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Y Combinator has many characteristics of a cult; a Dear Leader (who appoints his successor himself!); a devout following of young people who are ready to make g
by throwaway85252 12y ago
Y Combinator has many characteristics of a cult; a Dear Leader (who appoints his successor himself!); a devout following of young people who are ready to make great sacrifices just to be part of it; mega-churches and mass events such as Startup School; dubious characters as spokesmen (Andrew Mason, Travis Kalanick); apologists who contemplated a career as priest (patio11).
They prefer young people because bullshit is harder to swallow the older you get -- and if your bullshit detector is hyper sensitive, like Colin Percival or Maciej Ceglowski, you either can't tolerate the thing (Maciej) or you feel like it leaves you cold (Colin).
But it's also an extremely successful cult --possibly one of the most successful ones ever?-- so who are we to criticize.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- patio11 12y agoapologists who contemplated a career as priest (patio11) Literally accurate.
- selmnoo 12y ago> Maciej Ceglowski, you either can't tolerate the thing (Maciej) What critical things did he say about YC?
- tptacek 12y agoYou sound like someone who has made the mistake of not following @Pinboard.
- selmnoo 12y agoAlright, I'll start "following" him. Still, very curious -- what specifically has he said of YC? Doing a ctrl-f on yc|ycombinator on his twitter page didn't reveal much, so still in the dark I am a little bit.
- yellow_and_gray 12y ago> prefer young people because bullshit is harder to swallow the older you get You know, it's frightening this sentence is still true if you replace "bullshit" with "dreams" and "swallow" with "believe." It's frightening because ignoring your dreams is the most common regret of the dying. So age might only on the surface be a filter. The true filter might be optimism. I sincerely hope you don't ignore your dreams.