1/ A brief thread on why I disagree with this & to provide some balance. I did YC for Mixpanel in 2009 and then Mighty last year. Here's my counter-argument...
2/ YC batches are 10x bigger but they are split up. I was skeptical at first: is this just a startup mill now? Surprisingly, it's totally fine. Unsurprisingly, you need to spend most of your time building & some of your time blowing off steam making friends—just as before.
3/ You get plenty of attention in YC. What's changed is founders craving attention, validation, & constant feedback to feel like they're headed in the right direction. When founders got more time, they filled it up. The truth is: nobody is going to make you successful except you.
4/ YC checks sizes are bigger & maybe they distract a bit but I have to be honest: I am not sure it was all that productive to sleep on a Walmart airbed, ride my half-broken bike to investor mtgs, buy groceries on a $200 monthly budget, & live in apt next to a dumpster in year 1.
5/ If YC is mostly B2B, that's simply a function of how tech cycles run. 80% of the batch in '09 were building products that could be construed as "toys, not companies." There's now more experience in both sectors and a surprising amount of bio-tech companies!
6/ I didn't meet one person at YC out of 200 companies that exemplified this profile of founder: "You're funding the people who would have gone into consulting or finance 15 years ago." But even if it did, so what? The founders of @renthop are like that and they're awesome.
7/ "Having to take considerable financial risk definitely sucked, but it was also was a great filtering function."
Disagree. People have wildly different starting points.
Disagree. People have wildly different starting points.
8/ "When YC started, they gave you like 20k and many founders went into massive credit card debt to stay alive"
I'd probably have been filtered out of YC if so. There's no way my mom would've let me, at 20, run up massive credit card debt. I'd been too scared to do it.
I'd probably have been filtered out of YC if so. There's no way my mom would've let me, at 20, run up massive credit card debt. I'd been too scared to do it.
9/ YC was great but it won't make your company successful. It'll improve your odds, help you avoid making the same mistakes founders make w/o it, it might help you find your first 10 users, and help you raise money more efficiently w/ less dilution.
I'd do it again (and I did!)
I'd do it again (and I did!)
10/ Just to be clear, the thread by this person is entirely anonymous. I can understand why they might do that but there's no skin in the game & no great tragedy to report either. This person could just as well provided constructive feedback. YC is a product like any other.
11/ I usually can't stand HN comments but this is the top one which is👌 
