Your post really sounds like you massively misunderstand the program. You mention using the $15K in funding to buy a graphic design,or to pay for some PR. The

Your post really sounds like you massively misunderstand the program. You mention using the $15K in funding to buy a graphic design,or to pay for some PR. The idea behind the $15K in funding is (as I understand it, never having directly participated) is that it is just enough to cover reasonable living expenses. It is enough to take your mind off of "how will I pay my rent", but not enough to put your mind on "what clubs will I party at this weekend after I spend a day surfing (ocean surfing, not web surfing). You make reference to Googleing obsessively on certain topics to learn. But how do you know that which you do not know? I've been involved in startups for years, and I still learned things in the very first Startup School ('05, I think), that I had never considered before. No amount of Google-fu would have been as efficient or effective. It is safe to assume that having 1-1 time with pg and his ilk would be massively more valuable than having direct access to Googles entire cache of startup-related data. You also overly discount the value of what you label as "notoriety". No matter what you build, you have to get your message out there somehow. Being prefiltered as a valuable or insightful company can accelerate the growth of your product/company. At the end of the day, YC and programs like it are not the only way to launch a company. But I think the value, especially to "entry level entrepreneurs" is pretty significant.