Wow, thanks for sharing Tom! This answer resonates with me too. YC was life changing for me as well because of the values I gained from the experience, and not

Wow, thanks for sharing Tom! This answer resonates with me too. YC was life changing for me as well because of the values I gained from the experience, and not for the help building some big company (which turns out is just not something I'm built for). Before YC my business advice came from The Apprentice, and I didn't really know how to create value. But somehow I lucked into YC. I'll never forget being in awe of how hard my cohorts worked (and how exhausted they could be at the end of the day), and how good their skills were. How they could make things that were good, not in just well designed and built, but good for the world. I was way out of my depth, but committed to try and be able to do what they could do. I'm still maybe a B or B+ on my "can build something people want" skillset, but far better than the "D/D-" I was a decade ago. I used to have one gripe about YC because of the insider/outsider thing—it's great to be on the inside but as a rule I prefer more open things—but then they came out with the most recent iterations of SUS which are open to all and have just been truly remarkable. I think it just goes to show what a special organization this is.