1. Law can be a morass and who then can you rely on when trying to understand it via online resources? Well, for startup legal issues, the answer now is the Clerky Handbook: thoroughly and carefully vetted by those who have lived and breathed this stuff for decades while working in the trenches with founders of all stripes. If you want reliability, you can’t ask for better.
2. The Handbook has scope limitations and that is understandable: to be useful for founders, the core part of the Handbook must by definition be strictly bounded or it loses effectiveness by injecting more nuance and complexity than is needed to convey the fundamentals. If the need is there (and I assume it will be), nuance and complexity can be added with adjunct materials.
3. To date, the Clerky founders have done a superb job of taking legal complexity and turning it into simple and streamlined processes - how to do a Delaware C-corp, how to do convertible notes, etc. This Handbook extends this to the idea of simplifying legal understanding, which is no small feat. In the end, it may look simple and easy but this is incredibly hard to do and all the more reason the accomplishment is to be commended.
4. The hand of YC seems to hover in and around most startup innovations of the past decade and this Handbook is no exception. So many barriers to founder success have come down in recent years and founders have YC to thank for much of this change. Add this Handbook to advances in which it has had a role.
5. The startup world is an amazing place. One advance after another, nonstop over many years. Now add this online resource to the list as a great reference platform to which many quality people have contributed. As it grows and develops, it will do great service for the common betterment now and for many years to come. Great work and kudos to those who drove this effort!