I wouldn't let the atmosphere on HN deter you from applying to YC. YC is far from perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than a semi-anonymous internet forum

I wouldn't let the atmosphere on HN deter you from applying to YC. YC is far from perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than a semi-anonymous internet forum. I had a female (technical) cofounder, and her general take on YC was that she was treated well by the partners, and didn't encounter any blatant sexism from the batch, but many founders in the batch were young techie guys who gravitated toward conversing with other guys, so she really only got to know a subset of the batch (other women, plus the minority of male founders who were comfortable talking to women). Also, she felt there was a general assumption (among the batch, not the partners) that male founders were technical, but female founders were non-technical, which affected how people interacted with her in subtle ways. YC could do more to educate founders about unconscious bias (and for all I know, they have), but at least in our batch, I think that would have been considered somewhat beyond the scope of the program. I don't think she'd ever characterize it as "YC misogyny." HN, on the other hand, is probably more representative of the attitude of the tech world at large, and possibly a bit worse. YC-founder HN comments are almost universally more civil and enlightened than the bulk of the comments on the site. Apply to YC, or don't, that decision is yours. But as long as you're in the tech world, you're not going to avoid any extra sexism by avoiding YC.