1) History of working for startups, and in every case, the VCs seriously damaged the startup with bad advice or strings tied to the money, which has left me wary of VCs. Further, I have been to a couple events in the bay area, including a YC sponsored one where I mingled with investors and talked to them about various business ideas. I've not gotten the impression that these people have the first clue. Not talking about PG or the other YC people, but just my general impression of people who represented themselves as working for venture capital firms. (and not angels, angels are a different breed I believe and I've had less contact with them.)

2) There simply is not much need for outside capital, as we have a large angel round worth of our own capital in the bank.

3) Strong impression that there is no chance that YC would take us. My co-founder has zero interest

4) YC is predicated on a certain set of assumptions about the type of business, and the priorities of that business. We don't share some key premises there. Namely, it appears that YC believes in betting it all on a short term, big reward, while we believe that a very quickly growing, profitable business will produce a better return for us, at lower risk.

5) As I mentioned we don't really have a need for outside capital, and the contacts YC would get us would primarily serve the purpose of doing additional rounds. Thus, in my opinion the increased risk of having to adopt a specific outside investors timetable, and operational style, along with the risk of having to follow bad advice, does not seem to be worth it, for money we don't need. While YC doesn't subject us to that risk directly, joining the YC program would be getting on that track....