[jxcole]

Sorry, not an expert and I have never been an entrepreneur so forgive me if I am misunderstanding, but doesn't YC give them money? In order for this statement to be true either (1) having startup seed money has no bearing on success or (2) YC gives the same money to people it rejects as to people it accepts.

[brudgers]

The amount of capital provided by YC is trivial...a rounding error relative to the value of a successful company. But more relevant is that YC almost certainly has some meaningful data on the companies it rejects.

So PG's claim could very well be supported by proprietary information.

[nitrogen]

The amount of capital provided by YC is trivial.

Never been accepted to YC, but I gather that the value of access to YC's demo day and a strong network of investors and alumni is far from trivial.

[frobozz]

Trivial once the company is successful, but isn't the purpose of the money to ensure that the founders don't have to give up and get "proper" jobs before the company succeeds?

[argonaut]

But then you're acknowledging that startup success is not solely dependent on luck...

[baddox]

I think you're interpreting the idea of luck incorrectly. Luck in this context is simply the phenomenon of being one of the start ups with high success. To say that success depends solely on luck means that the success of any startup is simply rand(). That doesn't mean all start ups are equally successful.

[indrax]

Giving selected startups money confounds two factors: the selection criteria and the extra funding. This means that any differences in the success rate can't simply be assigned to the selectors choosing wisely.