It sounds a little like in this case (young?) people look at YC as a critical external validation around their professional worth. What I thought most interesti

It sounds a little like in this case (young?) people look at YC as a critical external validation around their professional worth. What I thought most interesting was that YC is now the customer for this individual. Typically a startup finds the most important validation around that first or 10 paying customers. That's because you feel fantastic realizing you were right - that your idea does matter enough to others to write a check for it. Secondly, that validation is the most important part for the other pieces coming together; attracting other bright minds to your startup, raising an angel round, getting into YC, getting more customers. As I read this I couldn't help but feel as though YC was the intended customer for said startups. So rejection was devastating because they'd built a product with just one customer in mind and they passed.