jsonchen

With all due respect, the reason you might have to argue the point is probably because even back in 2007 the application page said:

     The people in your group are what matter most to us. [...] Your idea is important too, but mainly as evidence that you can have good ideas

YC probably won't miss out on a DropBox that looks like a DropBox, but you might miss out on a Drew Houston that eventually creates a DropBox.

YC founders usernames appear as a different color to other YC founders and some percentage of them probably upvote every post they see.

If you've been incorporated for 16 years and still haven't made it, you really shouldn't be allowed to call yourself a startup.

You're just a company. There's nothing wrong with being just a company. But you're not a startup.

Honestly I think that YC is opting to make fewer risks these days, not more. The days where you can get funding without traction are numbered, and with it go the real crazy idea startups like AirBnb, Stripe, and Twitch.tv.

Even so, was that true of any of the billion dollar companies before they joined YC, though? I'm not sure it was.

It takes a long time to make a billion dollar company, but with the increased emphasis on traction, I wonder if accelerators like YC are thinking too short term. Would an unknown Justin Kan or Alexis Ohanian even get funded today without traction?