Y Combinator

Man, startup culture and startup accelerators like Y Combinator are such a joke. Everyone I’ve talked to who worked for a startup has openly admitted that the startup’s product was “kind of bullshit” and they were just along for the ride.

In most cases, startup CEOs seem to be young white male whiz kids who got a big first round of funding through an “angel investor” known as Dad—or like, Dad’s friend, with the expectation that Dad would return the favor for Dad’s friend’s son so the nepotism wouldn’t be quite as transparent.

This is exactly what the Y Combinator gods mean when they say they “invest in the founder, not the idea” (you see this in Hacker News comments all the time). YC recruits well-connected, photogenic founders, then push money around for fun and profit—that’s it. If they happen to churn out a useful idea, then that’s just dumb luck; it’s not required for the business model to pan out.