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There are long-standing complaints with the structure and the predatory nature of YCombinator. It seems like a "good deed never goes unpunished"-type situation

There are long-standing complaints with the structure and the predatory nature of YCombinator. It seems like a "good deed never goes unpunished"-type situation. YC partners are both independently wealthy and brilliant. They could choose to do anything they wanted with their time, or nothing at all, and they'd still be fine. Instead, they chose to dedicate themselves to coaching people and sharing their expertise to teach people to build companies. Men, women, foreigners, everybody. The selection process for getting into YC is the most open you'd ever find anywhere. The paperwork is open-source for heaven's sakes! Could you suggest a couple of things they could do to make the process less "predatory"?

KirinDave 13y ago
> Instead, they chose to dedicate themselves to coaching people and sharing their expertise to teach people to build companies. You know, most of the good venture capital firms and angels who enter in on seed rounds do this. > Instead, they chose to dedicate themselves to coaching people and sharing their expertise to teach people to build companies. Men, women, foreigners, everybody. I'd love to know the ratio of male founders who apply to the number that get funded vs. the ratio of female ones. Did PG publish this data? > Could you suggest a couple of things they could do to make the process less "predatory"? Not structure it like American Idol, for starters. With the possible exception of pre-everyone-goes-on-summer-vactation, most agencies don't structure their funding around some kind of audition structure. They make appointments and develop leads as they see fit, trying to talk to companies when they're actually read to do funding. Of course, many venture firms out there are sleazy and lots of people are working on ideas that won't interest the top tier firms. But personally I've always felt like everything about the YComb process was design to fool young Stanford undergrads into taking what, honestly, is a kinda mediocre funding deal unless YComb is basically the biggest value-add ever.

KirinDave 13y ago

> Instead, they chose to dedicate themselves to coaching people and sharing their expertise to teach people to build companies. You know, most of the good venture capital firms and angels who enter in on seed rounds do this. > Instead, they chose to dedicate themselves to coaching people and sharing their expertise to teach people to build companies. Men, women, foreigners, everybody. I'd love to know the ratio of male founders who apply to the number that get funded vs. the ratio of female ones. Did PG publish this data? > Could you suggest a couple of things they could do to make the process less "predatory"? Not structure it like American Idol, for starters. With the possible exception of pre-everyone-goes-on-summer-vactation, most agencies don't structure their funding around some kind of audition structure. They make appointments and develop leads as they see fit, trying to talk to companies when they're actually read to do funding. Of course, many venture firms out there are sleazy and lots of people are working on ideas that won't interest the top tier firms. But personally I've always felt like everything about the YComb process was design to fool young Stanford undergrads into taking what, honestly, is a kinda mediocre funding deal unless YComb is basically the biggest value-add ever.