From my limited perspective, the following is what I see as something that may help counter the feeling of exclusion.

In the community of PG followers there seems to be a desire to 'belong' somehow more officially, if nothing more than to make conversations easier. News.YC I think helps quite a bit, but when guys in this niche community have to describe themselves it often comes out like this:

"I really like to read Paul Graham's articles and talk with other guys that like to read his articles."

"I applied for YC and was rejected, but still like to associate with the other YC rejects."

Both of those general statements just sound pretty lame when you try to tell your girlfriend (imaginary or real ;) about this little club of startup guys you're involved in.

Despite it being totally arbitrary other than to just make conversations easier and reduce exclusionary feelings, it might be useful if there were a more defined way to refer to this yc-affiliated-but-not-officially-part-of-community-of -like-minded-startup-guys.

Then those in the community could refer to their involvement in terms that doesn't sound like a fan club and isn't focused on a failed YC application.

Ideas?

This was certainly the experience at Google. I don't think that there is necessarily a solution, though it helps to avoid things that could be misinterpreted, even though that also means avoiding some aspects of the truth unfortunately.

It's more that success attracts attention, some fraction of attention will always be negative, and the haters tend to scream louder than the likers. I'm still a loyal GMail user, I still visit Reddit frequently, and (despite some quibbles and a rejection) I generally think YCombinator's done a lot of good for the startup community. But you don't hear from folks like me often: we're happy, the software does what we want it to, so we have little reason to speak up. Folks with a gripe, however, are willing to put countless hours into venting their spleen.

That was one of the reasons I left FictionAlley (a non-profit Harry Potter fanfiction archive). 99% of users were very appreciative of what we did. However, 1% were not, and the 1% took up about 80% of our time and attention. When you're not being paid for your work (FA was all-volunteer), 80% is far too much time to spend on people with massive entitlement complexes.

(There's perhaps a lesson for prospective founders here: build anything worth visiting, and people will hate you for it. Not a lot, and not nearly as many as it seems, but you better be prepared for it and willing to put it in perspective.)

The latest fad in business now seems to be "fire your customers" - get rid of the 1% that soaks up 80% of your attention, so you can better serve the 99% that actually appreciate what you do. I dunno if that's applicable to YC; probably not, since they "fire" 95% of their customers simply through lack of resources and the haters come from the people who're not doing business with them anyways. Ironic, that is...

I think YC's already doing as much as they realistically can to be inclusive, given their business model. News.YC, the Startup School, and Founders at Work were great steps forwards in that regard. But you're fundamentally limited by time and attention, so there will always be people left out. No need to make them feel even worse about not getting into YC.

It is true, YC offers a great value. In my opinion, YC increases the expected return of a startup by 2-10x. But let others sing YC's praises - it will sound a lot better than if it's coming from the principals.

For example, this:

"Angels and VCs who don't go to this are missing some of the best innovations," says Ron Conway, the Valley's most celebrated angel investor.

Sounds a lot better than this:

When Graham calls the winners, the founders have only five minutes to accept. "If people turn us down," he says, "as far as we're concerned they've failed an IQ test."

Here's some other suggestions:

1: Like nostrademons already said, data that seems objective is good. Here's a test to find out if YC really does increase the expected return of startups by 2-10x: compare the stats (values if they're available, or maybe just alexa web traffic) of top 2n applicants from previous funding rounds (where n is the number funded in that round). I bet 90% of the most successful ones were YC funded.

If readers object to your sample selection, then use the entire population of applicants. My guess is that the majority of successful ones will still be those that were YC funded.

2: As an introvert (which I expect many of us are), I have had to come up with rules for social interaction. One is to ALWAYS credit others for my success. Nobody likes to hear "I'm so successful because of ME, and If you don't think so, you have a low IQ"

In YC's situation, you might consider spending more time stressing that YC's success is a function of the teams YC invests in, and even the support of the community that surrounds YC. Focus on how those around YC have played a part and its success.

2. News.YC, the Startup School, and Founders at Work were great steps forwards in that regard

These projects are very inclusive, and YC is being very generous by running them. Spend more time stressing these projects, instead of events that might appear more "clubby." For example, instead of talking about the attendees of founder dinners, talk about the fantastic speakers you got at the last startup school, and then mention that it's an event hosted for free by YC.

Maybe the founder's program was the focus of the article - and the writer wasn't interested in Startup School. In that case, when you talk about the founder dinners - stress that you cook them yourself. That's the kind of stuff people like to hear about.

There is a necessary and clear delineation between who is part of YC and who is not. Naturally, people who are not part of the group are liable to feel left out.

In terms of your treatment of the rest of us however, it strikes me as a real stretch to complain. News.yc is a huge step in terms of general community outreach and so far every time I've contacted someone from YC or a YC startup they've definitely been receptive.

So, while I understand Sam's point, I doubt anything can or should be done about it.

- Sell YC.news t-shirts, or give some sort of 'make something people want' shirts that goes out to 1) random people on the news site, 2) top karma of the month, something like that...

- Open source the mechanical portions of YC. You obviously can't replicate your experience and time for the world to share in, but are there bits and pieces that could be spun out and made into templates to help those who aren't lucky enough to be able to apply/win a spot. Specifically, I'm thinking creation of the company itself, but perhaps there are other things.

Just some random thoughts...

The majority of applications were probably rejected for the same few reasons: talent, quality of app, quality of demo, hard to monetize, lack potential market, etc. Only in a minority of cases would YC have to actually write a sentence explaining why the app was rejected.

edit: I'm not saying YC are dinks, but that practice in the valley is very popular amongst the investors you want to avoid.

You ignore your public. You write technical essays about engineering or social things, but you never address the people you want working with you. You never write a blog entry that makes you (or any of the other founders) like real people who also care about those that are not as clever as the ones you pick.

So we sit out here on the curb and think - ah, the cool kids are in this lovely clubhouse with their mentor making cool stuff and going to become millionares. While we sit out here watching through the window.

All we see now is the business poker face of ycomb. It's no longer Paul giving money to kids to startup, it's a money making entity with a stern - you don't belong here, go away attitude.

That's why there is the minor backlash. You are too busy to talk straight to the normal people, and they resent being left out.

What can you do to change this? Try to be less perfect. Appearing vulnerable makes you human, and it makes people empathize with you. Then they make an effort to understand the why of your decisions.

There's nothing that stops you from making cool stuff while sitting outside on the grass. I was rejected by YC, but I just figure I need to work a little harder. YC is not the ultimate verdict on the success of your startup.

It seems like you depend too much on YC's verdict as a judgement on yourself. If you had more deserved confidence in your own ability perhaps you'd see their actions differently?

pg's articles talk to "normal" people all the time.

It seems like a number of people on here were staking the entire existence of their startup on YC funding - that's not an entrepreneurial attitude. If you have something worthwhile you'll build and launch it with or without YC.

Don't change a thing, Paul.

Cure it of that and it will be the lesser for it.

Paul and Paul, Robert, Jessica (and whoever else): Try to help each of us, here at news.YC - those who arent part of the elite club of YC funded startups.

I dont see any of you helping any of us (those not in the club).

What if NOBODY were to apply to YC - would you have this fame and book sales and NY Times interviews? No.

You owe your institutional success to us. You are standing on our shoulders.

Furthermore, the structure of news.YC is not conducive to the rest of us helping each other. (Nevertheless, I can say I received valuable input from dpapathanasiou, goladus, npk etc., and I tried to provide the same to whoever asked).

You have an elite samurai school with yourself as the master and the rejects hanging from the outside gates trying to peer in.

You can do whatever you want. But if you are disliked, it comes with the territory.

I had an intriguing thought today: we come to resemble those we demonize.

You loathe Bill Gates (in my book, he has reformed into a saint), but his early interviews...

Speaking as a YC reject, I'd rather they limit the numbers and keep the quality up. PG et al aren't doing anyone any good if they "help" all 400 admitted startups but their help consists of a 3 sentence e-mail every month.

Also, they may owe their institutional success to "us", with "us" being the class of entrepreneurs, but they don't owe their success to any individual one of "us". I, for example, have done nothing to help YCombinator become successful except spending lots of time on Reddit, and there're thousands of other people who could make that claim.

If you're going to demand that the principals of YC help you, you might start by getting their names right ;). They are (ordered by last name) Trevor, Paul, Jessica and Robert. I think you might be confusing YEurope (that also has a Paul) with YC.

Realistically, I don't think you can expect them to help us on an individual basis. They would receive no benefit from doing so, and it would just detract their time from the focus of YC.

Tried that, didn't work...

I am not "demanding" they help me. It was simply an observation.

Frankly, I dont need their help in order to succeed. :)

Though I am grateful to PG for this forum, news.YC

I am waiting on Someone who is greater than all of them put together, to help me.