There are two ways of looking at this: 1. PG is selling us something. 2. PG just open-sourced a part that seems like a component of the YC admissions logic. I

There are two ways of looking at this: 1. PG is selling us something. 2. PG just open-sourced a part that seems like a component of the YC admissions logic. I personally don't care if it's just 2) or if it's 1) and 2) - in each case I get to learn something new and for that I am grateful. Basically, they must have established that whenever they can't tell if you're right or wrong, they ask themselves how likely are you to know something that they don't. This seems obvious enough, but only after you've heard it explained. Also, it might be obvious to each individual to a different degree, so when you consider that YC applications are reviewed by a large group of people, it's almost certain that this is all codified in such a way that the reviewers are not just judging the startup alone, but likely also the founder independently of their startup. As you can tell, I clearly don't have any inside knowledge here and this is all just speculation. But if I were to submit a YC application, I would certainly ask myself now more than ever before how to make people believe that I am an expert in the field of my startup.