Ask HN: Do any alumni think YC was not worth it?

There are absolutely people for whom doing a startup wasn't worth it, both in retrospect, and based on the best information available to them at the time; some in YC.

I don't think YC itself was a bad choice for any of the startups I can think of; there were some cofounder disputes where one of the cofounders added negative value.

There were zombie companies, especially from after the START Fund was $150k (W11, S11, W12, S12) where teams which should have died stayed around due to YC; it might have been better in retrospect if they hadn't done YC and thus had the money to stay in hateful zombie mode.

I could potentially imagine a situation where a company would benefit from YC but would benefit more from it 6mo later, so e.g. doing YC W11 was a mistake and they should have done YC S11 instead; now I think some people are allowed to defer to the next demo day, which solves a lot of that.

Why wouldn't it be worth it? I mean, it only lasts 3 months, you get $17,000 and you get access to an incredible network of contacts plus very good feedback. How can't it be worth it?