YC isn't accepting anything; YC startups are accepting the investment. Pg addressed this in another thread [1]. It is quite obvious that, assuming your desire

YC isn't accepting anything; YC startups are accepting the investment. Pg addressed this in another thread [1]. It is quite obvious that, assuming your desire is to quickly scale your startup, $10-20k isn't enough. That's why YC has always had demo day, the goal of which is to secure investment. Even still, that day will remain important; Yuri didn't change that. As an answer to your second line of questioning: Have you ever considered the cash value of "free" resources offered to YC companies? YC could just invest a lot of money, or they could provide mentorship opportunities and resources. They chose the latter (obviously), and have had clear success in doing so. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2156560\ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2156560\ [edit] Haha... three other posts in the time it took me to find pg's response...