First of all, I really liked knowing that I had a one in three chance of a woman, Jessica Livingston, reading my application.

I liked how the application felt like a college application; they judge you based upon your potential and what you've done in your circumstances, not like an investor who says: "What experience and traction do you have?".

I totally trusted PG, Jessica + TLB to see my potential and tailored my application to the rubric they stated on the website--looking for outstanding "outside of the box" people.

Having entrepreneurs, who may not be as used to thinking outside the box of "who is a good founder?" will be more biased towards founders like themselves - i.e. male coders.

This comes as a very sad surprise to me. I have a feeling I'm going to be treated as I usually am by the men in technology - which is an outsider. I know that there are VERY FEW female YC founders and I know that having male coders looking at my application is going to totally work against me, if for no other reason than they don't relate to me.

[edit: I sincerely apologize that my comment has generated so much heat. I wanted to raise a concern, I'm sorry this got out of hand.]

If anything, the stereotypical hacker guy wants to see more women in the industry. If 99% of the industry was female, wouldn't you be ecstatic to see a guy come in? If tech was a female dominated world, I might subconsciously look for MORE reasons to accept a male founder.

Guys in tech enjoy the prospect of diversity and believe in women more than you give them credit for. Think about the plus side: having more male coders reading over your application might actually give you the upper-hand!

I also wonder if things are better on the West Coast. My experience has been on the East.

As a male, I will not pretend to imagine what you go through because of our differences. I can only speak from my experience as a wimpy appearing introvert who has had earn everything I've ever had because hardly anyone has ever given me anything.

I do not mean to offend and apologize ahead of time in case I do...

To me, this entire thread comes off as whining and can only hurt you. Entrepreneurs must treat obstacles as speed bumps to conquer, not roadblocks to complain about.

I suggest you redirect any energy you put into this thread into making your start-up better and put your trust into that effort. You'll probably have to make it so good that they can't ignore it. That's what everyone should do anyway.

I wish you great success doing that.

"Wimpy male introvert" is hardly an exceptionally rare stereotype within IT, and 'not being given anything' is hardly the same as 'having things taken away', which I constantly see happening.

And it's not like a few posts on news.yc is a massive time-sink that's 'energy' that needs to be redirected internally.

Honestly, I'm so glad I'm not a woman in IT. Not only do you get crapped on, you get told not to complain when it happens.

It's insulting to Jessica to think that she'd give her "points" for being female. And it's insulting to YC founders to say that we'd somehow dock her for being a woman.

That being said-- both are possible. Spend a few months doing A/B testing, read about priming studies, and you realize just how much of our motivation is powered by our subconscious.

But just because it's possible doesn't mean that it isn't insulting.

I'm a white male, but I like to think that if I was a minority, I'd deal with it be being so fucking good that people couldn't ignore the fact rather than spending one IOTA of energy publicly accusing people of being likely to judge me unfairly...

I can understand how people found this discussion insulting, especially when it got blown out of proportion. It wasn't tianaco's intention.

I saw the application she submitted which she is leading. She focuses on differentiating herself from typical entrepreneurs, and a lot of that has to do with her unique experiences. She was confident this would play well with the YC team. She was fearful that it would work against her with YC alum. That's why she started this thread.

tianaco is a vocal person who says what she thinks. In some circumstances, this has hurt her. More often than not, it has opened the door to opportunities that don't exist for other people. Regardless, she has made a conscious choice to live her life speaking up. Whether this thread helped her or hurt her is unknown.

As a team member, she oughta reign this in a bit. As a company founder, saying what you think can sometimes hurt your company. I think you have a duty to put a buffer between your brain and your mouth, especially around touchy subjects. If you always say what you think around investors and customers, you'll probably have fewer of both. :-)

I think a lot of people (PG included) have remarked that founders are ALWAYS selling (to customers, investors, new hires, reporters, etc). Part of selling is the ability to anticipate a reaction before you say something and to say the things that will elicit the reaction that you want. Or, at very least, speak the truth in such a way that it maximizes the effect that you want and minimizes the damage that it might cause. Example: last night I ate a juicy organic steak vs. last night I ate a muscle tissue sample of a castrated bull (hat tip to Robert Heinlein).

We all make mistakes-- I HOPE she realizes that there's a reasonable chance that she (and her company) might have been better off if she hadn't said what she did or said it in a different way.

I think it's pretty gratuitous for you to give me a lesson on selling to investors and customers here. Yes my comments may have been polarizing. I don't think you understand the opportunity cost of always saying what you think people want to hear.

I've gotten a lot of opportunities by speaking my mind to and rubbing influential people the wrong way initially. They give me attention they normally would not give, and in debating with me give me more respect in the end than had I just championed the status quo. This isn't something I seek out, but I find that standing my ground almost always serves me well.

Give what I wrote another read. I wasn't suggesting that you say what people want to hear. I was suggesting that you say what you need to say in the most effective way possible given your goals. Telling people stuff they don't want to hear is a pretty common necessity. Standing your ground is important. I'm telling you that I think you probably did a disservice to your partners by doing what you did the way you did it. As one of the people who could actually review your app, I would think that'd be useful feedback. From the other folks who responded with incredulity, I don't think my opinion is unique, but I guess you can feel free to disregard it.

To judge fairly, context is as important as content. A man who steals because he has nothing to eat and would die is different from a man who steals because he feels like it.

In that case, you should recuse yourself.

If you will pardon the pun.

I don't think you, a YC alum, would necessarily dock me for being a woman. I do think that you might not find some of my accomplishments as interesting as you would someone more like you. Is that unfair? Only if I knew YC alums were reading my application after I submitted it. Because I would have tailored it to you in the first place, the YC alum. It would take too long to re-tailor it at this point!

That's ALL I meant with this thread.

I apologize for any misunderstanding or offense taken.

With all due respect, you don't know how you would deal with being a minority until you've been one.

A woman who works in tech will be bitten a lot more times. I don't think it's being hyper atuned, it's more of being wary based of past experience. The people who you know seem like they don't care about prejudice work hard to make it seem that way. It's not the normal way.

The human way is to learn very fast with very few experiences. It takes extra-ordinary people to pretend they have not learned so as to keep people like you comfortable.

The fact that my concern is controversial, but perhaps resonates with people, is why it got so much attention.

HN exists as a forum for discussion and I raised a discussion that is germane to this announcement. A lot of other entrepreneurs have raised similar concerns in different ways... which is why this thread is so popular.

I got under people's skin. But for you to call it "whiney" is really out of line.

My concerns about this announcement as just as valid as other's people's as evidenced by the amount of upvotes.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=908585

I'm not sure what you meant about a "one in three chance," but it sounds like you're misunderstanding how we read applications. We don't split them up. Also, there are 4 YC founders, not 3.

The way it usually works is that Robert, Trevor and I (separately) read and rank the applications. Then Jessica looks at the top-ranked ones to see if there are any red flags we've overlooked.

Would you tell us, which YC alumni is going to read the applications for us in advance,if we see any conflicts then, we delte our application.

Thanks,

Y Combinator has funded female cofounders before and it is my understanding that most batches have had women in them. If anything, I think they'd almost be more willing to fund female cofounders because there isn't enough data out there to know if or how female cofounders in YC startups deviate from the success rate in a notable way.

Since Y Combinator is about funding startups that are likely to succeed, this is an additional (and I think positive) way to test the methods of picking they've used in the past. Are YC founders as capable as YC at picking successful startups? I think this is a very interesting question.

Y Combinator doesn't make any promises about who they're going to invest in. Trying to hack your way into YC based merely on the chance that Jessica will be reading your application is a bad idea. Calling bias before you've heard anything from YC seems like a particularly bad idea and risks you coming off as entitled.

Spend your time improving your product. If your product is so specific to female interests that a male founder who's reading it doesn't know whether or not there will be a marketplace for it, I'd imagine he'd get a second opinion. If you are rejected, don't for one second think that it was because you were female. It would be for many many more reasons before that one. Remember, most men will get rejected by YC too. If your product is good, continue working on it. Y Combinator would be the first to admit that they don't always get it right and you do not need Y Combinator to have a successful startup.

Disclosure: I was a cofounder in YCS08.

Being "more willing" to fund female cofounders will bias the question of how they deviate from the success rate, no?

Individuals tend to internalize negatives. If you tell them that they aren't going to relate to you because they're men, they're going to internalize that and have trouble relating to you.

There is plenty of overt and veiled sexism in technology -- much of it, you can't control. However, if you come into every scenario projecting an assumption of sexism, that's likely what you'll always find.

Yes, it's incorrigible and often justified with sophomoric platitudes, even here on HN.

... well, you learn from past experiences.

However, the presupposition that someone will be prejudiced against you on the basis of their gender can also be damaging to social interactions -- such as this one.

I can't tell if you're insinuating that I am using sophomoric platitudes, but I hope you respect that I have been trying to speak mostly about my personal experiences.

However, the presupposition that someone will be prejudiced against you on the basis of their gender can also be damaging to social interactions -- such as this one.

I think we all know that people are prejudiced.

Confronting people on their prejudices can be damaging, or it can jolt them out of their complacency and get them to view you with a fresh set of eyes. It usually depends on the person and also how honestly and straightforwardly you present yourself.

No, my intention wasn't to slight your concerns; I was attempting to articulate my opinion of sexism in technology and the justifications often used to support it.

my co-founder (jlees) is XX. She was the face on our application video last time and we got invited over for an interview. I've no idea if Jessica was the one that looked at the video - to be honest the thought never crossed my mind that it might help us get to interview stage.

Lose the chip from your shoulder and just concentrate on making a confident, compelling application. :)

I am the first face on our application video. We did that to set us apart from the rest of the videos.

I'm done with my applications, and confident that we made good applications for the people that we initially thought were going to review them... but not for unknown founders whose personal biases we are unaware of, but I can only assume based on my personal experiences with men in tech.

Re: "chip on my shoulder" would you be offended if your peers wouldn't look you in the face? how about if they re-asked your business partners the same questions they asked you, only to get the same response?

I really don't think this has anything to do with your gender. Networking and just speaking to people is surprisingly difficult. If you are already expecting people not to speak to you properly then you will be giving loads of negative body language saying that you are unconfident.

I know because I have been in the same situation many times. My background in pharmaceuticals, and when I turn up to conferences I am about 10-20 years younger than everyone else. I feel incredibly paranoid about it and my lack of self-confidence is quite obvious. I just feel "unimportant". I've even had organiser laugh at me when they realised I was one of the speakers at a conference. They told me I was too young! Yeah, that really set me up well for that conference!

When I go to technology and PR/marketing events I feel great as I fit in with people there and it is so much easier to network and discuss our startup.

Things like Astia will give you guidance on pitching. I;m sure some of the skills are transferable in to networking.

I even have my own event production company in New York City. I'm excellent at speaking with people.

I still need work on pitching, but I have no problem talking to everyone... since that's crucial in my other line of work.

wrt to asking your co-founders the same questions, my guess is that you are so paranoid about the "not looking in the eyes" thing that you appear unconfident and unsure, so people look to your co-founders for confirmation.

Apologies if it came across as offensive.

From what I've read about the differences between men and women, women are MUCH MUCH more likely to pick up subtle body language gestures compared to men and try to analyze what they mean. Try not to take these things personally. Many times it might not even have anything to do with you.

Nowhere on the app does it ask you for your sex. If you were so afraid of your application being viewed differently because you are a woman, hiding that fact on the app is as simple as using an alias and answering the questions without saying 'OH YEAH, AND I'M A WOMAN.' And if you think any of those at YC, whether pg and gang, or the alumni, would 'dock' you on points for being a woman and overlook your potential and that of your idea, you yourself are being sexist for assuming that a man would be so irrational and illogical for the sake of gender discrimination.

And sorry for being harsh, but don't pull that 'they don't relate to me' crap. We're all aspiring entrepreneurs trying to make it out there with our ideas, connections, talents, etc, and any decent person would judge you on such. I don't need a pair of breasts and a rush of estrogen to relate to you. You're perpetuating the same gender gap you are criticizing others of exploiting.

I know you're a woman, but man up.

You can figure out that I'm a woman within 30 seconds of reading my application because of the organizations I've been involved with, what I studied, my accomplishments... oh, and of course the video.

Second, it's less about being "docked" because I'm a woman, but more about evaluators not relating to my accomplishments because what they value doesn't line up with what I've accomplished.

You can scoff at the "'they don't relate to me' crap", as you so eloquently put it. Or you can look at it for what it is: a problem in the tech world which results in a higher barrier to entry for women than it does for men.

It's easier to ignore this as if it doesn't exist and feign umbrage to me stating my fears, than it is to actually examine what goes on in an open-minded and sensitive way.

To relate to me you don't need a "a pair of breasts and a rush of estrogen" (how vulgar?!) but you do need a modicum of open-mindedness and sensitivity. Such characteristics you sorely lack.

I'm not trying to perpetuate the gender gap, but to acknowledge that it does exist in tech. Via discussion and awareness, maybe one day it will cease to exist.

That's what I really want. Men AND women evaluating me who see my potential as a businessperson even though I don't fit the mold of a traditional Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur.

Unlike most women in technology that I've met who have encountered bias and discrimination due to their gender, I'm NOT afraid to talk about it. I'm happy I brought this up and am not at all sorry that it offended you.

Meh. You're being dramatic.

>man up

In fact, your comment merely reinforces your gender bias, which I'm guessing many of your peers also hold.

"man up" ? Are you saying a man wouldn't get upset about gender discrimination? A bunch of men got VERY upset from the mere mention of gender discrimination--tried to put me down for suggesting it and told me to quiet down about it. Imagine if you were ACTUALLY discriminated against! What would you do?

As far as being discriminated against, I'm not quite sure how to answer that. My investors don't discriminate against me; I discriminate against my investors. They can't be gay or Jewish.

Tianaco, I don't want to argue the merits of your concerns but this is not the correct place to discuss it. Try sending PG an email? My immediate reactions were adjectives like baiting, hijacking and trolling. I don't mean to call you names, but this was just how this whole thread came off to me as.

I don't appreciate that when I come back to this thread that the majority of the comments about the state of the female entrepreneur. I also believe YC is the exception instead of the rule.

If you think the fact that you're a woman will somehow come out as a negative in the YC application process for you, how do you expect to survive as a startup? I guarantee you succeeding as a company is a lot tougher than filling out a form.

Either what you're working on has merit or it doesn't. That doesn't change depending on who reads about it.

I don't doubt that you have had challenges in the technology field as a woman, but that's not going to change inside or outside of YC.

My point, though: sure, running a company is more about the company than the person, but as a female founder (I can't exactly speak from experience as a male one!) it's entirely down to your personal presentation of the company, the technology, the idea. Sure, people in meetings don't tend to ask what the coolest thing you ever hacked was, but especially as a small company, it's definitely still personal. There are organisations like Astia, which I'm involved with, that help make it easier for women; I suggest checking them out if you're seriously worried about the gender gap. Yes, we do get treated differently, and having to re-establish hacker credentials time and again when people assume you work in marketing gets old. Funnily enough it's worse in Silicon Valley (so far in my experience) than back home in England. Still. There are things that you can do to make life easier, tricks that everyone from Margaret Thatcher to Queen Elizabeth, to female generals and CEOs have all employed. Your cofounders can help too, if you're having trouble because people ask them the same questions, by backing you up wholeheartedly (that could easily be an authority issue not a gender one). It's a rough road but having the chance of a woman read your YC app is really such a minor thing that it's not worth getting twisted up about.

It's been my experience that YC startups are generally much closer to actual meritocracies than the average bay-area tech company.

Perhaps because of the chip on your shoulder?

Edit: Your concern of being judged poorly by the alumni screeners is showing the same bias you expect the screeners to have. Do you really expect a small cohort of people who have made it through multiple levels of PG vetting to be so small-minded? YC hasn't shown itself to be so lacking in vision.

tianaco is just saying that she worries that YC alumni will have the wrong bias when confronted with certain applicants of broad experience outside what they expect. Let's hope that she is wrong.

As I said, I don't think they're going to relate to me.

The YC application reads like they want to judge you based upon your potential and breadth of experience. I focused in my application on showing my diverse background, and how I don't fit into a standard mold. My concern too is that YC Alumni might be subconciously be like: "We look for people who don't fit into a standard mold, but only ones that fit into a certain mold of not fitting into a certain mold."

Where did the edit button go?

[EDIT] works fine for this post. Does it expire, or is this thread causing problems...

If you email me, I will send you a link to our demo.

[edit: My profile plus Googling my name will lead you to my email address.]

- successful applicants i.e. outside-of-the-box people may not have an idea about who are outside the box people. - most of these outside-of-the-box people are males an can be simply categorized as 'coders'.

In fact I don't get your problem exactly. I suppose that there can be 2 cases, which is true?

A. You are a 'female coder' and you think that 'male coders' have such a prejudice that a female coder cannot be as good as a 'male coder'.

B. You think that you really are different from these male coders (perhaps you are not a coder), so even if these guys don't have prejudice about female coders, they think so differently from you, that they will not relate to your application.

A. and B. are very different things, and I could not find out what your problem is from your description.

You'll find a lot of the coders that you feel uncomfortable with, would feel quite uncomfortable at the type of events you revel in.

http://ycombinator.com/people.html

if anyone really wants to feel like an outsider, try being a guy at a "women in tech" event.

You meant outsider, right? Seems to me that's what you meant... if so, you've made a very good point.

I wasn't thinking about the Y-combinator application when I registered my account 450 days ago and when tianaco occasionally commented on threads.

I don't see this as a problem.

I went through my submissions and they are 100% mine. I went through my comments and can say with confidence they are 95% mine. The true number is probably higher.

Does that allay your concerns?

You know how it is when you discuss technology with men, and first of all, they hold back, assuming you likely don't know or are not interested?

Do you realise you likely do the same thing? If you meet a Mexican gardener, do you not do the same? Why? Why not just starting talking web services with him?

Because you don't expect him to know about the topic. It's your vorurteil, your judgement before knowledge, and it's an essential part of being human. We observe a pattern, and we act on this pattern.

So, yes, there is prejudice. But it's not malicious, it's simply the observation of a way things are, and an expectancy on how they will be. This form of prejudice, you have to accept. They do it to you, and you will do it to me.

That does not mean that in such a case as the YC applications you will be judged differently. You will be judged the same, because the fact that you have gone through the steps that brought you to that application level, means that you are at the same level as all the other people. So this invisible prejudice, this pre-judgement has already fallen away, as the people know what you are already.

Your gender isn't important here. Whether or not you're an entrepreneur with a plan, is.

EDIT: This discussion really belongs in another thread.

edit:

Downmod me into oblivion if you like, but it's sad to me that she can't state her concerns and life experience without someone making it into an attack on the YC community.

Male privilege is real, discrimination is real. If downmodding and arguing that simple fact makes you feel better, go ahead.

Take this very discussion as an example. How many men are secretly wishing that PG reads their application rather than it being read by a YC alumnus, but have posted ass-kissing comments anyway?

For some reason I've worked with far more female programmers than most programmers I know. Here are some things that women are up against in our industry:

1. Being coerced into "lighter" programming tasks like "front end" development, QA, or UX design when their interests lie in more complex programming domains.

2. An assumption of not being aggressive enough to manage a team. To add insult to injury, women that do show aggression are isolated and marginalized for having chips on their shoulders or being bitchy.

3. Dealing with what I call the "little sister" phenomenon. This is where a predominately male development team, in a bid to try to be nice to the one female team member, actually does more harm than good. They become overprotective, try not to hurt her feelings, and are generally patronizing. This affects the types of work loads that are placed on the female team member and what is expected of her.

If it's any consolation, there are men in this industry that have worked with a lot of female programmers and understand as best we can, where you're coming from. For what it's worth, I think you're already one step ahead of most of these other female programmers I know (many are friends so I know them well). Their problem is an unwillingness to shake the boat. You don't seem to have that problem.

Moreover, who cares if you're correct or incorrect? If people read your post properly they would have heard that you were merely describing how you feel. You can't change how you feel about this situation. And like I said at the beginning of this rant, if more men in our industry shared how they felt with others, we might not have to put up with ridiculous time/resource constraints, impossible project objectives, etc.

The fact that you're willing to get under people's skin is an asset.

I hope that is the case, and that more people reading this thread are sympathetic to my position than are offended.

Their problem is an unwillingness to shake the boat. You don't seem to have that problem.

There was a book written in the 70's called "Women Don't Ask". It starts with a case study about grad school TA assignments, and why men got the best assignments in this particular department. The answer from administrators: "Well, we gave positions to everyone who asked for a specific one. And only men asked. So women got the remainders." (For a period of time, the book was given away to any woman who would ask for it.)

Since I read about that book in a review, I resolved that I would always ask for what I want. This is part of my entrepreneurial style. I get what I want because I try to know everyone, and I am good at asking for what I want directly politely and firmly.

[edit: this tends to work better for me in person than on the inter-web/twitter-scape/whatever you guys call it. ]

Once I started seeing this pattern, I met a girl who was looking for her first programming job out of school. I insisted she ask for a salary figure that I would have asked for in her position. She was extremely hesitant. She ended up asking for $5K under what I suggested, but when the interviewer didn't balk, and in fact gave her $3K more than she had requested, she was ecstatic. She phoned me up in complete disbelief.

On the other hand, I have another friend who's very unhappy in her programming job right now because she asked for so little money to start and now she just gets cost-of-living raises, which themselves have been frozen due to the current state of her company's finances. She knows that men make $15K to $20K more than her doing the same job, and I keep trying to coax her to ask for a big raise anyway, so it's at least on her boss' radar. I'm actually meeting with her in a couple of hours for a little developer meet and greet, so I'll be sure to remind her again :)

The issue of sexism is a delicate one because it involves perceptions. Also, most men today try not to be sexist. Watch an episode of Mad Men and you'll see how far the workplace has come. What sexism is left is unintentional, subtle, and sometimes the result of both actions on the part of men and women in the workplace. If we want to come to a solution on sexism, I think we need to stop thinking of it as something that people do to other people, and start thinking of it as a phenomenon. People are more willing to discuss why something is the way it is rather than feel obligated to defend or otherwise justify their own actions.

But still they say they usually look at the video, and I think this implies that unless the rest of the application is good enough to justify spending another minute or two watching the video, they probably won't.

But then again it might just be used to give you another chance if your application is crap.

What about (1) announcing who is reading and (2) allowing applicants to specify who should NOT read their application.

Just a thought, there should probably be some more thought on this kind of privacy/conflict since they will not be investors and I'm assuming you will make this standard procedure.

Also, paranoia about secrecy is one of our selection criteria. E.g. every cycle there are a few applications that say they won't tell us any details about what they're doing without an NDA. We thereupon instantly hit "next." People who think their startup's success is going to follow from their immensely valuable secret idea are disproportionately likely to have bad ideas. I'm guessing it will be similar in this case, and that anyone who would be freaked out by YC alumni reading their application is probably someone we wouldn't have funded anyway.

I suspect that investors not being willing to sign NDAs is at least as much attributable to the fact that people who want random people to sign NDAs have too much confidence that their idea alone has value, and thus won't understand that execution is vital, and likely will not be willing to evolve their idea as the market demands. Well, that, and "idea" people are just generally useless and annoying. So, asking for an NDA is a sign that you're a useless non-starter who won't be able to build a company or compete in the market (because your idea has to be public before you can do anything with it; if you're concerned that your only advantage is secrecy, then it seems likely to me that failure is imminent).

Even smart people have different opinions: what if an applicant thinks someone you chose to read their application is naive (or worse, an idiot)?

Also seems just plain fair that applicants be aware of their audience.

Do I think YC is capable of making poor selections?...Absolutely.

YC makes funding decisions after a few short interviews and an application, and they seem to do pretty well with those. I would imagine that after working with some founders for months, they have zero likelihood of selecting a naive idiot.

On the other end if you select someone who has sold out and is relaxing, or someone who's startup is not doing well and is ready to jump ship, then it will create a conflict.

EDIT: Either ways you guys review mine. If someone finds it good enough, they would want to work with and not against.

I know electrical engineers who have zero interest in Schematics/PCB files etc -ready to manufacture - because the time to complete a project is excessive for something that is not their core focus.

But the things asked in the application make you get pretty specific. Most people have trouble doing that for investors, let alone potential competitors.

+ it's not like they were told this before hand. They wrote the applications, thinking that pg and his team would review them.

Remember, by applying, you are saying you trust the judgment of the YC team. If you don't trust their judgment, including when/when not to delegate, you are probably applying for the wrong reasons.

I mean, jeeze, you're asking them for money. They have been upfront about the change in the process, gave everyone a way to back out, said they'll be reading all applications themselves anyway... If you can't deal with changing and uncomfortable circumstances, why are you thinking about a startup in the first place?

(This is not just to the parent post, it is directed at the critics in this thread in general).

That's because most people don't understand just how unimportant ideas are.

Seriously, even if pg & co decided that the next application process would be completely public, I still wouldn't consider it a big deal.

Anyone can say "I have an idea, I'm going to build X". Fewer can actually do it. Fewer still have the drive (masochism?) to keep trying and trying to get people to actually use it for months and months when it looks like nobody cares at all.

More disturbing is the idea that they will toss any idea that competes with existing startups. That is unsettling to me for some reason, and I would love to hear more reasoning behind this.

You've imagined this idea. pg has explicitly said on several occasions that they will fund startups that compete with other YC companies, and nothing in this statement contradicts that.

"Immediately stop reading" read like "Immediately toss".

Sorry.

Also, because YC isn't very bureaucratic it should be relatively easly to design a process that ameliorates this. It's an interesting problem to think about though.

You could have an answer-by-answer reveal button, to see who stops reading and when. That'd remove the temptation to break this rule. There could be post-submission round-up by to see if the trust was actually there.

Investors also operate in a big picture kind of way and see a horizon that is far larger than operators tend to see.

It'll be interesting to see how this adds to the decision-making process for PG. I'd love to see the data (even anonymized) about how the peers review compare to PG and teams reviews.

If that doesn't scream out to everyone that applying early is important, I don't know what will.

A minute or two of mind share from YC founders sounds better to me than 30 seconds from the YC partners.

The only other thing I would add is that given the rising popularity of YC it seems only natural that PG and friends would like some qualified help.

At any rate, were someone to actually successfully steal your idea, this person would probably be found out and disowned by the community and YC. In other words, there is plenty of incentive for people not to steal.

Having other startups validating your idea is a great way to actually proof your team, competence and idea. We're based in London and despite the fact that we were lucky enough to know a couple of YC startups, that gave us great feedback on our application, we're thrilled to know that our idea, our team and our startup will be reviewed by a couple of other great YC startups.

Mark Zuckerberg, probably put it best during his Startup School talk. He told the audience that instead of going for the universities that really wanted to use Facebook, they rolled out Facebook to the universities that seemed the least interested in it. I think this is a brilliant move to test your product. The same applies here.

Good luck to everyone!

But those are problems for the fainthearts who get deterred with this kinda announcement.

For the rest of the bravehearts its 'ok', they should feel like they are at day 1 on the market and its all bare now. Just that they should gear up for a much quicker launch in case of a possible rejection, which they anywayz should be - "hope for the best and be prepared for the rest/worst".

Let's face it, trustworthiness, bias, plagiarism and wisdom are all human traits.

@PG: Just a thought from a novice. This kinda late announcements/disclosure may taint YC's image like those "conditions apply" advertisements. An announcement early on would be better. I hope you are not doing this intentionally as a first filter for the applicants and hence reduce the load of applications automatically.

Take additional comfort in the knowledge that YC teams are small, and have far more ideas and light bulbs going off in their heads than they have time to implement. Ideas are not in short supply. Time to implement, ability to execute well, ability to connect with markets, and the focus to deliver a compelling product that makes peoples lives better in some small way in a reasonable time frame are. So, even if your idea is brilliant and new, and even if it would help thesixtyone, and even if they saw your application, it's unlikely they would recognize it as a "killer feature" and it's even more unlikely they would have time from their existing product development schedule (which they probably also believe has some "killer features" on it) to implement it in an effective manner.

What I just read is, "They have found a way to scale higher and while sticking to high quality people who have direct experience with what you want to do."

That makes the answer to the first question a "Yes". :-)

Do early submissions get reviewed BEFORE the actual closing date? That's the clear implication from what I've read elsewhere on this thread, because it's stated "there is more time to review early applications"

In my case, I submitted (initially) soon after the applications were opened, and have been editing, proof reading, clarifying generally and improving on it, and re-submitting right up to this evening - the evening of the closing date. So there are quite possibly at least 30 different iterations of my application. My first submission was crude, but early. My final submission is probably a factor of 10X better, but two hours before the deadline.

So without giving too much away YC, which iteration gets reviewed and when, and how do you know when the submission is final, if you review before the close date?

It seems that the kind of folks who are scared off by this might be doomed anyway. If you're going to be successful, then at some point you've got to take up the attitude that you're going to eat the competition's lunch - even if they know what you're doing. Because you're just that good.

Good luck.

(Have not applied. Am not applying. Just a member of the peanut gallery.)

Although I think our company will be massively profitable, our proposal is a long way from glamorous.

Disclosure appreciated.

The problem, though, is that I imagine that'd it be really hard, what with the number of applications there'll be, to individually reach out to applicants before making their applications available to anyone other than the partners...

2. Are the readers given a specific list of criteria by which they are supposed to judge the applications, or is it just basically anything they want?

3. Trust is great, but do you have any way to find out if a reader approves an application because it is from a friend, or if a reader rejects good applications that are too similar to the application that was submitted by a friend?

Also, if you are scared someone else will out execute you on your own idea maybe you need work on your execution and dedication.