AustinPythonFTW

ig1: your comment is very insightful -- it may be a situation where you, as an insider and experienced founder, can more clearly delineate between the categories (particularly obviously bad vs. middle) than some of us (first time founders, etc). anyways, it's a good point, thank you.

birken: good point. I think the wording i used was too strong (again, disclaimer that I'm still a little bitter from our team being rejected). i think they're becoming more like a traditional vc, but still miles away. in other words: i agree with your points above

Absolutely agree with your thoughts here.

thanks for the comment. YC is definitely great about being very respectful to applicants in its process and blog posts, so don't get me wrong.

I'm just wondering if there's a way for people to understand what their chances are. For example, if 0.01% of people that have lower than a 650 GMAT get into Stanford, then that would be useful information to know (for hopeful applicants).

Similarly, if the "has revenue" cohort has a 15% interview rate, and the "pre-revenue" cohort has a 0.5% interview rate, that would also be really great to know. (same thing for solo vs. multiple founders, recommended vs. non-recommended, etc).

I understand that YC has no obligation to provide this information, and perhaps there are very good reasons why it wouldn't provide it even if it was available. It would just be useful to know if possible.

I think we're making the same point here, but with a nuance.

I think we both agree that: YC is becoming more like everyone else in the investing game. they want to make a lot of money.

Just to clarify, it felt like YC used to be more different from others in the investing game, like they cared more, or they were willing to invest in earlier-stage startups, or they had a higher purpose, or followed the hacker ethos. but now it just feels like they're more like every other investor out there -- please note the use of the word "more". they still do great things (watsi case in point), and all of their blog posts are very respectful towards applicants. to reiterate, it just feels like they're becoming "more" like traditional VC and less like what I thought YC was or used to stand for.

I'm definitely speaking at least a little bit out of bitterness (our team just got rejected), so with that caveat it feels like YC is becoming more like traditional VC (venture capital): - extremely low probability of success just due to volume of applications - no feedback (again, due to volume of applications, and they posted a nice blog post about this, but just stating a fact) - it seems (I don't have any factual evidence to back this up, would love to be proven wrong through factual evidence) that you need to know someone - tendency to fund those who need it the least (already-proven user traction or revenue)

YC is a for-profit, private enterprise that can do whatever it wants, and it is in the business of maximizing income, so it would be foolish for the organization not to act in a self-interested way, but just calling it like I see it (and again, it'd be great if there were any stats the organization could release to disprove any of the points above, but I understand that it has no obligation to do so).