HN user
Great article with great insight, but this makes YC sound like a frat house, imo. What startup founders want to hear is that they will be successful. They don't want to hear about how it is going to help their networking and how they are going to become great friends with people, even if that is really what is important. It is, btw.
Ok, just read this and absolutely have to comment, since I used to work for a telcom services agent. I learned there that where consumer services (low monthly recurring cost) could be sold online sight unseen, customers requiring business-level services (high monthly recurring cost) wanted more handholding, more discussion, and assumed there would be more paperwork. We actually tried to provide them with instant pricing on T1s, and sales dropped considerably. This is the story in almost anything, and its the reason cars and houses are still sold primarily by people, not websites. Websites may provide the in, but people close the larger deals better in the current day and age.
I agree about the sense of entitlement. However, these people get paid. They are not gifting anything to us anymore than Microsoft gifts us with Windows.