Ryan has built businesses before Treehouse - ThinkVitamin and Carsonified for example. He knows the people, has the connections, the talent pool to pick from.

PG's YC (using YC since that's the case being used) are tend to be populated with fresh/younger people, who probably never ran a business prior to YC.

Not really fair to try and compare the two and draw conclusions that will blanket the other side of the argument.

Are you going to succeed right out of college as a single founder with your very first business? Probably not.

Would you succeed if you had decade of experience under your belt, built previous successful businesses, know the industry, know the players, and etc? Most likely.