4 ms·

> "There is a good reason that everyone who is accepted gets in, but there is not a good reasons why people are rejected." Yes there is - because they aren't t

> "There is a good reason that everyone who is accepted gets in, but there is not a good reasons why people are rejected." Yes there is - because they aren't the best of the best. I don't see a reason to sugar-coat it. Being rejected means that YC doesn't think that you're one of the 50 or so best startups who applied. Nothing more, and nothing less.

zt 13y ago
Sure. I'd agree with that I guess. The counterfactual theory is that YC has something to tell you -- but that suggests there is something to improve per se. But that's not quite right. It's not that you did something wrong it's that you didn't have quite the elements to be right.
ewoodrich 13y ago
> I don't see a reason to sugar-coat it. Being rejected means that YC doesn't think that you're one of the 50 or so best startups who applied. Nothing more, and nothing less. True, but that's sort of ex post facto justification. Theoretically, ten startups could apply and objectively be equally qualified, but YC may still pick only one. The key is that without completely exhaustive criteria for admission (which would not be practical), it's impossible to determine what defines "best" and how to become one of the "best".
dhaivatpandya 13y ago
That's not necessarily the case. That's assuming that the admissions process is perfect, which I do not think anyone at YC or any university would even propose.
- adamzerner 13y ago
  I wasn't assuming that. I was saying that it means that they don't think that you're one of the top 50 or so startups that applied. All of the information you need is contained in that above statement. All of this advice is basically just saying, "interpret that above statement literally, and don't make any false inferences from it".
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - kenjackson 13y ago
    Not necessarily. I could imagine that YC may fill slots. They have two enterprise security companies and the third best may rank really high, but they don't want to spread themselves thin in this space. Likewise they may pick an augmented reality company that ranks at 100, but they are interested in diversifying to this address.
TeMPOraL 13y ago
No, it might as well mean (and I believe it does) that the difference between the 50th and 51st place is so small that it's either below sampling error or just plain not worth spending time on. It's the "I'm sorry, you're both equally good, but we had to pick one" situation. I'm pretty sure pg wrote about it at least twice (once wrt. college admissions, and once wrt. startups applying to YC). EDIT: This [0] explains it nicely. Put yourself in the position of someone selecting players for a national team. Suppose for the sake of simplicity that this is a game with no positions, and that you have to select 20 players. There will be a few stars who clearly should make the team, and many players who clearly shouldn't. The only place your judgement makes a difference is in the borderline cases. Suppose you screw up and underestimate the 20th best player, causing him not to make the team, and his place to be taken by the 21st best. You've still picked a good team. If the players have the usual distribution of ability, the 21st best player will be only slightly worse than the 20th best. Probably the difference between them will be less than the measurement error. The 20th best player may feel he has been misjudged. But your goal here wasn't to provide a service estimating people's ability. It was to pick a team, and if the difference between the 20th and 21st best players is less than the measurement error, you've still done that optimally. [0] - http://paulgraham.com/judgement.html http://paulgraham.com/judgement.html
- adamzerner 13y ago
  I guess that for those couple of border cases, it's true that there wasn't a "good reason" why they were denied. But for the majority of applicants, there is a good reason - because YC didn't think that you were one of the 50 or so best startups. This doesn't mean that being denied means that you're not smart or dedicated or that your startup is bad. It just means that they didn't think it was one of the 50 best they received.
dredmorbius 13y ago
You're assuming (or implying) that there's some canonical scale of quality, that it's absolute, and that it can be perfectly determined. None of these are true. There is, frequently, a probabilistic scale of quality -- there are works or instances which will, generally, be considered "good" and some which are considered "bad", and, say in an iterated experiment model you'll generally come to at least some level of agreement as to what's what. Sometimes there are even very clear winners and losers. But there's a hell of a lot of variance. There are things which people, often many people, like, often a lot, which others simply despise. I am, for example, not a fan of rap, hip-hop, house, and similar music. I really like Beethoven's late string quartets. I'm aware that by popular vote my preferences are likely unpopular. And even where there is widespread agreement after the fact on something, experts in the field may not come to agreement. The Beatles were panned by several early music critics and record labels. Rob Malda's initial review of a new cellphone was less than whelmed. Oh yeah, it was called the "iPhone", you may have heard of it. Tests for categories as seemingly refined as classical music performance -- both auditions of performers, and trials of classic vs. modern instruments, and fine wines, show that there are huge differences in non-blinded vs. blind trials (for music), and that wine experts are incredibly unreliable in how they grade, or even describe the qualities of, wines. Though this does make for an entertaining way to spend an afternoon or evening with friends. http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Blind-Auditions-Putting-Discrimination-on-2855410.php http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Blind-Auditions-Putti... http://freakonomics.com/2010/12/16/freakonomics-radio-do-more-expensive-wines-taste-better/ http://freakonomics.com/2010/12/16/freakonomics-radio-do-mor... In another interesting study, unreleased music was introduced to several different "worlds" of test subjects -- within a world the experiences were shared, but not between them. The result was that, from the same starting selection, different "hits" were selected by each. http://www.npr.org/2014/02/27/282939233/good-art-is-popular-because-its-good-right http://www.npr.org/2014/02/27/282939233/good-art-is-popular-... And that's the whole point. In any competitive selections process, especially where there are far more qualified applicants than there are positions, there will be many qualified applicants who aren't admitted. The reasons for denial will vary, but ultimately the selectors must adopt some arbitrary mechanism. Lottery would probably be the fairest, say, by assigning a rough percentile ranking to each candidate (perhaps by decile), selecting all within the top category (the clear winners), none below some cutoff, and a random selection within the grey range. More often culture, bias, hubris, or other factors will lead to other bases for decision. But thinking you can, perfectly and without error, assess the quality of something as both nuanced and capricious as the possible value of a technology start-up concept based on a few brief exposures is really pretty arrogant. And all but certainly wrong.
chc 13y ago
Which is it: Are they not the best of the best, or has YC's pseudorandom "probability the X is the in the top 50" function just not worked out in their favor this time?

zt 13y ago

Sure. I'd agree with that I guess. The counterfactual theory is that YC has something to tell you -- but that suggests there is something to improve per se. But that's not quite right. It's not that you did something wrong it's that you didn't have quite the elements to be right.

ewoodrich 13y ago

> I don't see a reason to sugar-coat it. Being rejected means that YC doesn't think that you're one of the 50 or so best startups who applied. Nothing more, and nothing less. True, but that's sort of ex post facto justification. Theoretically, ten startups could apply and objectively be equally qualified, but YC may still pick only one. The key is that without completely exhaustive criteria for admission (which would not be practical), it's impossible to determine what defines "best" and how to become one of the "best".

dhaivatpandya 13y ago

That's not necessarily the case. That's assuming that the admissions process is perfect, which I do not think anyone at YC or any university would even propose.

adamzerner 13y ago
I wasn't assuming that. I was saying that it means that they don't think that you're one of the top 50 or so startups that applied. All of the information you need is contained in that above statement. All of this advice is basically just saying, "interpret that above statement literally, and don't make any false inferences from it".
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- kenjackson 13y ago
  Not necessarily. I could imagine that YC may fill slots. They have two enterprise security companies and the third best may rank really high, but they don't want to spread themselves thin in this space. Likewise they may pick an augmented reality company that ranks at 100, but they are interested in diversifying to this address.

TeMPOraL 13y ago

No, it might as well mean (and I believe it does) that the difference between the 50th and 51st place is so small that it's either below sampling error or just plain not worth spending time on. It's the "I'm sorry, you're both equally good, but we had to pick one" situation. I'm pretty sure pg wrote about it at least twice (once wrt. college admissions, and once wrt. startups applying to YC). EDIT: This [0] explains it nicely. Put yourself in the position of someone selecting players for a national team. Suppose for the sake of simplicity that this is a game with no positions, and that you have to select 20 players. There will be a few stars who clearly should make the team, and many players who clearly shouldn't. The only place your judgement makes a difference is in the borderline cases. Suppose you screw up and underestimate the 20th best player, causing him not to make the team, and his place to be taken by the 21st best. You've still picked a good team. If the players have the usual distribution of ability, the 21st best player will be only slightly worse than the 20th best. Probably the difference between them will be less than the measurement error. The 20th best player may feel he has been misjudged. But your goal here wasn't to provide a service estimating people's ability. It was to pick a team, and if the difference between the 20th and 21st best players is less than the measurement error, you've still done that optimally. [0] - http://paulgraham.com/judgement.html http://paulgraham.com/judgement.html

adamzerner 13y ago
I guess that for those couple of border cases, it's true that there wasn't a "good reason" why they were denied. But for the majority of applicants, there is a good reason - because YC didn't think that you were one of the 50 or so best startups. This doesn't mean that being denied means that you're not smart or dedicated or that your startup is bad. It just means that they didn't think it was one of the 50 best they received.

dredmorbius 13y ago

You're assuming (or implying) that there's some canonical scale of quality, that it's absolute, and that it can be perfectly determined. None of these are true. There is, frequently, a probabilistic scale of quality -- there are works or instances which will, generally, be considered "good" and some which are considered "bad", and, say in an iterated experiment model you'll generally come to at least some level of agreement as to what's what. Sometimes there are even very clear winners and losers. But there's a hell of a lot of variance. There are things which people, often many people, like, often a lot, which others simply despise. I am, for example, not a fan of rap, hip-hop, house, and similar music. I really like Beethoven's late string quartets. I'm aware that by popular vote my preferences are likely unpopular. And even where there is widespread agreement after the fact on something, experts in the field may not come to agreement. The Beatles were panned by several early music critics and record labels. Rob Malda's initial review of a new cellphone was less than whelmed. Oh yeah, it was called the "iPhone", you may have heard of it. Tests for categories as seemingly refined as classical music performance -- both auditions of performers, and trials of classic vs. modern instruments, and fine wines, show that there are huge differences in non-blinded vs. blind trials (for music), and that wine experts are incredibly unreliable in how they grade, or even describe the qualities of, wines. Though this does make for an entertaining way to spend an afternoon or evening with friends. http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Blind-Auditions-Putting-Discrimination-on-2855410.php http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Blind-Auditions-Putti... http://freakonomics.com/2010/12/16/freakonomics-radio-do-more-expensive-wines-taste-better/ http://freakonomics.com/2010/12/16/freakonomics-radio-do-mor... In another interesting study, unreleased music was introduced to several different "worlds" of test subjects -- within a world the experiences were shared, but not between them. The result was that, from the same starting selection, different "hits" were selected by each. http://www.npr.org/2014/02/27/282939233/good-art-is-popular-because-its-good-right http://www.npr.org/2014/02/27/282939233/good-art-is-popular-... And that's the whole point. In any competitive selections process, especially where there are far more qualified applicants than there are positions, there will be many qualified applicants who aren't admitted. The reasons for denial will vary, but ultimately the selectors must adopt some arbitrary mechanism. Lottery would probably be the fairest, say, by assigning a rough percentile ranking to each candidate (perhaps by decile), selecting all within the top category (the clear winners), none below some cutoff, and a random selection within the grey range. More often culture, bias, hubris, or other factors will lead to other bases for decision. But thinking you can, perfectly and without error, assess the quality of something as both nuanced and capricious as the possible value of a technology start-up concept based on a few brief exposures is really pretty arrogant. And all but certainly wrong.

chc 13y ago

Which is it: Are they not the best of the best, or has YC's pseudorandom "probability the X is the in the top 50" function just not worked out in their favor this time?