Smash Notes
Marrying young, getting rejected by YC, and getting canceled | SOTA S1E1
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Sarah Chieng, Head of DevX at Cerebras, and Vivian Midha Shen, a general partner at Y Combinator, talk about marrying young and a first party in San Francisco next to Hayes Valley. Sarah Chieng met a founding engineer before Brev was acquired by Nvidia, turned down a $625K accelerator check for Thrift House, and describes a Hayes Valley cat party. Vivian…
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Notes
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Sarah Chieng says getting married changed the priorities. The wish to be a founder and to dedicate a full life to work got smaller, and Sarah Chieng calls the change a sacrifice. Vivian Midha Shen says the real choice is to stay single or to find a ride or die. Asked how anyone knows a better soulmate is not still out there, Vivian Midha Shen says a person just has to bet on the person.
The exchange opens the show. Sarah Chieng and Vivian Midha Shen introduce themselves by name, and Vivian Midha Shen has known Sarah Chieng since MIT.
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Sarah Chieng got married at 25, while both people were still early and before a name or a payout existed. Home was a tiny room under the stairs in a startup house, closer to a two-by-four than to a quant-trading salary. The stairs sat physically above the room.
The person Sarah Chieng married was a founding engineer at Brev. Brev was acquired by Nvidia, and the small team received large payouts. Friends on the team who were single suddenly had much more money. Dating had already started before any of the money arrived, so the intentions were clean, and the marriage feels like a joint celebration of what the two built together.
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Sarah Chieng marked turning twenty five with a birthday post recapping the year: growth on social media, work to be proud of, a marriage, and a delayed public listing. Vivian Midha Shen remembered the twenty fourth year as epic. The post was quiet at first. Weeks later the post went viral, and a stranger on Twitter called the celebration psychological violence.
Vivian Midha Shen treated the remark as a reflection on the stranger rather than on the life in the photo, and said it is easier to attack someone on Twitter than to examine one's own life. Vivian Midha Shen answered in public, and the stranger took the remark down.
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Vivian Midha Shen says the founders are loved equally, and the right bones show up early. Some people rally investors, advisors, and customers. Others were groomed at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to collect badges, and a Y Combinator acceptance is one more badge. The badge collectors follow instructions, spend too little time talking to users, avoid uncomfortable situations, shut down after a single no, or agree to everything and finish nothing.
Vivian Midha Shen looks for the opposite: time with users, a willingness to stay uncomfortable, and a person who can finish something. Being smart on paper is not the same as being able to get the work done.
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Sarah Chieng started a company at nineteen. The company was Thrift House, founded in college with a boyfriend who was also at MIT. A gap semester, a spot in Z Fellows, and a bigger check followed. Friends in the house were going through Y Combinator. Thrift House then got into the first batch of a new accelerator and did not get into Y Combinator. Vivian Midha Shen was not a partner yet.
The accelerator money was six hundred twenty five K, and taking the money meant dropping out of school. Sarah Chieng and the boyfriend agreed to refuse the money and stay in school. The startup ended, and both went back to school. Vivian Midha Shen adds that PG tells founders not to drop out, and that dropping out anyway and then succeeding is a strong signal.
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The first party in San Francisco was a block from the Commons in Hayes Valley, and the room was a cat party. Guests wore cat ears, meowed at each other, clawed at a shoulder, and howled on the dance floor. No words were spoken. The only way of joining in was putting on the cat ears that had been handed over. The neighbors were great. The party was the culture shock.
San Francisco was supposed to be one month of contract work, and the month had already been a bad fit. Almost everyone from MIT had already moved to New York, so the howling made the move feel even stranger.