I'm definitely speaking at least a little bit out of bitterness (our team just got rejected), so with that caveat it feels like YC is becoming more like traditional VC (venture capital):
- extremely low probability of success just due to volume of applications
- no feedback (again, due to volume of applications, and they posted a nice blog post about this, but just stating a fact)
- it seems (I don't have any factual evidence to back this up, would love to be proven wrong through factual evidence) that you need to know someone
- tendency to fund those who need it the least (already-proven user traction or revenue)
YC is a for-profit, private enterprise that can do whatever it wants, and it is in the business of maximizing income, so it would be foolish for the organization not to act in a self-interested way, but just calling it like I see it (and again, it'd be great if there were any stats the organization could release to disprove any of the points above, but I understand that it has no obligation to do so).
YC is a for-profit, private enterprise that can do whatever it wants, and it is in the business of maximizing income, so it would be foolish for the organization not to act in a self-interested way, but just calling it like I see it (and again, it'd be great if there were any stats the organization could release to disprove any of the points above, but I understand that it has no obligation to do so).