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Getting into YC is not easy - I had applied about two years back, and it's not just me, a LOT of my friends had applied too, individually, either as sole founde

by neya 14y ago

Getting into YC is not easy - I had applied about two years back, and it's not just me, a LOT of my friends had applied too, individually, either as sole founders or as teams, so I am not making up stuff. Some teams that applied, were composed of some of THE BEST hackers (REAL hackers, not marketers) programmers, and the best designers, with loads of experience running start-ups. But they never got in. Neither did I. Atleast, I applied as a sole founder, so it's reasonable that I didn't get in. But I was surprised (shocked) to see that even the top hackers/designers never got in. I wondered why. And then I discovered, it was all about credentials. None of us were product managers from Facebook/Google/etc. Here's the thing - This article is irony at best. I want you to understand that no matter what you do, what skills you have, YC looks into 1) Where you come from. 2) What credentials you have. YC solves the credentials trap by looking at your credentials on behalf of the rest. YC is not interested if you have a good idea. YC is interested if you are a good executer of ideas. And it's a very fair metric. But, the way they do it is scary at best - Much of the people they select are only top dogs - (ex) product managers from Google, Facebook or someone from a well-known company. NO, they don't select everyone this way, but for the majority of the people they select, this is how it works. And as for the rest that they select, the ones without credentials, its a small percentage, which means you have to really compete hard to get in, if you're not from a well-respected company like Google or Facebook or Twitter. Worse is the fact that the applications are filtered by the alumnii, hence you never know what metric they use to select people. But eventually post selection, you notice that these people who were selected are from some hot company like Google, Facebook etc. Paul Graham is a great man, and I have great (enormous) respect for him. It's because of him that this start-up industry is receiving proper attention. But, if someone is going to tell me YC solves the credentials problem, etc. then I'm not stupid enough to buy it. It's simply not true. If you've watched Ratatouille, you may recall the quote: "Anyone can cook"; Which means (What it means is what the movie's about): "Not everyone can become an artist, but, a great artist can come from anywhere.."

pg 14y ago
There are so many mistakes here I don't know where to begin. For example, we're actually very skeptical of people from Google, and in fact of people who've worked at any big company for more than about 18 months. The question I care about most on the application is the one where we ask about something impressive the founders have achieved. Not credentials, but something they've done.
- atirip 14y ago
  Why are you so eager to finance J.K. Rowlings second book? The new Airbnb is always the first book.
  - dylangs1030 14y ago
    Do you have anything real to cite for a statement like this? You sound more like someone bitter than someone who actually has a clear head and some level evidence to leverage a negative point about Y Combinator's selection process.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - gruseom 14y ago
    This might have been about average for an HN troll if YC hadn't in fact funded Airbnb.
    - jfoster 14y ago
      But mightn't it still be a good point? I'm not sure what the Airbnb founders had achieved prior to Airbnb, but anyone with a substantial enough success mightn't need to go through YC next time. For example, once the Airbnb founders move on, would they go through YC for their next venture? They probably wouldn't need to, right?
      - gruseom 14y ago
        That's not how I read his comment. I read it as insinuating that YC are only eager to fund derivative companies, as opposed to, say, Airbnb – which they did fund.
- cpursley 14y ago
  PG, do you ever sleep ; )
jezclaremurugan 14y ago
I guess the point of the post IMHO was that YC solves the credential trap by becoming a widely accepted credential, not by not looking at other credentials.
- npguy 14y ago
  Agree, that was the point of the post - from the post - "The fact that “I am doing YC” fits into that group of statements (“I am going to college”, “I got a job at Google”) is huge for someone with an idea and is actually taking a risk." It is an external validation that makes it look 'less crazy' to the outside world.
WadeF 14y ago
We are three nobodies from a public university in the midwest that were working at a mortgage company. I doubt our credentials were what impressed the YC partners.
andyakb 14y ago
simply because you and your friends are not ffrom google/facebook and did not get in does not mean they only accept people from google/facebook. did the founders of the most successful yc companies have that pedigree? i really dont think so. you can rationalize your own rejection however you want, but you cannot make such a sweeping generalization about something with so little support
- neya 14y ago
  >did the founders of the most successful yc companies have that pedigree? i really dont think so. Optimizely's application video: http://dsiroker-private.posterous.com/private/FCAGetIemw http://dsiroker-private.posterous.com/private/FCAGetIemw
dylangs1030 14y ago
Even if this were true (and I highly doubt it is), my response would be, "So?" It's admirable that Y-Combinator doesn't do all those things, but I wouldn't blame them for it either. Yes, Paul Graham does this because it is his passion and because he's damn well good at it. But these are also investors. There is more of a sense of community than you will get from any VC in the game, but they are still looking to profit. This isn't a charity. Paul has said himself that they turn away many "pretty good" applications each year simply because others are better. If a cofounder of another startup applied to Y-Combinator, they'd be a very safe bet and a good candidate for admission (assuming they still needed some kind of guidance). Just because you're beat out by people with superior credentials doesn't mean there's a credential bias. This is just like the argument that flew around for some time that there's a bias in favor of 20 something dropouts applying to Y-Combinator in Silicon Valley. No, there isn't. You hear about those cases more, but that's sampling bias. Drew Houston is worth almost half a billion dollars now. He applied as a single founder with nothing to show for himself but a neat little poker bot and an SAT prep service. He was also rejected once, and made a better application the next time around. Determination is the single greatest indicator of success.
sheri 14y ago
To stay with your Ratatouille analogy, how does YC know that "someone (anyone) can cook"? Either they eat something that you have cooked, or they look at your past achievements to see if you can cook (chef at a Michelin star restaurant maybe?). Barring these two, YC doesn't know that you can cook. If you build a site which gets 10 million visitors daily, YC will know that you can "cook", and won't care about what your background is.

by neya 14y ago

pg 14y ago

There are so many mistakes here I don't know where to begin. For example, we're actually very skeptical of people from Google, and in fact of people who've worked at any big company for more than about 18 months. The question I care about most on the application is the one where we ask about something impressive the founders have achieved. Not credentials, but something they've done.

atirip 14y ago
Why are you so eager to finance J.K. Rowlings second book? The new Airbnb is always the first book.
- dylangs1030 14y ago
  Do you have anything real to cite for a statement like this? You sound more like someone bitter than someone who actually has a clear head and some level evidence to leverage a negative point about Y Combinator's selection process.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- gruseom 14y ago
  This might have been about average for an HN troll if YC hadn't in fact funded Airbnb.
  - jfoster 14y ago
    But mightn't it still be a good point? I'm not sure what the Airbnb founders had achieved prior to Airbnb, but anyone with a substantial enough success mightn't need to go through YC next time. For example, once the Airbnb founders move on, would they go through YC for their next venture? They probably wouldn't need to, right?
    - gruseom 14y ago
      That's not how I read his comment. I read it as insinuating that YC are only eager to fund derivative companies, as opposed to, say, Airbnb – which they did fund.
cpursley 14y ago
PG, do you ever sleep ; )

jezclaremurugan 14y ago

I guess the point of the post IMHO was that YC solves the credential trap by becoming a widely accepted credential, not by not looking at other credentials.

npguy 14y ago
Agree, that was the point of the post - from the post - "The fact that “I am doing YC” fits into that group of statements (“I am going to college”, “I got a job at Google”) is huge for someone with an idea and is actually taking a risk." It is an external validation that makes it look 'less crazy' to the outside world.

WadeF 14y ago

We are three nobodies from a public university in the midwest that were working at a mortgage company. I doubt our credentials were what impressed the YC partners.

andyakb 14y ago

simply because you and your friends are not ffrom google/facebook and did not get in does not mean they only accept people from google/facebook. did the founders of the most successful yc companies have that pedigree? i really dont think so. you can rationalize your own rejection however you want, but you cannot make such a sweeping generalization about something with so little support

neya 14y ago
>did the founders of the most successful yc companies have that pedigree? i really dont think so. Optimizely's application video: http://dsiroker-private.posterous.com/private/FCAGetIemw http://dsiroker-private.posterous.com/private/FCAGetIemw

dylangs1030 14y ago

Even if this were true (and I highly doubt it is), my response would be, "So?" It's admirable that Y-Combinator doesn't do all those things, but I wouldn't blame them for it either. Yes, Paul Graham does this because it is his passion and because he's damn well good at it. But these are also investors. There is more of a sense of community than you will get from any VC in the game, but they are still looking to profit. This isn't a charity. Paul has said himself that they turn away many "pretty good" applications each year simply because others are better. If a cofounder of another startup applied to Y-Combinator, they'd be a very safe bet and a good candidate for admission (assuming they still needed some kind of guidance). Just because you're beat out by people with superior credentials doesn't mean there's a credential bias. This is just like the argument that flew around for some time that there's a bias in favor of 20 something dropouts applying to Y-Combinator in Silicon Valley. No, there isn't. You hear about those cases more, but that's sampling bias. Drew Houston is worth almost half a billion dollars now. He applied as a single founder with nothing to show for himself but a neat little poker bot and an SAT prep service. He was also rejected once, and made a better application the next time around. Determination is the single greatest indicator of success.

sheri 14y ago

To stay with your Ratatouille analogy, how does YC know that "someone (anyone) can cook"? Either they eat something that you have cooked, or they look at your past achievements to see if you can cook (chef at a Michelin star restaurant maybe?). Barring these two, YC doesn't know that you can cook. If you build a site which gets 10 million visitors daily, YC will know that you can "cook", and won't care about what your background is.