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Comment by johnrob | Hacker News Reader

It seems contradictory to get a rejection email that bemoans the idea - we keep hearing that caliber of the founders is all that matters.

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We care a lot more about the founders than the idea, but the idea still matters somewhat. And as we get further along, the differences between groups get smaller, so variation between ideas tends to account for more of the variation between groups. By the time we get to interviews we've narrowed the pool more than 10x, so we're basically choosing between good people with good ideas and good people with bad ideas.

Although I'll (perhaps understandably as this is my post / reflection that's been linked) not concede that our idea is bad, I do accept what Paul is saying here. I don't feel there was any duplicity or otherwise at all in the process - it's very open and straight forward.

From my perspective, of course Alex and I would have liked a different outcome, but I don't envy the decision that Paul and the team have to make either.

There's more than one post which has pointed out they don't always get it right. Only time will tell - YC was never a make or break for us.

Our immediate response (after initial disappointment) was "crap, maybe they're right". We've gone back and crunched the numbers and we still think there is a substantial opportunity here, but there's no doubt our forward planning is already being influenced by this outcome. We'll make sure we test these assumptions a lot sooner than we were initially thinking about.

Who wouldn't want the experience that was in that room to listen to you pitch for 10 minutes, and who wouldn't take some of that feedback on board and at least pause for thought?

Yes, it's an exaggeration to say bad ideas, particularly in your case. I wish the choice were so clear cut. In fact it's more like choosing between fairly good ideas that might grow into something great, and fairly good ideas that seem, on reflection, like they will run into trouble of some type.

It seems like companies that apply with no idea, then, would be at a noticeable disadvantage during interviews. Is this true?

No one applies with no idea now.

Given that the reddits initially had a bad idea, wouldn't this mean that if they applied today with a similarly bad idea, you'd have rejected them and not called them back?

Today, they would have applied with a better idea, in a later stage of implementation.

They can also be wrong about either or, they are people too. :) Like you said - only time will tell, and maybe we could be friends then, and life will go on.

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