Circa 2014 I was out of college and very intent on getting into YC for mostly the wrong reasons - which were credentialism and thinking it meant you "made it".

Circa 2014 I was out of college and very intent on getting into YC for mostly the wrong reasons - which were credentialism and thinking it meant you "made it". Eventually went through another accelerator, and wasted a year+ when I should have scrapped and moved on to something better. Now to me is obvious if you start a business of value with revenue and you can sell yourself, you can easily raise funds, build a team, get early b2b customers, etc. just like everyone did before accelerators were considered a career move. The Rockefellers and Carnegies of the world were voraciously independent business builders and I really do love meeting the types who were able to make it to seed on their own.