- YC offers an amazing peer group, protection from bad investors, honest feedback, and the opportunity to take responsibility for the success or failure of your company.
- Many successful companies have benefited from YC, so if you are a great founder, you can also extract value from it.
- Critics of YC often fail to explain why their alternative is better, suggesting they may be selling fear rather than offering something valuable.

You do YC because you want an amazing peer group.

You do YC because you want to not be screwed over by investors.

You do YC because you want honest feedback, and you want to take responsibility for the win or loss of your company.

And you do YC because so many other great companies did YC and extracted value out of it that you should be confident that if you're a great founder you can extract value out of it as well.

So many people that convince founders that YC is bad, they can't explain why taking their money or doing their program or doing their thing is better.

And like, if you ever see someone making an argument that's 100% ripping something else down and 0% explaining why their thing is good.

Maybe all you're selling is fear because that's all you have to sell.

Not the kind of investor I want on my cap table.


Speaker 0: You do YC because you want an amazing peer group. You do YC because you want to not be screwed over by investors. You do YC because you want honest feedback, and you want to take responsibility for the win or loss of your company. And you do YC because so many other great companies did YC and extracted value out of it that you should be confident that if you're a great founder you can extract value out of it as well. It's that simple.

So many people that convince founders that YC is bad, they can't explain why taking their money or doing their program or doing their thing is better. And like, if you ever see someone making an argument that's 100% ripping something else down and 0% explaining why their thing is good. Maybe all you're selling is fear because that's all you have to sell. Not the kind of investor I want on my cap table.

See all Y Combinator transcripts on Youtube

Reasons to do YC.