[run4_too]

I think you are missing cookiecapers main point by focusing on minutiae.

YC targets the young male college student demographic, partly because that demographic shares the different components that you two are arguing about. This isn't really relevant though.

If they were targeting suburban boomers that vote republican, it's silly to point out that some of their investments are actually women that voted democrat.

cookiecaper's point is that the effect of targeting a particular founder profile means that there are a lot of other high potential founders that are under served by the "Aquire Funding, Kill Yourself, Profit!" model. I would tend to agree with that, particularly when you see that across the spectrum, most businesses are started by people that are 40+ and have over 10 years of experience in an industry.

YC was started particularly because the "college dropout" demographic was under served. Now, at least when it comes to tech, they have become the norm and the "career switcher" has all but been ignored.

I don't think YC needs to address this in any way, but as a tech community I think we're missing an opportunity by not tapping in to what has traditionally been the strongest segment of new entrepreneurs.

[argonaut]

Do you have any evidence YC targets the young male demographic, today? AFAIK YC doesn't target any one demographic. They don't really do any outreach to demographics. I believe their cohort demographic is a result of their application demographic. Anecdotal evidence seems to agree with me.

[run4_too]

I don't want to speak for YC or their intentions, so perhaps target is the wrong word here, since I doubt they have model that looks to offer to the needs of a particular subset of people and then "sell" to them. That would be the traditional definition of a "target market"

However, what YC presents is a series of preferences and options that everyone knows appeal much more to a certain personality and - in this case - stage of life, than others. Jumping across a country to live in temporary stasis for three months (or whatever) isn't something a 45 year old woman with two kids and a career is likely to do. It's something a lot of 20 something college kids will consider though. Are they targeting college kids with that stance? Not particularly. Does their offering appeal to one demographic much more than another? Most certainly.

Overall though it's irrelevant, as I said. YC can target or not target as they choose.

The bigger point is that it's pretty hard for that 45 year old woman to gain traction in the tech world right now, and there could be an opportunity cost there that may be pretty large, considering how the demographics of entrepreneurs spread out over other industries.