Having been through YC, there's certainly some of this, but the overwhelming majority of founders were pretty down to earth. People generally just want to solve hard problems.
Genuine question, I haven't been, is the motivation "solving hard problems" or is it "receive external validation and get-rich-quick by solving hard problems"?
That’s a good question! A mix of both. There are definitely people who see it as a step on their validation treadmill. Most people want to make money. But a lot of people are just techno optimists who think they can do something.
It's been obvious for years that AI will bifurcate society even more between the haves and have nots, contrary to "democratizing AI" niceties espoused by big AI CEOs.
It was less obvious that access will be further gated by an Old Boy Network. I guess the frontier model whitelists of yestermonth were a portent.
YCombinator has its biases, but I don't know of many other investment firms that have a university style, "application" process. It's almost always, warm-intros you need.
This Early access network is just an intro system once you get through the Application process (like Universities having a job fair).
TBF YC has always said the value is in the network.
What's interesting (alarming?) is them formalizing exclusion of access to technology via the network. It's explicitly ossifying an access control system over what used to be handshakes.
It’s funny how we always celebrate (or at the very least don’t comment negatively) when someone/a startup sets out to build an ecosystem and then love punishing them after they succeed. How very American of us
Just curious, how exactly do you propose they do this instead?
Rent out a convention center, open invitation, and then still complain when all xxK slots are taken up?
Or do it virtually and inundate these startups with thousands of requests and get mad when half don’t get responded to?
Outlaw private capital altogether and force people to IPO to raise money? And then what, complain when only a fraction of those companies work out and the average guy with an E*trade account not in on the joke gets screwed over and over?
At least YC takes applicants and the process is somewhat transparent
Of course there’s a (prob big) element of who you know going on, but it seems to me like the least shitty approach if your goal is to make this at least somewhat accessible
This aspect of yc is good - I know plenty of come from nowhere, unprivileged backgrounds who got into yc and were able to start a company
Now, they fact a lot of them get super douchey once they are in is a different story
Do not mistake any VC's eagerness to find fresh meat for the grinder for a philanthropic or otherwise virtuous motive. VC exists for one purpose only. Extract value from others.
What's the "old boy network" thing here? This looks like a sales outreach event. It's connecting enterprise startups that want to do pilots with enterprises that will consider pilots.
Seems just like another case of collusion - continuing the story of VCs pushing all of their companies to use each other and 'stay within the network'. The good news (kinda) for the rest of us, is that many of these VC marketing/product/'strategy' people aren't actually all that competent - this is literally the best they can come up with.
YC isn't taxing you, or elected to serve your interest, or beholden to public recordkeeping law or sworn to a national constitution with explicit rules against self-enrichment.
YC can do whatever they want, you can not play their game if you choose. It's not really comparable.
It's a different kind of tax. The VC model is to get you addicted to a service and then jack up prices as soon as they've squeezed out other competition. You can't opt out of that game when AirBnBs take over your town.
This is a very good point, I did not mean literally in that sense; only in that they are offering "the privileged" exclusive access to information that will further entrench their positions.
I apologize for not being clearer in my comment. I actually agree with your response and fully understand that there is a fundamental difference but also believe that the outcomes of both the aforementioned are aligned.
Did you know you can become a member of the WEF for free and get their nonsense emails in advance of anyone else talking about what stupid stuff the WEF is doing?
This is interesting, but I think most enterprise AI buyers probably aren't looking to buy from the current batch; they're just too volatile at that stage. This does seem like an opportunity for cross-pollination where early start-ups get to test their product signals and enterprises get to see what's on the cutting edge.
This seems more beneficial to the founders because the the enterprises could instead just choose to do some research on the start-ups. It's not like the start-ups are keeping their knowledge quiet because for them to survive they need to convince everybody what their doing is meaningful.
Right, the point of this from YC's perspective is to identify and pre-qualify the minority of enterprise AI buyers that can move quickly. Even those buyers aren't going to research and inbound to early-stage YC startups very often. The startups aren't intentionally staying quiet, but often they haven't nailed product-market fit and/or messaging yet.
Help me understand. The purpose is to help founders get sales contracts? What's the value for the buyers? Acquire people before they become competitors?
understand what founders are building, which helps them deploy AI internally. you'd be surprised how hard this is to do in a big (tech) company. also, yes there is a peer group aspect.
> The Early Access Network is an invite-only group of senior technology leaders who want to see what's coming before it's on anyone's shortlist.
> Four times a year, we put a hand-picked group of YC's enterprise-AI founders in a room with buyers who can actually run a pilot. Fall 2026 kicks off on October 22 in San Francisco.
This is mostly AI companies needing a large investment (maybe larger than YC's standard 500k) to get off the ground, and so YC now starts acting as market maker (more than it already is), by literally getting people that are primed to buy (filling out the form where minimum amount is 500k, talking about their last funded pilot, company size, etc), so YC can now say this is the size of validated opportunities, so their (potentially higher) seed is now derisked, but also they don't have to wait for their startups to 10x in 3 years, they can 20x in 12 months.
The startup however, will do the thing they advised them not to do, which is tailor their roadmap to a large customer.
But yes, this is early exit/rugpull planning. If it weren't, it would not be AI exclusive and I don't think companies are that excited to know the latest and brightest AI companies. They can simply wait for the market. But they create FOMO, and now they open a small window, make calls to know how much you'll commit and all the FOMO execs will fly in. I'll be fun.
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[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 65.1 ms ] threadSource:
https://x.com/mcuban/status/692595120969875456
That being said, all the ex YC people I interacted with in person have been awesome. But there is definitely a YC entitled group
“Startups: Instead of appearing on Shark Tank, spend that energy fixing whatever makes your product so unappealing you think you need to.“
https://www.inc.com/business-insider/mark-cuban-chris-sacca-...
> Four times a year, we put a hand-picked group of YC's enterprise-AI founders in a room with buyers who can actually run a pilot.
Seems like a win-win.
It was less obvious that access will be further gated by an Old Boy Network. I guess the frontier model whitelists of yestermonth were a portent.
This Early access network is just an intro system once you get through the Application process (like Universities having a job fair).
What's interesting (alarming?) is them formalizing exclusion of access to technology via the network. It's explicitly ossifying an access control system over what used to be handshakes.
Just curious, how exactly do you propose they do this instead?
Rent out a convention center, open invitation, and then still complain when all xxK slots are taken up?
Or do it virtually and inundate these startups with thousands of requests and get mad when half don’t get responded to?
Outlaw private capital altogether and force people to IPO to raise money? And then what, complain when only a fraction of those companies work out and the average guy with an E*trade account not in on the joke gets screwed over and over?
At least YC takes applicants and the process is somewhat transparent
Of course there’s a (prob big) element of who you know going on, but it seems to me like the least shitty approach if your goal is to make this at least somewhat accessible
This aspect of yc is good - I know plenty of come from nowhere, unprivileged backgrounds who got into yc and were able to start a company
Now, they fact a lot of them get super douchey once they are in is a different story
re: https://time.com/article/2026/08/13/trump-sued-truth-social-...
YC can do whatever they want, you can not play their game if you choose. It's not really comparable.
It's a different kind of tax. The VC model is to get you addicted to a service and then jack up prices as soon as they've squeezed out other competition. You can't opt out of that game when AirBnBs take over your town.
I apologize for not being clearer in my comment. I actually agree with your response and fully understand that there is a fundamental difference but also believe that the outcomes of both the aforementioned are aligned.
It’s AI, but with more bureaucracy and politics.
This seems more beneficial to the founders because the the enterprises could instead just choose to do some research on the start-ups. It's not like the start-ups are keeping their knowledge quiet because for them to survive they need to convince everybody what their doing is meaningful.
> Four times a year, we put a hand-picked group of YC's enterprise-AI founders in a room with buyers who can actually run a pilot. Fall 2026 kicks off on October 22 in San Francisco.
Hi Claude!
Isn’t it just for rich kids whose dads lead the round?
The startup however, will do the thing they advised them not to do, which is tailor their roadmap to a large customer.
But yes, this is early exit/rugpull planning. If it weren't, it would not be AI exclusive and I don't think companies are that excited to know the latest and brightest AI companies. They can simply wait for the market. But they create FOMO, and now they open a small window, make calls to know how much you'll commit and all the FOMO execs will fly in. I'll be fun.