I was in YC W16 batch. Coming from abroad, part of the YC experience was, besides the program itself, renting a house in a residential area of Palo Alto where

I was in YC W16 batch. Coming from abroad, part of the YC experience was, besides the program itself, renting a house in a residential area of Palo Alto where our team of 4 lived and worked. We didn’t have a car and the nearest bars & restaurants were at a 20 minutes bike ride. This set up felt like a retreat, and really pushed us to 100% focus on our startup. Basically the only things I did for 4 months is working, exercising in the surrounding parks and eating homemade food. Had YC been located in SF it would have been a totally different experience. It’s a vibrant and exciting city specially for new comers. However, I understand YC’s rationale: most local founders live in SF and the 1h commute is painful, the current building is not easily accessible, and doesn’t scale to bigger and bigger batches, etc.