I know that the hardships of other people usually make the best stories. Hiker gets his arm caught under a rock and has to cut it off with a pen knife 3 days la

I know that the hardships of other people usually make the best stories. Hiker gets his arm caught under a rock and has to cut it off with a pen knife 3 days later to escape, makes for a gripping story. Moral is, sometimes being the person in the adventure isn't all its cracked up to be. When my cofounder and I applied for YC this past round, we had a lot of hopes in getting accepted (we didn't, unfortunately, but got the interview). Even though I knew all of the benefits of getting into YC in terms of the experience and the contacts, I still had a certain amount of trepidation in terms of finances. I was ready and willing (still am!) to dive into YC and not look back, but I was also looking at giving up a job that pays well (I make more money than anyone else in my large extended family), the health benefits, 401k, stock options, and 2 weeks of vacation each year. I live in San Francisco, and it isn't cheap. That $17k, split between 2 people, doesn't go far. I'm a single guy with limited expenses, and it still would have been tight. Having met Paul Graham and the YC crew a couple of times, interviewing with them, and meeting many other people at various YC-funded companies, I feel confident in saying that I highly doubt the spirit of YC is going to change. There is a certain character to all of the people I've met that's hard to define but is definitely there. That isn't going to disappear simply because an investor is trying something new. I suspect that there are driven people like me who are in slightly different situations (family, etc) where they don't feel like they can take the risk if they get accepted. This stops them from even feeling like applying. Now knowing that there's another guaranteed round of money to be accessed after a few months is going to let people on the edge make the decision to apply. Some will get accepted. It will let people feel like they can work as hard as possible on a dream and know they have a better chance of being ok longer. $150k + $17k at a startup of 2-3 people is enough to not only fund the company, but to also let the founders who need it to take a survivable income for the first year while they're getting off the ground. Its an extra safety blanket that lets those founders who need it to take the plunge and to fight a while longer to succeed. For the people that get accepted into YC where $17k was enough, those people now have some extra guaranteed resources to help their businesses grow. That's the money that lets a 2 person team hire a 3rd after 6 months to let them keep growing while one of the founders concentrates on angel or VC funding, instead of hitting a wall because there's too much to do and not enough humans to go around to do it. I'll grant Robert that YC may change a little, but it'll only be for the better.