How Y Combinator and 500 Startups Are Different

"Gone are the days (if they ever existed) where you could be a relatively inexperienced kid with a crappy demo and expect to get funded by by either group."

That's not true in the case of YC. We make a point of funding inexperienced founders if they seem smart and energetic. E.g. Dani Gross of Greplin was 18 years old and we didn't like his idea, but he seemed like he'd make a good founder.

We'd never want to get to the point where people had to be established (in any sense) to get funded by YC, because if we did we'd cut off some of the startups with the highest beta.