Like many others that have commented, all of our founders graduated from non-Ivys, have not worked at Google or Facebook, and have definitely not written anythi

Like many others that have commented, all of our founders graduated from non-Ivys, have not worked at Google or Facebook, and have definitely not written anything you'd pay for. YC is not for regular people that just want to do great things, but for those that are actually working hard to do them. Traction is important, showing that you have the ability to produce great results is equally important. However, in the absence of traction or an actual product, graduating from an Ivy with a challenging major, writing a book, working at Google / Facebook are suitable proxies, as they are in themselves challenging achievements that not many can claim.