TBF YC has always said the value is in the network.

What's interesting (alarming?) is them formalizing exclusion of access to technology via the network. It's explicitly ossifying an access control system over what used to be handshakes.

I don’t understand, Ycombinator company list is public information list, go buy from any one of them anytime?

AFAICT, this is mostly a way for YC companies to get warm intros into potential customers. Almost exactly like a job fair at a university but for software contracts instead of jobs.

It’s funny how we always celebrate (or at the very least don’t comment negatively) when someone/a startup sets out to build an ecosystem and then love punishing them after they succeed. How very American of us

Just curious, how exactly do you propose they do this instead?

Rent out a convention center, open invitation, and then still complain when all xxK slots are taken up?

Or do it virtually and inundate these startups with thousands of requests and get mad when half don’t get responded to?

Outlaw private capital altogether and force people to IPO to raise money? And then what, complain when only a fraction of those companies work out and the average guy with an E*trade account not in on the joke gets screwed over and over?

At least YC takes applicants and the process is somewhat transparent

Of course there’s a (prob big) element of who you know going on, but it seems to me like the least shitty approach if your goal is to make this at least somewhat accessible

This aspect of yc is good - I know plenty of come from nowhere, unprivileged backgrounds who got into yc and were able to start a company

Now, they fact a lot of them get super douchey once they are in is a different story