Anti-Application video for YC120

I think the issue you're bringing up is valid but is just a dark-side of VC in general than just a problem with YC.

Startups and VCs tend to bang on about community values a whole lot more than they actually care, if at all, in contrast, big corps at least don't pretend as much, though it seems like that is changing with recent shift of marketing trends.

The acceptance of this declaring people as "horrible human beings" by mostly anonymous decree, and then creating a fashion where "the worst thing this did/said" is brought up by people who are X degrees removed from even that, every time the unperson does or say anything, I find much worse than being a caustic prick, which at least is hard limited to the actions of one person. Even if the person should be really bad every now and then, they're already sometimes just kinda-bad-mumble-mumble -- and the habit that is being formed here is just waiting on being used on all sorts of people.

That I know, the rest I can't speak on. I wasn't asked to work with him or be his friend, I find his talks valuable, very lucid and much surprisingly easy to follow even with subjects I don't know much about, and in that way they feel much more respectful to me as "the" audience than a lot of the material out there.

In all his rage I think Bryan misses the point that people who are doing valuable work in teams already have access to support networks and have achieved some kind of “insider” status - by virtue of the very fact that they’re doing valuable work in teams.

Such people can already launch startups, receive mentorship, raise funding, apply to YC, etc.

As I understand it, YC120 is specifically looking for people who aren’t already connected to groups/networks who can help them thrive, and the program is wholly designed to connect them to others so new teams of capable people can form.

As for the obituary question: isn’t it obvious that the whole point of this question is to establish that the applicant has noble, benevolent ambitions?

Misdirected, not over the top, it's very appropriate especially when it was a sponsored project and they were getting called out as if Ben was their employee and they were cosigning whatever Ben's views were.

Regardless how you feel on gendered pronouns, if you're writing documentation regarding all users it seems like a no brainier to actually involve all users in the language, something which Bryan puts great significance into. Bryan's talks[0] usually involve tone and messaging (as well as being triggered and raged) as key points.

But back to the drama issue. The problem about this whole thing isn't about the pronouns really, it was the actions that Ben took even after it was explained and the hard stance Joyent felt it needed to take on the issue in the aftermath.

Ben, if we're giving him the benefit of the doubt (because he isn't a native English speaker) to word something 'wrong', is a simple fix, who cares.

- The real part of this whole mess was because he tried reversing a commit that was made by the project lead after it was worded to include more users. Ben was the main agitator in this almost 6 year old mess regardless of his amount of contributions.

[0] https://youtu.be/9QMGAtxUlAc

"What do you want your obituary to say?"

Is this really one of the questions?

So, it's funny, I tell people there's usually two kinds of people. Those that want to be a and those who want to have been an . The former enjoys the journey. The latter wants to skip to the end. This question seems like it is targeting the latter group. Shouldn't YC be trying to target the former?