Paul seems to have failed somewhat in his objective to find deep, if narrow, appeal with this talk. People I talked to were unanimous that it was the highlight

Paul seems to have failed somewhat in his objective to find deep, if narrow, appeal with this talk. People I talked to were unanimous that it was the highlight of the day, and I agree. In fact, if YC is taking feedback on these events, I'd suggest having more talks like this, and less of founders chronologically going through their story. That type of talk is also very interesting, but can get a bit repetitive, especially for people who have seen videos of previous startup school talks.