Harj touched on it briefly last night at the NYC meetup, but I think that HN karma points are looked at as a bonus, rather than part of the criteria. Like all

Harj touched on it briefly last night at the NYC meetup, but I think that HN karma points are looked at as a bonus, rather than part of the criteria. Like all other aspects of the application process, it's just another chance for YC to get to know more about you. When we applied, we had (and still have by most measures) low karma scores. But we also had a working product with actual users, so that worked in our favor.