I think it's good to look at YC as a multiplier. You hedge some equity to lower your risk, as well as gain guidance and advice. I'm self-funding, and I have a

I think it's good to look at YC as a multiplier. You hedge some equity to lower your risk, as well as gain guidance and advice. I'm self-funding, and I have a "business" guy co-founder who does all the stuff that bores me (such as cold-calling, preparing investor whitepapers, building Powerpoint decks) and possesses qualities I don't have (negotiating, ability to raise money, extensive network of contacts, knows how to sell), so I didn't go the YC route, but I'm sure for technical people who don't have the business advice and consulting, 10% equity is a fair price to pay for PG and crew as well as decent funding. I wouldn't discount the article as dangerous, though. If you can get around its linkbaitedness, it makes a good point that someone concerned about making great software shouldn't worry about funding: I'm the only programmer on my project, with two business people and a designer, and already we have built a Windows middleware piece using XMPP and a Ruby/Rails project to exchange messages via XMPP. (I'm a Mac user, but our software requires Windows because it brings a particular Windows app to the Web that I can't quite disclose yet because I'm in stealth mode.) For coders who don't have business experience, you're better off going with YC so you don't get screwed later. For those who have some business acumen, you might not need the funding or management advice that YC gives. If you're a coder, you will have to learn to have tight budgets. I saved money for two years and invested in the stock market to give me the ability to bet it on this project. But if you can code, you probably don't need a whole lot of money to keep you going. Whether or not you're YC, I'm sure you'll make it work if you're passionate about what you're doing.