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Comment by darkhorse13

1 year ago

I applied to YC in the last batch and got rejected. Not to sound like sour grapes, but it seems like YC loooves students from certain universities, which kinda sucks for us commoners who didn't go to these places.

Not to mention the whole hype around AI is unbearable at this point. Seems very likely that deserving products/ideas are getting rejected because they aren't doing AI, or because their founders didn't go to Stanford. Oh well, that's just how it goes.

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darkhorse13

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risyachka  1 year ago

Yep, thats how they work, there's a ton of data to back it up.

Unless you are from few *US* unis, you have zero to none chance of getting in, unless you have significant traction already, in which case you may as well go to any investor and they will fund you.

And if you are among those lucky few, they will fund you with the most shitty idea you have, or even without any at all.

  • darkhorse13  1 year ago

    >unless you have significant traction already, in which case you may as well go to any investor and they will fund you

    This is the part that really bothers me unfortunately. I honestly grew up thinking that YC invested in people and ideas more than traction. If I had traction, I could raise money from anywhere. YC does invest in people without traction, but you have to be a certain type of person, from a certain background, and from certain institutions.

  • vertoc  1 year ago

    I went to a state school (and not a prestigious one) and I got in ~a year after graduating, I don't think this is super accurate

    • darkhorse13  1 year ago

      I'm a solo founder and during the application process, I got 3-4 emails telling me to strongly consider finding a co-founder using https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching.

      That's great, but just look at the profiles advertised on the front-page there: Harvard, Berkeley, MIT, etc. Nothing against them personally of course, but I really think this is the trend YC is going towards these days. It's the old school institutional prestige back, but this time it's blended together with SV startups.

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