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Comment by davemel37 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how many good people never apply because of reading posts like this.

I am not saying any of this weeding out is a problem. It's not. But publicizing it will likely not scare off the competent BSers but will eliminate many good folks who are a little insecure. (I don't buy that being confident and secure is a requirement for success.)

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It is hard to imagine something more demeaning than having your goodness as a human judged in 10 minutes.

Not many would subject themselves to it, but for the fact that YC is one of the few gatekeepers in Silicon Valley who will even talk to outsiders.

People who apply for YC let themselves be 'judged' because that's what the interview process is all about. This post gives you more insight into this judgement process. So, I would say this post is valuable for people who will apply or intend to apply for YC.

If it was about judging if a team can execute and if an idea has merits, that's one thing. If its about judging if they fit into a culture you are cultivating that is fine too.

But if its about judging character...This filters out the humble people and curates the narcissistic.

I guess I am saying that most good people don't go around thinking how good they are...and the better a person is the more likely they will take responsibility for everything in their lives, which may lead them to think less of themselves.

Whereas, someone who is narcissistic thinks he is a good guy, and is actually really bad.

I still think they should filter for culture fit and even ethical fit, but they should not publicize it, and definitely should not proclaim they are gifted at it and very accurate in their assessments.

I can think of lots of good guys who would never want to be judged on their character in 10 minutes by someone the valley looks up to and who proclaims they almost always accurate when reading people.

I know my own shortcomings. I am afraid Jessica will see right through me and see how rotten to the core I know I am. But who knows... maybe I am just hard on myself and I really am a great guy. I guess I would rather not find out for sure :)

>But if its about judging character...This filters out the humble people and curates the narcissistic.

Good judges of character can see through narcissism and appreciate humility. You seem to be assuming that anyone judging character will be easily fooled.

You missed my point. This will prevent humble people from even applying.

Oh. It wasn't very clear. Also I think you're mixing up humility and low self-esteem. Humble, in the positive sense of the word, just means modest. And modest people can be confident about themselves.

Your definitions are correct when it comes to measuring your own abilities but not when it comes to judging your own character. Truly humble people won't perceive themselves as humble and be confident about how humble they are.

To your point about low self esteem and humility. These aren't mutually exclusive...many good people have a low self esteem but are still confident in their abilities and achieve success.

That is about the complete opposite of the conclusion I drew. She's trying to keep the BS'ers out, not the insecure founders.

We all drew the same conclusions. It is clear their goal is to keep the BSers out. I was just wondering if her writing this post will cause some good founders who are insecure to never apply in the first place.

In other words. Her post might be self defeating.

It's a valid point. That said, if someone is insecure enough that this blog posts puts them off applying, will they be able to run a startup? A startup is a giant leap into the unknown.

I believe every skill needed to emotionally deal with running a startup can be learned on the job. I just don't buy this claim that only some sort of people are cut out for starting a start up. If you start a startup you just proved you have what it takes...If you didn't you would never get started.

It's like founders think they have a monopoly on dealing with difficult emotional circumstances and somehow since they coped they are super human.

You bring to the table who you are and you figure it out as you need to. There is no reason someone who is insecure can't adapt on the fly to coping with the circumstances.

In fact, I find that people discover deep strength they never knew they had when they have no choice but to cope...who you are today is not a reason to think you can't handle a startup.

I just don't buy it.

JL somehow implies that, rejected applicants of YC might have a "character" problem. So why to sound it so loud? YC might invest or not, but saying "some" applicants were rejected because they were bad persons is different than saying YC is not investing for not specific reasons (as PG said that couple of times). The judgement is not objective, so keep it to yourself, otherwise, you might raise a flag about others rejected.

I personally find it encouraging. I learned to speak carefully from my engineer father and the rapid-fire sounds intimidating. I like knowing YC keeps people in the room to look past that (presumably, each interviewing team has its own Jessica.)

Ironically, this post made me a little sad that my career track doesn't point toward making a YC attempt.

SV is in big part a lottery. The glossy articles with survivor bias showcase are a tiny fraction of a brutal environment. Suicide rates are underreported.

Don't get me wrong, I like how it has a lot of capital to invest in long shots and how that creates an environment where it's easier to reach critical mass. But it's certainly not the magic happy land often portrayed.

> Suicide rates are underreported.

Can I just check: do you mean under-reported by coroners? Or that the statistics are available and not reported by the press?

Many startup founders are adult men without families. That's a high risk group for death by suicide. Add the financial pressure and you have another risk factor. The lifestyle can be another factor.

I mean underreported by media/social.

Not SV, but last year there were a series of suicides in the Las Vegas tech hub. Submitted stories were buried in sites like HN. Just an example of the culture.

I'm not saying don't do it, just be mindful it's very hard and has a lot of factors out of your control.

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