This matches the impression I’ve gotten from most of the people I’ve talked to about their startups, that Y-Combinator is singularly important as a certifier of potential, and therefore gatekeeper to the kinds of network connections that can enable a fledgling business—especially one building business tools, the ostensible means of production—get off the ground.
Maybe PG could reply that if your startup is good, YC isn’t singularly important to it, so there’s no point getting angry about gatekeeping?
Yeah, it would be pretty cool for PG to more overtly admit that YC is a scam. As it is, it’s not actually harmless, since it does attract a lot of attention from people who think they’re paying attention to a nonscam.
The way I understand the objection it that YC promotes “building great products”, which attracts (a lot of) certain kinds of founders, but in fact YC is optimizing for something else (primarily described in Black Swan Farming, confirmed by other sources). I believe they are quite value-additive to the companies they accept, but attract more founders than if they were “honest about their optimization function”, where some founders could have been better off engaging with other VCs on possibly better terms.
Maybe PG could reply that if your startup is good, YC isn’t singularly important to it, so there’s no point getting angry about gatekeeping?
Yeah, it would be pretty cool for PG to more overtly admit that YC is a scam. As it is, it’s not actually harmless, since it does attract a lot of attention from people who think they’re paying attention to a nonscam.
Most people seem happy with what they get from YC, so I’m not sure why you call it a scam.
See also SSC’s Against Lie Inflation
Either it matters a lot for a good startup’s success, or it doesn’t.
If it does, then the gatekeeper narrative is true. If it doesn’t, then how exactly isn’t it a scam?
This is such an obvious point that I’m worried that I’m confused about what’s really going on in this conversation.
Improving a startup’s chance of success, which can also be improved in other ways, doesn’t make YC a gatekeeper or a scam.
The way I understand the objection it that YC promotes “building great products”, which attracts (a lot of) certain kinds of founders, but in fact YC is optimizing for something else (primarily described in Black Swan Farming, confirmed by other sources). I believe they are quite value-additive to the companies they accept, but attract more founders than if they were “honest about their optimization function”, where some founders could have been better off engaging with other VCs on possibly better terms.
All VCs are black swan farming. It is the only model that makes sense as a VC firm.