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Comment by sturgill | Hacker News Reader

I’ve always been intrigued by YC, but the commitment to relocate is hard to justify. I have three kids (with the oldest finishing up her junior year next month). So I’m not in a place where being in SF for the summer works very well for the family.

I remember during COVID that there was a remote option, but I don’t believe that’s available now. So for someone more established (erm, no longer 20) that lives in the middle of the country, I’m not sure it’s a great fit.

But man am I interested… I can never quite tell myself “no” and move on either… I’d love to be wrong. Because I’ve got a great one cooking right now!…

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For better or worse, the relocation requirement is probably a good proxy for "can commit to their startup 24x7 without any other responsibilities standing in the way".

Maybe, but that’d be playing into a tired stereotype.

That sounds like a system that leaves out a lot of people who might be better at starting and running companies than the persona willing to throw their family in the garbage for their company.

A startup founder who is 40 years old is 2.1x more likely to start a successful venture than a 25-year-old. [1] The kind of people who tend to have kids and families.

And it’s kind of pathetic for an industry that’s supposed to be creating innovations like spatial computing, augmented reality, and fully remote companies to be unable to set up an online school.

[1] https://www.founderjar.com/startup-statistics/

That’s nonsense. Startups are only for the young and unencumbered? I’ve had several successful startups and managed to combine that with a family life as well as time off for R&R and mentally recharging.

If this is your belief, I strongly advise you to reconsider your life choices and priorities

Please make your substantive points without name-calling (in the sense that the site guidelines use the term - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and without crossing into personal attack. Your comment would be just fine without the first and last sentences.

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