I think the "magic" of YC is that it attracts "genuine hackers". People with technical wizardry, who don't readily fit in traditional academic or industry roles

I think the "magic" of YC is that it attracts "genuine hackers". People with technical wizardry, who don't readily fit in traditional academic or industry roles (though they typically create tremendous results in those arenas). What's surprising is how uniformly distributed that talent is throughout the world. My main feedback from YC SUS was that there should be a second course. The first semester is about everything around the product: ideation, corp formation, staffing up, etc. But there shuld be a dedicated semester just on product design. Perhaps modeled on the Stanford D.School product design course. With a library of case studies from past YC companies. As well as a practical component, akin to the YC SUS Design Sprints. Product in this sense isn't just about say "creating a new podcast". It's a deep dive into "how was the iPod born". And how that in turn gave rise to the entire podcast industry ;)