The Y Combinator-denied fly to YC Reject

It's an excellent way to mine the mid-point of the long tail. Clearly YC has limited resources and part of the requirement to be YC is to know that everyone they accept must be able to get the level of support they offer for new ventures.

The resource limitations guarantee that there will be people rejected which are otherwise solid ideas. So finding a way to get those people resources is a good thing for everyone.

I don't think it necessarily has to be a 'competition' but it could also give YC the ability to know what if they had chosen 'project Q' vs rejecting it, giving them a way to perhaps tune their own process a bit.

It's also true that there is an uncomfortable amount of randomness to startup success, founder chemistry, market windows, world events, consumer whim, all contribute an uncomfortably large factor to the success outcome. In some sense knowing the timing can be as important as executing well.

In my eyes YCR clearly shows that there needs to be something beside YC. Every super hero needs his arch enemy.