[telltruth]

Here's the power of startups: Posterous.com and loopt.com, both unknown to vast majority of people, had a short life, made no material impact and no one you know uses them now. However, the founders of even these startups went on to be famous power brokers on the back of the winds of these mostly failed startups.

An alternative view could be: YC selects their CEOs from very weak startups who managed to get amazing exists nonetheless.

An alt-alternative view: YC cannot select their CEO from successful startups because they are already successful and too busy being CEO of their own companies.

[theGnuMe]

Man oh man, what would you say about Viaweb?

I think it shows you the power of YC really. That network effect is the magic.