The future of accelerators/cohort incubators

There are oddly few modern examples of individuals funding individuals, despite it being a far more decentralised and human-scale version of patronage that's easily achievable by large groups of people.

With an intake process that emphasizes past accomplishments and interviews rather than bureaucratic credentials, and with an ethos of taking chances on those who show promise rather than weeding out those who might fail, YC has been able to select charismatic and energetic candidates for its program. The three-month program serves as the foundation... See more

Entrepreneurs often describe building a company as a harrowing experience and doing this alongside a peer group serves as an emotionally powerful initiation for many founders, similar in some ways to the initiation and bonding rituals for groups ranging from college fraternities to military recruits. Graham has said that bringing cohorts of... See more

There are thousands of smart people who could start companies and don't, and with a relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place, we can spring on the world a stream of new startups that might otherwise not have existed

This is great, though it still acts primarily as a sort of summer camp for entrepreneurship hopefuls, with a tight deadline in which they need to form teams, crack ideas and go to work. Goal orientedness is kind of the name of the game and the grant itself is de minimis .

If the program was ostensibly longer and/or more diverse in its intake this... See more

Early-stage venture capital investments take a long time to come to fruition. These or other YC companies from after Graham’s tenure may yet prove to be economically and culturally important like their forerunners. The evidence so far, however, suggests that their impact is well below that of earlier YC companies of similar age, in spite of their... See more