up to today's levels, and it's hard and hard to stop, and people don't know it. 第二个问题和趋势相关。当 YC 询问创业公司你们想要发力什么渠道时，大家的回答反映了从网站到 App 的热度转变。 The second question from Strong is related to trends. When YC asks what channels the start-up company wants you to be active, the answer reflects the heat shift from the website to App. 而这恰好是互联网向移动互联网切换的体现。 And that happens to be the way the Internet switches to mobile Internet. 有一点值得注意，哪怕到了 2016 年，在这些申请 YC 的创业项目创始人来看，App 超越网站的趋势依然不明显。 It is interesting to note that, even in 2016, the trend for App to go beyond the web site was not clear, according to the founders of these YC-applications. 第三个问题，关于商业变现，依靠广告和依靠 SaaS 直接面向客户收费的公司，比例变化非常明显。 The third issue of 可以看到，自 2008-2016 年，“SaaS”的使用频率增加了 400％，而“广告”减少了 60％以上。 As can be seen, from 2008-2016, &ldquao; SaaS&rdquao; use increased by 400% while &ldquao; ads & rdquao; reduced by more than 60%. 第四个问题和博客有关，曾经许多申请 YC 的创业项目都和 Blog 有关，但这个趋势早已不再流行。 The fourth question of is related to blogs, and many of the start-up projects that applied for YC were related to Blog, but this trend is no longer prevalent. 是不是像极了几年前大火的微信公号内容创业？那猜猜看，这两年中文世界里大火的短视频，其发展趋势会不会像当年 YouTube 兴起后一大波突然涌现然后批量倒掉的 MCN 浪潮？ Isn't it like the microblogging of the fire a few years ago? So guess, the short video of the fire in the Chinese-language world in those two years, is it going to be like a wave of the MCN that suddenly emerged and then collapsed after YouTube? 第五个问题，消息工具领域，申请 YC 的创业项目们，最像颠覆/依靠谁？ question number five, message tool field, application for YC start-up projects, most like subversive/dependent? 可以发现，上图隐藏着 Slack 这一工具的爆炸式增长。而它刚于 2019 年上市，在这中间，错过它的投资机构是不是永远错过了？ As you can see, the above figure hides the explosive growth of this tool, Slack. And it just came to the market in 2019, in the middle of which the investment agency that missed it never misses it. 第六个问题，区块链和比特币，这些年怎么样了？ 从词频来看，大概在 2016、2017 年，专注于 blockchain 的项目已经开始超越 bitcoin。但这只反映在申请 YC 的数万创业者的共识中。2017 年底、2018 年初，bitcoin 价格才在公众目光中窜上顶峰，中间又是两年时间的 Gap。 & nbsp; According to the word frequency, in 2016 and 2017, projects focused on blackchain have started to go beyond bitcoin. This is reflected only in the consensus of tens of thousands of entrepreneurs applying for YC. By the end of 2017, early in 2018, bitcoin prices peaked in the eyes of the public and in the middle of the two-year Gap. 第七个问题，硬件创业发展如何了？ How's hardware entrepreneurship going? 数据显示，从 2008-2016 年，几乎翻倍了。 The data show that it almost doubled from 2008-2016. 具体来说是什么硬件？下图告诉我们答案： What kind of hardware is that? The following figure tells us the answer: 多的是不怕死的智能手机（相关）项目杀入红海。智能手表和可穿戴设备持续很受欢迎。 A lot of smartphones (associated) are killed in the Red Sea. Smart watches and wearable devices continue to be popular. 第八个问题，VR、AI 表现又如何？ 别忘了上图的出现时间，2016 年。 Don't forget when the figure appears, 2016. 在这份研究中，YC 另外还专门统计了一些关键词，发现 2016 年 Facebook 和谷歌（4％）仍然是被引用次数最多的公司。而 Uber、Airbnb 以及 Slack 正在迅速崛起。 In this study, YC also dedicated a number of keywords to finding that Facebook and Google (4%) were still the most cited companies in 2016. Uber, Airbnb, and Slack are rising rapidly. 虽然截至目前，这些数据已经失去了他们本该有的时效性。但这份报告出产于 2016 年，如果你当时就读过，会不会得到什么信息并且将其付诸实践？ Although, to date, these data have lost their intended timeliness. But the report was produced in 2016, and if you had studied it, would you have received any information and put it into practice? 想到这里，你会不会和我一样觉得，YC 其实贡献了不少宝藏和价值？ Thinking of it here, do you think as much as I do that YC actually contributes a lot of treasure and value? 透过现在看历史，约等于透过未来看现在。这样来看，复盘历史是不是一件有意思的事？ By looking at history now, it's about looking at it through the future. Is it interesting to look at it this way?
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