Why Y Combinator is a waste of time

He said, "I read that thing that Paul wrote saying that anybody who contributes regularly is going to fare better. That's shit from a bull."

All I said was the above, and you started accusing me of editing my posts. Why? I thought you'd say, "OH, I see why you think he should apologize to Paul."

I posted over at scribd, but I see the intelligent conversation is here, so I'm going to repost. I hope no one minds:

You're making the right points but drawing the wrong conclusions from them. Yes, users need to be your highest priority, yes you need to have the drive to succeed that is reflected here by not relying on Y Combinator to be your ticket to wealth, Yes you need to get out there and actually DO; actually BUILD. But these are precisely the kinds of people and ideas that y combinator IS GOING TO PICK.

The fact is that Paul Graham says these same points time and time again in his own essays, and so anyone that is applying to y combinator without these things in mind is obviously not very bright. But your conclusion is not very bright either. Someone who really had all the qualities you describe would recognize that while y combinator doesn't mean success or failure, it provides a number of extremely valuable resources (of which money is only one of, and not #1 of, the list). I certainly wouldn't want my competitors to be in a y combinator group that I was rejected from -- that is a bad sign.

To reiterate, good points; bad conclusion.

My first time at news.ycombinator, but i've been reading paul graham's essays for a while now and am increasingly impressed. I'll be back

True, but Microsoft and every startup has a specific set of circumstances that may be exclusive to their situation, whether it be timing (late 1970s), competitive landscape (big slothful IBM), location (being able to live in low-cost Albuquerque and still get clients), etc. To base your entire future around what worked for Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1980 may not be the wisest decision.

Congratulations! This is the first flame war on Y Combinator. Now let's just Godwin it and be done.

Actually, there is a subtle point in the way YC is approaching this whole thing and the person missed the point. Assume there exists a world without YC, how many people will spend time doing something they believe on and make effort to take it to a point so that you can show it to someone? Probably a vast majority would anyway do it. say 90%, what YC is trying to do is - try to squeeze a percent or two of the remaining 10% by making them work by promising them that they'd fund if you come up with something interesting and that adds a certain value to the society as a whole.

So it is certainly a waste of time if - you think of an idea, write an application and decide to work on only if YC is funding it..

But not - when you are working on something or planning to work on something, YC offers you that last bit of motivation to actually go and do it because you want to play the YC gamble.

And it might happen that otherwise, you end up building something, YC rejects you, but you say to yourself, what the heck, I have already done something so lets take it to a logical conclusion (may be 90% will chicken out. but who knows one of those who persisted might be next big thing!!) YC has certainly helped them, who would have been left in "I am planning to do" state otherwise and I think thats what PG is essentially trying to do. Make more people try a stint at 'startuping' and all of this comes at a reasonable cost to everyone!!

To conclude - would the authors' brother have not been happy if there was an "Irish Pub" or something that promised, hey if you send us your recordings, may be we can give you a saturday night and if you get a deal from a recording company, we get cut out of it... (Ouch! I just spit out an idea for some "irish pub" owner, if he's on the list!)