The Truth About Y Combinator

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:00)
I love the like, well, I watch all your videos, so we kind of get YC. It's like, guys, these videos aren't YC. Like, ugh, it's so funny.

**Michael Seibel** (0:12)
So this is Michael Seibel with Dalton Caldwell. And today, we just finished up a YC batch, and we're getting a ton of feedback. We thought it'd be great to talk to you all about that. Let's be critical for a second. I would argue this is something that YC does poorly, that they very clearly pointed out.
They were like, when we applied to YC, we really didn't know what we were applying for. One founder said to me, we just thought it was a three-month program. We had no idea that you follow on investing companies later, that you have programs for helping me raise a Series A, or for helping me as I'm scaling. We had no idea.
Another founder said to me, we didn't even understand how YC was organized. We thought it was just going to be some big online lecture. We didn't know we would be assigned a group partner. We didn't know we'd be put into groups and sections. We get to meet with small groups of companies that are in our area, and they didn't know any of this stuff. And that's kind of a knock on us. I think sometimes we have to assume people know, but a lot of these founders were like, well, I applied to YC because I talked to alums and they really liked it. And then when I got here, I was like, oh, shit.
This is way more stuff than I thought. One founder was like, dude, we didn't even know that you helped us hire. And then today, there was a meeting about the YC hiring platform, and we were like, oh, we didn't know, we spent 7%, we had no idea what we were getting for it.
I don't know, why do you think we suck at that though, Dalton? Like it's pretty obvious we're bad at it.

**Dalton Caldwell** (1:55)
There's just a lot of moving parts.
And so people know about the batch because they hurt, you know, oh, it's a three month program. Oh, you move to the Bay Area and you spend time. And even then there's confusion. It's like, yeah, no, like you get to know us in person. Sometimes we're like surprised that it's really you and me that you meet. They think we're like paid actors or something.

**Michael Seibel** (2:19)
How many acceptance calls do you do where they're like, so am I going to get to work with like you?

**Dalton Caldwell** (2:28)
You haven't met anyone else.

**Michael Seibel** (2:29)
Who else would it be?

**Dalton Caldwell** (2:30)
Yeah, we're the hired, we're the YouTubers. We're just the front guys, the real, it's like, no, it's really us.
And so I think they know about the program. I think they may have heard summit about Demo Day, but it's always way more impressive than they expect. And then they have no idea that we keep talking to the companies for a while. And there's all this other crazy stuff we do to give people an edge, a lot of which we kind of don't slash can't talk about. And so I think that's part of the reason we don't market it as well, is a bunch of the stuff we do is meant to be secret.
I don't know how you market that. And there's just a lot of data that we keep secret unless you're in YC, and that is like gonna stay that way.

**Michael Seibel** (3:13)
A lot of secret data. The other thing that makes it hard, I've started to realize this, it's too easy to think of YC as a university. And when I think back, I'm sure Yale has changed a couple of ways in the last 20 years since I went, but it's not changed that much. I'm sure Stanford's changed some ways since you went, but it's not changed that much. And I think that when we think about a university, we're preconditioned to think it's probably 99% the same year over year.
And I think what people don't think about YC is as a product.
If you were to look at Instagram day one and look at Instagram now, it's completely different. And you would expect that. You would expect the product to change all the time. And I think people's misconception is YC is a university or a school. It's not YC is a product.

**Dalton Caldwell** (4:07)
I think you nailed it. We talked to people about this. I think they think we have some lessons we're going to teach you or something. Or like, I love the like, well, I've watched all your videos, so we kind of get YC. It's like, guys, these videos aren't YC.