[shadowsun7]

@Chesser: you should post this on a blog and submit as a link; I'd be very interested to see the debate that could go into some of the points you're making here.

Bravo for being contrarian, btw. It's quite refreshing to see some criticism for the YC model, good as I think it is.

Also, a counter point: it's pretty clear that regardless of startup quality, YC does provide tangible benefits to any and all startups that get accepted into its program. Demo day provides instant access to a bunch of high-profile investors, pg has the benefit of 10 years+ of startup pattern recognition, and YC companies get instant attention/Techcrunch coverage.

Plus, while it's difficult to quantify the amount of help YC gives startups vs startups being good outside of the program - we have to remember that YC isn't a school. And so the metric for quality of an investor is really their ability to see which startups are good, and which are not - which YC does, admirably.