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I'm not entirely sure why such stats are all that useful. Trying to be closer to the average doesn't seem very sensible to me. (neither does trying to be as far

I'm not entirely sure why such stats are all that useful. Trying to be closer to the average doesn't seem very sensible to me. (neither does trying to be as far away from the average as possible as a means onto itself)

cperciva 19y ago
Such statistics are useful because they give people insight as to how likely they are to be accepted, and thus whether it's worth applying. Just as the OP was wondering about his chances of being accepted as a sole founder, I can easily imagine someone thinking "gee, I'm 30 years old... there's probably no point applying... but I have a PhD and pg's statistics show that applicants with PhDs are far more likely to be accepted, so maybe I should apply after all".
- dcurtis 19y ago
  If you have a good idea that you are committed to, why should the statistics matter? If someone says "gee, I'm 30, i shouldn't apply," that seems pretty weak of them. Although, I think the statistics would be very interesting to read over.
  - cperciva 19y ago
    If you have a good idea that you are committed to, why should the statistics matter? Because most good ideas which people are committed to aren't "get accepted into YC". Why shouldn't someone say "I'm not likely to get accepted into YC, so I'll spend my time working on my good idea instead of filling out the YC application form"?
    - kingnothing 19y ago
      As it is, you're not likely to get accepted, regardless of age and education statistics, due to the sheer volume of applications versus spots available.
      - eusman 19y ago
        "spots available" they don't have a standard spots available number.
        kingnothing 19y ago
        No, they don't, but there are orders of magnitude more applications submitted than teams accepted.
      - dcurtis 19y ago
        I seem to remember paul saying something like "we accept all the good enough ideas."
    - pg 19y ago
      We try to make the questions on the YC application form sufficiently useful that it would be worthwhile spending the time to fill it out even if you never submitted it.
- anewaccountname 19y ago
  >Such statistics are useful because they give people insight as to how likely they are to be accepted, and thus whether it's worth applying. Correlation does not imply causation. Repeat with me: correlation does not imply causation
  - cperciva 19y ago
    Correlation does not imply causation. Repeat with me: correlation does not imply causation Correlation does not imply causation -- but correlation can still be useful for making predictions or decisions. The fact that the word "V!@gra" appears in an email doesn't cause the email to be spam, but it does provide a strong indication that it's probably not worth reading said email. If (taking a wildly hypothetical example) it turned out that 50% of YC applicants were over age 30 but 0% of the accepted YC applicants were over age 30, it would a strong indication to potential applicants over age 30 that they needn't bother applying -- and this is true whether the YC management has a deliberate bias against over-30s or not.
    - jamiequint 19y ago
      From all your comments it sounds like you're trying to convince yourself not to apply!

cperciva 19y ago

Such statistics are useful because they give people insight as to how likely they are to be accepted, and thus whether it's worth applying. Just as the OP was wondering about his chances of being accepted as a sole founder, I can easily imagine someone thinking "gee, I'm 30 years old... there's probably no point applying... but I have a PhD and pg's statistics show that applicants with PhDs are far more likely to be accepted, so maybe I should apply after all".

dcurtis 19y ago
If you have a good idea that you are committed to, why should the statistics matter? If someone says "gee, I'm 30, i shouldn't apply," that seems pretty weak of them. Although, I think the statistics would be very interesting to read over.
- cperciva 19y ago
  If you have a good idea that you are committed to, why should the statistics matter? Because most good ideas which people are committed to aren't "get accepted into YC". Why shouldn't someone say "I'm not likely to get accepted into YC, so I'll spend my time working on my good idea instead of filling out the YC application form"?
  - kingnothing 19y ago
    As it is, you're not likely to get accepted, regardless of age and education statistics, due to the sheer volume of applications versus spots available.
    - eusman 19y ago
      "spots available" they don't have a standard spots available number.
      - kingnothing 19y ago
        No, they don't, but there are orders of magnitude more applications submitted than teams accepted.
    - dcurtis 19y ago
      I seem to remember paul saying something like "we accept all the good enough ideas."
  - pg 19y ago
    We try to make the questions on the YC application form sufficiently useful that it would be worthwhile spending the time to fill it out even if you never submitted it.
anewaccountname 19y ago
>Such statistics are useful because they give people insight as to how likely they are to be accepted, and thus whether it's worth applying. Correlation does not imply causation. Repeat with me: correlation does not imply causation
- cperciva 19y ago
  Correlation does not imply causation. Repeat with me: correlation does not imply causation Correlation does not imply causation -- but correlation can still be useful for making predictions or decisions. The fact that the word "V!@gra" appears in an email doesn't cause the email to be spam, but it does provide a strong indication that it's probably not worth reading said email. If (taking a wildly hypothetical example) it turned out that 50% of YC applicants were over age 30 but 0% of the accepted YC applicants were over age 30, it would a strong indication to potential applicants over age 30 that they needn't bother applying -- and this is true whether the YC management has a deliberate bias against over-30s or not.
  - jamiequint 19y ago
    From all your comments it sounds like you're trying to convince yourself not to apply!