How many people are going to want a Basic interpreter for the Altair?
A few points:
- It's $120K
- PG is no longer actively involved (at least with selections or operations)
- They've always been very open about their heuristics for accepting applicants: pick teams that show evidence of being very talented and very determined, working on ideas that may seem laughably trivial now but over 5-10 years have some chance of developing into something huge.
- "The fax machine is nothing but a waffle-iron with a phone attached." But seriously, plenty of very successful products have been generic products tailored for a particular use-case.
PetCube would have been picked because they were able to explain how their silly-looking idea has the potential to transform pet care over the coming decade (using robotics perhaps?)
Remember, everyone including YC knows that the chances of huge success for any individual company are tiny.
But as long as about 1% of the companies they back become huge, YC does very well.
How many people are going to buy a special dropcam to point at their dog, rather than... a regular dropcam, which will be cheaper and better?