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Comment by jrpt | Hacker News Reader

The cost of rent in the Bay Area is getting really high, both SF and down south. The archetypal startup in a garage in Palo Alto is not as affordable as it once was. For various policy reasons it's really hard for new people to move to the area without paying an arm and a leg in rent.

Do you or YC have any thoughts on things you could do to help this, if any?

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The bandaid is we increase the amount of money we give to teams.

We do have some longer-term thoughts if the area can't get its act together and fix the problem.

Pre-YC startups could benefit from the Bay Area ecosystem while they are still building their MVP and getting initial traction to the point where they have something that they CAN apply to YC with.

I know very promising founders personally that were stuck working in parents' basements in the midwest because they did not yet have the resources to move to the Bay Area.

How can YC help during this critical "early development" (or should I say, exploration) stage for founders building companies? Is there a way it can help insulate early founders from learning the hard lessons the hard way? Traditional VCs would call these bets way too "risky."

This is sort of what the YC Fellowship sought to address, or at least addressed as a byproduct. There's a few companies in the current batch from the midwest/east coast at the 'early development' stage who moved to the bay. If YC can scale YCF up, it should help.

I see a YC Campus with dorms in the future!

BoostVC does this already by providing housing at Draper University.

What if you relocated YC to somewhere that was both a nice place to live and had sane urban planning? Does YC have enough momentum of its own now to turn that place into a startup hub?

I don't know if such a place exists though. Seems like everywhere nice to live is rife with NIMBYism.

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