That's actually a great question. I've thought of YC as more of the Ivy League experience. Exclusive. Great brand. (No disrespect intended). And, I think that

That's actually a great question. I've thought of YC as more of the Ivy League experience. Exclusive. Great brand. (No disrespect intended). And, I think that (unintentionally?) pg and the YC partners have modeled a lot of YC around an Ivy League model. The question that I'm interested in with Hackers & Founders, is how do we teach thousands of engineers how to build great products, and once doing that, how to you help them build great startups, and then how to you help those founders turn around and be serial entrepreneurs. Tons of VC's that I talk to tend to turn up their nose at our community, and proceed to tell me, "Send me your Rock Stars". My question to them, is... "Where do rock star entrepreneurs come from? Do they descend from heaven on a cloud like Mark Zuckerberg? Or, do they try a bunch of things, fail a lot, and then slowly become rock stars?" I've had beer with 5 out of BusinessWeek's "Top 20 entrepreneurs under 30" two or three years ago. Did I know they were rock stars then? Nope. No clue. I'm really interested in having H&F, and all the grass roots startup communities that we partner with around the globe be a support system to failing entrepreneurs. If entrepreneurs fail enough for long enough, they generally improve their entrepreneurial skills with each startup they create. Eventually, they become rock stars. YMMV