I think the reason we don't often hear about borderline cases is that the market is truncated at the high end by later stage investors, who wouldn't allow the startups they'd funded to participate in YC even if they'd be net ahead as a result. I.e. I've seen more than one series A funded startup that we could have helped sufficiently to justify the dilution. But (as of this writing) no VC would let one of their series A funded companies do YC.
As for funding a large number of companies, that's net beneficial as long as we can devote sufficient attention to each one, because it means the alumni network they become part of is larger. And we know we're able to devote sufficient attention to each one because we can measure it in (a) office hour signups (I have office hours this afternoon and there are still open slots) and (b) how well each batch does after Demo Day (more startups in the summer 2010 batch have raised additional funding than any previous batch).
Most who decide it's not worth it would (or rather, should) do so ahead of time. I see.
Still, give a free car to a hundred people and at least one will complain about the color of the interior. There's gotta be a sour YC alumnni out there somewhere.
Even if he has no right blaming YC, I'd still like to hear his side of the story.
> YC had consulted and advised us every step of the way. When we had co-founder problems, they gracefully refused to take sides. When we wanted to make a new product, they advised us not to proceed without co-founders, and that we’d need to move to Silicon Valley to be fair to those co-founders. And finally, they didn’t expect a cent back, telling us to give all the money back to our later investors. Not once in my whole time at YC did I believe that they valued their investment more than they valued us, and they were OK with us closing down. YC is a class act.
Why do VCs refuse? Aren't VC's subject to the same equity equation rationale? Is there a difference between the answer they would give and the real answer?
I think the reason we don't often hear about borderline cases is that the market is truncated at the high end by later stage investors, who wouldn't allow the startups they'd funded to participate in YC even if they'd be net ahead as a result. I.e. I've seen more than one series A funded startup that we could have helped sufficiently to justify the dilution. But (as of this writing) no VC would let one of their series A funded companies do YC.
As for funding a large number of companies, that's net beneficial as long as we can devote sufficient attention to each one, because it means the alumni network they become part of is larger. And we know we're able to devote sufficient attention to each one because we can measure it in (a) office hour signups (I have office hours this afternoon and there are still open slots) and (b) how well each batch does after Demo Day (more startups in the summer 2010 batch have raised additional funding than any previous batch).