The number of people who are smart and also go to those schools and get hired by those companies is a small number compared to the population of "smart people" at large.
A bias toward people coming from those places indicates that the same old fashioned "good ol' boys" style network is a much bigger factor in "success" than intelligence or any other measure of capability.
The frequent defense is that "schooling doesn't matter much," but the halo effect of the Ivies always seems to magically help differentiate. It's a damn shame; tech becomes incredibly less interesting the more it slides into the realm of who you are (as opposed to what you can do).
But, hey, there's lots of money flowing, so that's cool, right? We can all sit around and grasp at success for the rest of our days!
(This is not an indictment of Muse; they sound like they know what they're doing.)
I think the issue here is more that our society in general selects these people for "success" more than those "without pedigree" by virtue of various complicated socioeconomic conditions. I don't think it's an active (or even "unconscious", if you'll permit the flawed adjective in describing a group of people) bias that YC has against any one group or another.
The simple fact is that it's easier for persons with these backgrounds to be less conservative in their entrepreneurial endeavors than for, say, the guy who struggled through a B.S. or B.A. program and who came from poverty. That sort of conditioning lasts for life almost every time. As a result, the population of people who are likely to put together a truly acceptable YC application are more likely to be found in the "pedigreed" group. It's a flaw in society at large, not necessarily with YC itself.
The mistake is to regard YC/SV as disruptive. It isn't; it's about generating excess returns for a bunch of previously successful people. They have zero interest in fixing a broken status quo as long as they can continue to benefit.
> Just like the grade inflation in those good ole ivy leagues.
I only heard about this recently. The practice is abhorrent and further reinforces the entitlement complexes of some people.
I think if YC's mission were to reach out to people who aren't traditionally thought of as "entrepreneurial", but had a bias toward the "pedigreed" people then I could agree. I'm not sure that's the case (in either respect--I haven't actually seen data regarding the provenance of the people who comprise the companies YC has accepted).
Your thinking on this is factually incorrect. If you're middle class or worse, and have the smarts, you can basically go to any of the top Ivies for free these days.
I had a pretty good shot of getting into an Ivy League school 10 years ago(4.0 and highest SAT score in the county), but I didn't apply because I thought my parents couldn't afford it.
That doesnt change the overwhelming competitive advantage rich families have when it comes to prestige schools.
Many wealthy families sink tens of thousands of dollars into preparing their child for university admissions - an advantage only the most brilliant middle class students can overcome.
Even then you have to ask yourself what it means to attend a prestige school. Are the students honestly getting a better education? It's not like they use a special set of books reserved for prestige schools only, and I have a hard time believing slave-labor TAs teaching skills would be any different at such schools.
I'm not sure about how true this is in the US, but it's definitely much less true for international students, a group that YC doesn't want to leave out.
Those companies can be fantastic environments to grow and learn. Not everyone knows at 21 that they want to be an entrepreneur, much less has a great idea that they want to pursue.
Muse uses technology to tackle very traditional industry-type problems - career planning and recruiting. A team with a combined 5-10 years at McKinsey and the exposure to an international network of thousands of very smart and career-driven people (plus lots of client companies) is exactly who you would want for this kind of company.
Yahoo and Google were started by PhD students. AirBnB by designers. Marissa Mayer planed to start with McKinsey, Sheryl Sandberg actually worked there (and in politics). Peter Thiel was a lawyer and derivatives trader. Marc Benioff spent 13 years at Oracle.
Why all the hate for people who have not dropped out of college / have worked in another industry? Clearly great entrepreneurs come from all sorts of backgrounds.
I wouldn't say they're risk averse. This is the second company they've started and they're 25.
Bonus: Educated at top-level schools and companies.
This is one of the best YC applications I've seen. Smart people working on a huge opportunity that they understand and have some traction in. Numbers and initial strategy suggest they've done their homework and can succeed.
I suppose you could substitute "risk-takers" for "scrappy" since risk-taking is inherent in starting a company. I would say that scrappy is more indicative of someone who is entrepreneurial without necessarily relying on a strong background or network already available to them (since the use of risk-takers has received some backlash from some commenters).
