Haha my thoughts exactly. Overall I doubt his characterization. It's an okay model but I think the way that YC probably actually works is more like: a network

Haha my thoughts exactly. Overall I doubt his characterization. It's an okay model but I think the way that YC probably actually works is more like: a network of secret back-channelers with inside info and connections, read a bunch of crazy old treasure maps, pay off landowners, form search cliques, hire people with good shovel-arms, develop tunneling methodologies, and end up swiss cheesing the entire field until the subsurface is a honeycomb of search paths, and maybe they come away with some gold, after agreeing beforehand how it would be divided if it were found. YC is more like ants, but he makes it sound like robots. But even that doesn't really cover it, as the whole idea of a zero-sum game where you are searching for something that already exists is broken and wrong. It's false. What you're actually doing (YC be damned, in anything!) is creating something new! You're not finding the gold that's there, you're making it. Out of nothing. And then profiting from it!!! :)