>>I am a 36 year old Rochester, NY based entreprenuer. At 25 I founded and bootstrapped a sales & marketing company to $9M in sales, 50 employees and >$2M in personal income.
If all we knew about this person was that: 1) They built a ~$10M company and earned more than $2M personally 2) They weren't a hacker
versus:
1) Some hacker
I would put bet person 1 would be a better investment.
YC is also a place to get feedback, constructive or just plain encouraging. Negative comments about someone's profile is pretty bad in YC, let alone in common decency.
What you read on the internet is never a good indication of who someone really is.
Good luck to all the applicants!
Alternatively, you could take like $500k to Demo Day and sink $100k each into five of the YC companies as an angel.
I just don't get why someone who had built that big of a company at 25 would go for YC. What am I missing?
YC's value extends FAR beyond the minimal dollar amount it gives each startup. If you really don't get that, you simply haven't been paying attention. SAD.
If you read my comment above, you'll see where I said: Yeah, I totally get that YC isn't about the cash.
My point was that YC is worth far more than the cash it invests. But I still don't get why someone who had built a company worth millions and taken millions out of it would go back to the YC model. YC has always struck me as being more for single college-aged founders with no track record than for older, more established entrepreneurs with plenty of money to fund their future startups.
2. Any successful business owner will tell you that the biggest question need answered when entering a new verical is "what is it I don't know that I don't know".
Enter YC at average 6% give, worth every penny!