[ibdthor]

Amusing, that this thread pops up the day after the "Why I hate HN"/"How to Fix HN" discussion. The 50% of this thread about sexism is a bit off-topic, and about another 25% is claiming the application process is broken or that beer equates to a bribe. I feel like this would have been more valuable if people had simply taken it as a lesson for success through tenacity. Here's what I take away from this: delivering the beer made the YC partners realize that Instacart was already up and running with a functional app, at which point it became a quasi-Pascal's Wager - if Instacart busts, it busts, but it looks like it could pay off big already, so why not bet on it? This is similar to how we got into YC with Light Table. Our initial application for a completely different idea didn't even get an interview, but when we applied late with numbers from Kickstarter to back us, it was a different story. I would wager that for a late application to be successful, the founders have to show a certain above-average mettle, but must also have some demonstrative additional value (like a functional app that can deliver a six pack in 30 minutes) that makes YC take the risk of a late acceptance.