How I Almost Saw Sam Altman and Elon Musk Live

I got accepted to AI Startup School, a new conference by Y Combinator. It was the first event of this scale I’d ever been invited to - and my first time navigating the U.S. visa system. What followed was a rollercoaster of hope, chaos, and hard lessons.

The Application I Didn’t Think Would Matter

Until recently, I was a pretty successful young software engineer from Ukraine. Now, I’m building my own AI startup while living in Bali.

In February, I applied to YC’s newly announced, first-ever AI Startup School conference in San Francisco. I didn’t expect to be accepted - I mostly saw it as a good opportunity to practice pitching myself. Of course, I imagined how great it would be to attend such an event, how I could casually drop “I saw all these brilliant CEOs live” into conversations while networking.

But from reading Reddit, I got the impression that anything YC-related was reserved for Ivy League grads. So I tapped my latest connection, an Ivy League admissions consultant I met in Bali, and he helped me craft the application. We even quickly built HackYCombinator.com to help others apply (and to stand out, of course).

The Rush

One morning, about two months later, I had completely forgotten about the application and was deep in my Bali wantrepreneur's routine. I got what seemed like another email from the YC co-founder matching platform but soon realized it was something more special - an invitation to the event.

The rush of confidence, validation, and hope reminded me of getting my first-ever job offer. I immediately shared the screenshot with my closest friends and couldn’t stop thinking or talking about the event.

Now, all I had to do was get a U.S. visa, book my flights, and prepare for some serious networking.

The Visa Trap

I saw the visa part as a purely technical step. With such a serious reason for travel, I was sure I’d get it and so were all my friends.

I ran ChatGPT's Deep Research on how Ukrainians apply for U.S. visas in Indonesia and started preparing from day one. I quickly gathered the documents, filled out the application, and scheduled an interview for the following week.

On the day of the interview, I put on all my “rizz” and walked up to the officer’s window with full confidence that this was a done deal. Every student ahead of me in the queue was getting their visa approved.

Then it was my turn. Everything went smooth until the moment I heard the words “additional administrative processing.” The rush I’d been riding for weeks vanished. The crash was brutal - more like taking down a production system just a few months into my first job.

Now I was stuck in a bureaucratic black hole. The officer told me the additional administrative processing could take about two weeks. But according to visa experts and Reddit, it could just as easily take two months, or even two years.

I consulted multiple experts and learned this delay is pretty common for IT professionals, especially those working in AI. I quickly accepted that all I could do now was wait and hope for the best.

At some point, I caught myself thinking that getting the visa on time would make me even happier than getting the YC invite itself.

For an entire month, my mood kept swinging, but I tried to remain stoic and avoid suffering over something beyond my control. I nearly lost hope, but then… I checked the status of my application again, only to discover it had been refused a couple of days earlier.

The Crash

That hit hard. The next two days were among the most painful I'd experienced in years. I desperately tried to find a solution, juggling calls with visa consultants, many of whom eagerly promised they could "definitely help" for a few hundred bucks, without even knowing where I lived or how much time I had left. I even got scammed by a fake consultant.

A couple of Indonesia-based visa experts, who were so kind to help me estimate my chances for free, concluded that reapplying under the same circumstances would be a shot in the dark, and could only worsen my visa application history. Even if I managed to explain things better to the officer, the timing would still need to be perfect - I would only receive my passport back on the very last day before the conference.

But the deepest pain came from having to decide between trying my luck, going for another visa interview - spending more time, more money, and risking future successful applications to be able to say that "I did absolutely everything I could" - or cutting my losses and admitting I'd missed this opportunity. All the while, I repeatedly wondered why I hadn’t prepared better from the start, imagining all the opportunities I was now about to miss.

A Decision I Could Live With

On the third day, in a post-workout bliss, I discovered a great decision-making technique. I told myself that I wouldn’t spend another day in this agony and literally wouldn't move from the place I stood until I made the final decision. I stood there for twenty minutes, while my mind desperately hoped I'd forget this commitment and allow myself another round of overthinking. Then, when I couldn't bear it any longer, I decided it was time to let go.

I emailed YC to cancel my attendance and free up the spot for someone else before it was too late.

Lessons I’m Taking With Me

Even though I won’t see Sam Altman live this time, this journey taught me a few valuable lessons:

First, the most obvious - Don’t underestimate bureaucratic processes - Especially when the stakes are high. Getting a U.S. visa is tough when you’re a “digital nomad.” Next time, I’ll work with a consultant in advance to improve my profile and stay prepared for future opportunities.

You can’t always get what you want. Even if I had worked with a visa expert when applying for the first time, the outcome might have been exactly the same. The stories those consultants shared about administrative processing taking up to a year were from their own clients.

Be ready for setbacks. There will definitely be tougher and more painful setbacks ahead on the founder’s path. I’m actually kind of grateful to be getting introduced to them so gradually. Even a high-profile event like this is just that - an event. My job isn’t to attend the best conferences, it’s to build the best product.

Learn to stop overthinking. Making the final decision to let go wasn’t easy, but it was liberating. What helped was a small, silly commitment to stand still until I decided. And it worked. I’ve realized that decision-making is a muscle, and I want to train it more intentionally.

Enjoy making decisions. Choosing has always been hard for me. But today, I found something deeply satisfying in it. The decision was mine. I invested in it by giving up other options, which made what I chose feel especially valuable. In this case, I chose to free up my day - to write this blog post and spend time with my beautiful fiancée. (Hopefully, I publish this before the evening rolls in.)

This journey inspired me to write my first-ever blog post. Isn’t it a comparable experience to attending a great conference?