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Comment by april192024 | Hacker News Reader

april192024

>>> "YC is pretty explicit that they try to pick founders, not ideas, most of the time. That approach is all over the Startup School videos, for example; they don't exactly make a secret of it."

If Y Combinator truly prioritizes founders over ideas, as indicated in their Startup School videos, repeated rejections might suggest a fundamental mismatch. If you haven't been accepted after one or two tries, it may be a signal that you're not the type of founder they're looking to fund. People do not change that much usually.

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> People do not change that much usually.

I don't know what YC thinks about this, but I disagree with this pretty strongly. None of the skills or advantages I think I have as a founder were things I had five years ago. I would never in a million years have been able to do even the things I've done in the last 24 hours if I had tried to when I first arrived in the Bay Area for my first "real" job.

People's fundamental values and motivations usually don't change that much, but their philosophy, resilience, and pool of cached ideas absolutely can. That's especially true for people who, like me, came in from outside. It takes time to get your bearings and learn how business is done, what things matter and what things don't, what a normal level of "on fire" is, and even a person with a low of raw intellectual ability/domain talent still needs time to train their internal models.

It's exactly the other way around.

You'd be right if YC were perfect at assessing founders every time, but of course they're not. Applying repeatedly gives you a chance to prove that they got you wrong the first time (and the second, and the third, and so on, if need be). Not only does this work, it's the majority case (I just double checked this). Most founders that YC funds are repeat applicants.

Applying repeatedly demonstrates persistence, which is one of the qualities YC looks for. Better still, if you can show continued progress since your previous application, that demonstrates resourcefulness, another core quality. Repeated applications can move the needle on what sort of founder YC thinks you are. Especially if you were a borderline call the last time—keeping going, and applying again, is a way to get on the other side of the line.

YC frequently heralds persistence as the most reliable indicator of future success. However, a closer look at their selection practices reveals a profound contradiction. Despite their public endorsement of this trait, YC often rejects applicants who demonstrate true persistence by reapplying after initial failures. In contrast, they appear to favor individuals with prestigious academic or corporate backgrounds—those who might be perceived as career opportunists lacking deep commitment to their ventures—over genuinely dedicated founders.

This pattern not only questions the sincerity of YC's stated values but also suggests a broader inconsistency. If such a discrepancy exists in their evaluation of persistence, one can reasonably doubt the authenticity of other virtues YC promotes. This insight casts a shadow over the overall integrity of their selection criteria, hinting that what YC publicizes may not always align with their actual priorities.

Persistence is not "the most reliable indicator". It's possible to be persistent at something that isn't working and isn't going to work (I know; I've done it). That's not useful, so persistence is far from sufficient. It is necessary though.

If there's a most-reliable-indicator at all, it would be something like what pg called 'relentless resourcefulness'. The includes persistence and a lot of other things as well.

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