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Comment by blennon | Hacker News Reader

If I could downvote your comment I would because this is not an accurate synthesis of the article.

"more young, charismatic ivy league graduates" is not at all what the author describes. The author's thesis is that raising a Series A has requirements ranging between a Seed round which is based on, "the quality of the founders and the raw story that they can tell about their company and the future that company will create" and a Series B which is based on "[the] need to have accomplished a significant set of things that prove their ability to accomplish that future".

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I know a (small) number of YC companies and they all have a "young, charismatic ivy league graduate" on board. I imagine there's some sort of subconscious bias at play here that equates those properties with "quality of the founders".

Be that as it may, if you're one of those people you can use it to your advantage and get away with less traction.

Young, charismatic ivy league grads are one specific instance of "the quality of founders ". Another, equally fitting one is, "A successful serial entrepreneur with an exit or two under their belt". Another, albeit seemingly outdated one is, "a former Googler". There are many ways a founder can be of high quality that are not ivy league grads.

Being a YC founder, I am not an Ivy league grad but a PhD drop-out who happens to have the combination of domain expertise, technical understanding, and charm.

Your poor conclusion of "ivy league grad" is ridiculous. If anything YC looks for doers not those that have.

If you would have said you were a high school dropout and poor communicator this would have made a point but PhD + charm is phenotypically similar to an attractive ivy grad so you’re kind of proving the point.

"phenotypically similar"

Please be aware this is your bias, your POV. You can't use it to prove your own point.

PhD is nothing similar to your connotation of Ivy League grad. The former requires years of sacrifice, ruined relationship, and missed experiences to master an esoteric part of science. The latter has the connotation of privilege.

I know a large number of YC companies, and only a minority fit that description.

Being charismatic isn't entirely unrelated to one's ability to lead a company. You don't have to be slick, but projecting enough charm that people don't wander off while you're talking helps with hiring and sales.

You can learn to be acceptably charismatic if you put some effort into it. If Bill Gates and Jan Koum did it, you can too.

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