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I see, you're not just talking about network effects of aggregating all of the startups together, it's about having a common pool of investors as well. I wonder

• pg 18y ago
  Not just investors. There is a collection of people associated to varying degrees with YC who advise the startups. (They're the old-looking people in the slides on our frontpage.) Sometimes they invest, but they don't only talk to startups they invest in. One of the hardest parts of being in Boston for us was that this pool of advisors was so much smaller there. It was just a handful of people. Whereas in the Valley there are on the order of 50 different people we might introduce one or more YC startups to each cycle.
  • alabut 18y ago
    Yeah, that's probably the case, I was just entertaining a thought experiment because I really like the people I've met through techstars and want them to do well. The bay area's network effects really do create different kinds of opportunity rather than just more of the same - it's the reason I moved to the bay area in the first place three years ago and it's been a great career decision. Living here means being able to do things like apply to yc, whereas I'd probably never consider moving to Boulder or Boston if it just came down to 5 digits of seed investment. I'd rather stay here and force my projects to happen during nights and weekends instead. Here, you'd be crazy to turn down admission to yc and access to the advisors involved, no matter what your day job pays.