At YC we have this public phrase, and it's relentlessly resourceful.
What I Iove about Y Combinator is that it is a level playing field. If you get in, you immediately become a Silicon Valley insider.
The first time I went through YC, it was smaller, and the founders were younger. The advantage of that was that the set of founders who were older than us had really seen the Web 1.0 meltdown. They brought that knowledge to us.
There is a directory where you can explore every single person who has gone through YC and a private forum that only founders can participate in.
At its core, what's amazing about YC is you don't have to work to get in. You don't have to know anyone, so there isn't some type of old boys' club.
One of the most fun and interesting things about YC is that we are kind of a startup ourselves. We are constantly changing and evolving what we do.
A funny thing happens when you go to another country or invest in a company from another country. Suddenly everyone in that community realizes that YC is for them, too.
The most common post YC failure case for the companies we fund, is they're incredibly focussed during YC on their company... and after they start doing a lot of other things. They advise companies, they go to conferences, whatever.
