本文探讨了Y Combinator诞生的初衷，并非单纯为了娱乐、赚钱或慈善，而是源于一种“黑客”式的思维，即通过微小的努力撬动巨大的改变。作者认为，世界上有许多聪明人没有创业，而Y Combinator可以通过少量投入，帮助他们启动公司，从而为世界带来更多创新。虽然这在某种程度上具有积极意义，但背后的驱动力更像是对经济系统进行优化改造的纯粹好奇和渴望。文章也强调了创业的本质，即大多数时候都是艰苦的努力，而非单纯的乐趣。

🤔Y Combinator的创立并非主要为了娱乐或盈利，而是源于创始人希望再次合作的愿望，如同乐队重聚。

💡Y Combinator的真正动机是“黑客”式的思维，即通过少量投入，帮助众多潜在的创业者启动公司，从而为世界带来更多创新。

🚀Y Combinator的创立并非完全出于利他主义，而是源于对优化经济系统的好奇心，如同黑客对复杂设备进行微调以提高效率。

💼创业并非总是充满乐趣，大多数时候都是艰苦的努力，这才是创业的本质。

🌱Y Combinator希望通过帮助创业者，为世界带来更多有益的创新，但这并非其主要动机。

March 2006, rev August 2009Yesterday one of the founders we funded asked me why we started YCombinator. Or more precisely, he asked if we'd started YC mainlyfor fun.Kind of, but not quite. It is enormously fun to be able to workwith Rtm and Trevor again. I missed that after we sold Viaweb, andfor all the years after I always had a background process running,looking for something we could do together. There is definitelyan aspect of a band reunion to Y Combinator. Every couple days Islip and call it "Viaweb."Viaweb we started very explicitly to make money. I was sick ofliving from one freelance project to the next, and decided to justwork as hard as I could till I'd made enough to solve the problemonce and for all. Viaweb was sometimes fun, but it wasn't designedfor fun, and mostly it wasn't. I'd be surprised if any startup is.All startups are mostly schleps.The real reason we started Y Combinator is neither selfish norvirtuous. We didn't start it mainly to make money; we have no ideawhat our average returns might be, and won't know for years. Nordid we start YC mainly to help out young would-be founders, thoughwe do like the idea, and comfort ourselves occasionally with thethought that if all our investments tank, we will thus have beendoing something unselfish. (It's oddly nondeterministic.)The real reason we started Y Combinator is one probably only ahacker would understand. We did it because it seems such a greathack. There are thousands of smart people who could start companiesand don't, and with a relatively small amount of force applied atjust the right place, we can spring on the world a stream of newstartups that might otherwise not have existed.In a way this is virtuous, because I think startups are a goodthing. But really what motivates us is the completely amoral desirethat would motivate any hacker who looked at some complex deviceand realized that with a tiny tweak he could make it run moreefficiently. In this case, the device is the world's economy, whichfortunately happens to be open source.