Unless you were there, you can’t understand what a magical time this was. The prevailing wisdom was to get a job after attending the university gauntlet.

This was long before pg was known in general, let alone famous. For context, I ended up visiting SV about a year after this for Startup School. We were staying with a relative, who was also tied in to the VC scene somehow. I remember her asking some question that prompted a “Paul Graham” response. I think she was asking something like “so who might your investors be if things go well?” And being 19 and confident, I foolishly felt I might have what it took to run a YC co. Her reply was illuminating, though: “Who?”

The run-up to YC’s worldwide takeover was truly a cool thing to watch. And I think HN was the central reason it was able to grow at all. Most people seem to disagree, but this snapshot provides a glimpse into a time when YC was a sapling, just like every startup in the YC batches now.