troll: Internet slang for someone who disagrees with you, but whom you cannot come up with a cogent counter argument for.

Yes, I mean "build your thing." This is NOT the "YC model". The YC model is "build a demo so you can get VC money". This is a very bad approach-- I mean, its a great approach if you're looking to get funded so that you can get a salary. ITs a terrible approach if you want to build a business that will grow fast and make you rich. The YC model has you building a demo that gets funded and instead of getting a salary from a large tech company like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo or Amazon, you get a salary from VCs. Believe it or not, as clueless as managerment at G, M, Y or A are, the VCs are even more clueless.

You're still assuming that the purpose of your company is to demo your way into a job (eg: get "big" funding.)

Sorry, I didn't mean network with your peers (if your peers are under 25). Hanging out with other YC founders is ok, but its not networking... you need to network with people who are older (assuming you're under 25)... people with other disciplines, preferably people with significant business experience. Nothing wrong with hanging out with other 25 year olds, but that's not the point.

"Without the seriously smart hackers and designers-only rule, there's no value."

I understand why you would say something like that. and I'm certainly not saying you should spend time with kids (also under 25) who spent the last four years snorting lines of coke off of hookers bellies (eg: Havard MBAs) but your coming off like Mark Zuckerberg... there are great bright valuable people in business. And you will NOT find them at a YC infest.... because these are people who are running successful companies. You need to be networking with your possible strategic partners, or the people who will be your customers or know your customers.

.....

The reason the slashdot thread is so hostile is that the cult of Paul Graham is getting a lot of press lately and its sounding more and more like its gonna end in another jonestown.

The more people associated with the program act like stepford hackers the more you're going to see "trolling" ...and the less time I'll spend here... whenever I've expressed something not %100 in line with the PG ideology, the responses have been vehemenant and identical... not counter arguments, but repetition of the ideology.