This is a good idea and a great opportunity for many people. And I think it's fantastic that YC is doing this. However, I can't help feeling it really is intended for young people recently out of school, who have no other immediate financial obligations.
I would really love to see an option for people who are not in this group. Let's imagine someone who is married, with a couple of kids and a mortgage. Right away, YC Fellowship is not feasible.
If you really want another ten-fold increase in the number of startups, tapping into an older demographic could do it -- just because it seems to be a largely untapped resource. We're talking about people with years of experience working in the real world, on real products. We're talking about years of domain expertise, in all kinds of domains. We're talking about people with ideas, and the expertise to execute on them. And all this potential is being left on the table because they typically can't afford to quit their jobs for 3k a month (based on a two-founder team in YC Fellowship).
But if each founder had enough funding to be able to handle their financial obligations, and work full time on their startups, for a year, I think that would break open the flood gates, and you'd see a huge increase in viable startups.
There must be a sweet spot in terms of funding/equity for this scenario, in order to make it beneficial to everyone involved.
I would really love to see an option for people who are not in this group. Let's imagine someone who is married, with a couple of kids and a mortgage. Right away, YC Fellowship is not feasible.
If you really want another ten-fold increase in the number of startups, tapping into an older demographic could do it -- just because it seems to be a largely untapped resource. We're talking about people with years of experience working in the real world, on real products. We're talking about years of domain expertise, in all kinds of domains. We're talking about people with ideas, and the expertise to execute on them. And all this potential is being left on the table because they typically can't afford to quit their jobs for 3k a month (based on a two-founder team in YC Fellowship).
But if each founder had enough funding to be able to handle their financial obligations, and work full time on their startups, for a year, I think that would break open the flood gates, and you'd see a huge increase in viable startups.
There must be a sweet spot in terms of funding/equity for this scenario, in order to make it beneficial to everyone involved.