[middleout]

i agree wholeheartedly that PMF, prior exit and deep industry/technical knowledge are pretty obvious things to look for when you're trying to make money as a venture investor.

let me try another way. let's say YC gets 20K applications. let's say 1K (using round numbers) fall into the above categories (PMF et al), and 19K do not.

of the 19k that do not, my guess is that of the ones (ie. the very, very lucky few of the 19K) that do actually get into YC, a high (statistically significant) proportion of those founders were very well connected. that's all i'm saying.

as for your last point, i think we can both agree that we're both just guessing, there's no real #s or transparency to prove or disprove, so maybe we can just agree to disagree.

edit: maybe "elitist" was the wrong word to use. OTOH, YC is widely considered the "harvard of accelerators". while that has many connotations, it would be silly to say that harvard and elitism are not associated