Actually, there is a subtle point in the way YC is approaching this whole thing and the person missed the point. Assume there exists a world without YC, how many people will spend time doing something they believe on and make effort to take it to a point so that you can show it to someone? Probably a vast majority would anyway do it. say 90%, what YC is trying to do is - try to squeeze a percent or two of the remaining 10% by making them work by promising them that they'd fund if you come up with something interesting and that adds a certain value to the society as a whole.
So it is certainly a waste of time if - you think of an idea, write an application and decide to work on only if YC is funding it..
But not - when you are working on something or planning to work on something, YC offers you that last bit of motivation to actually go and do it because you want to play the YC gamble.
And it might happen that otherwise, you end up building something, YC rejects you, but you say to yourself, what the heck, I have already done something so lets take it to a logical conclusion (may be 90% will chicken out. but who knows one of those who persisted might be next big thing!!) YC has certainly helped them, who would have been left in "I am planning to do" state otherwise and I think thats what PG is essentially trying to do. Make more people try a stint at 'startuping' and all of this comes at a reasonable cost to everyone!!
To conclude - would the authors' brother have not been happy if there was an "Irish Pub" or something that promised, hey if you send us your recordings, may be we can give you a saturday night and if you get a deal from a recording company, we get cut out of it... (Ouch! I just spit out an idea for some "irish pub" owner, if he's on the list!)
We were having an interesting discussion some time back. Whether one should be using nick that involves his/her product name while posting on nyc?
Initially it occured that - using nicks is a good way to associate identity, but later on realized that it might actually be counter productive. Because to anyone it smells of "stealth marketting". Though that was not the original intention of using the nick, its just to o obvious to be believed otherwise.
We thought it'd be a good idea what others think of it?
So it is certainly a waste of time if - you think of an idea, write an application and decide to work on only if YC is funding it..
But not - when you are working on something or planning to work on something, YC offers you that last bit of motivation to actually go and do it because you want to play the YC gamble.
And it might happen that otherwise, you end up building something, YC rejects you, but you say to yourself, what the heck, I have already done something so lets take it to a logical conclusion (may be 90% will chicken out. but who knows one of those who persisted might be next big thing!!) YC has certainly helped them, who would have been left in "I am planning to do" state otherwise and I think thats what PG is essentially trying to do. Make more people try a stint at 'startuping' and all of this comes at a reasonable cost to everyone!!
To conclude - would the authors' brother have not been happy if there was an "Irish Pub" or something that promised, hey if you send us your recordings, may be we can give you a saturday night and if you get a deal from a recording company, we get cut out of it... (Ouch! I just spit out an idea for some "irish pub" owner, if he's on the list!)