Your first point on adverse selection is by far the biggest reason. An entrepreneur at 27 or 28, will be working his/her ass off to build a business. We ultim

Your first point on adverse selection is by far the biggest reason. An entrepreneur at 27 or 28, will be working his/her ass off to build a business. We ultimately have a very limited window in which to pursue starting a business, and simply making the MBA decision narrows that time window significantly, even if you leave knowing a lot more about business. I'd be hard pressed to turn down McKinsey, Bain & Friends if I was $100k+ in the hole after leaving b-school. By extension, the same argument on adverse selection could be said for YC as well. Although I'm certain YC adds great value to its participants, many people who applied would have done well even without YC. The magic of YC is to be able to get a concentrated group of smart/ambitious entrepreneurs and amplify the success that they probably would have had without it.