| You guys are welcome to connect whatever dots you like, but the idea that YC funding decisions would change depending on the politics of the CEOs of the companies the founders used to work for strikes me as absurd, and I think I have a basis for saying that. YC's process looks something like this: smart founders? check. Technical? check. Big important problem? check. Technically credible on this problem? check. "Did $Thing at $Company" can help on that last point for obvious reasons, but the idea of some triple-bank-shot collusion/corruption with Big Political Players is Too Much Internet. This matters! I would hate it if any smart, technical, wants-to-work-on-big-problem founder were to read HN threads and think "I don't have connections, so I guess YC is not for me." Please don't anyone think that! If that's you, then YC is for people just like you. You have as good a chance as anyone, precisely because these externalities don't make the difference. To shift gears to your other question: > is Y-Combinator really investing more in government and heavy industry as it appears? I don't know, but it's possible. However, the reason might not be what you'd expect. Trends among YC startups have to do with what founders want to work on, and that is mostly determined by macro factors beyond YC. I suppose both my points could be summed up like this: "YC is all about the founders". A nice, simple, true sentence, but with a lot of implications that are easy to miss. |