What I'm basically trying to tell everyone, and hoping to convince a few, is: don't listen to any of this, just do it.
Gates, Jobs, and Zuck all famously dropped out of college of course.
It's an interesting and tricky social dynamic matching within and between these somewhat distinct groups.
Zuck and Gates both dropped out of Harvard after founding their companies.
Sometimes I wish I went there instead of my Alma mater.
You could argue YC wants people that wouldn't be discouraged by that. I'd argue that due to survivorship bias that would be hard to quantify, and that YC is competing with others for the best ideas so they might just end up somewhere else.
To expand a bit; I wasn't actually discouraged.. I was more put-off and slightly offended. It did make me stop filling out the co-founder match in the moment, but I was always planning to swing back around on it.
There is a trend I notice where people just drop low effort argumentative responses. They aren't even fully realized counter arguments. I try not to engage when they are targeting me; it's better for a third party to shut them down. It's super bad on Reddit and unfortunately ruins r/dotnet .
Harvard, Reed, Harvard.
Any drop out from any of those has hurdled more than 98% of the general college corps. Or at least that would be a rational assumption by the VC cadre that is probably in the top 0.1% and an Ivy League grad.
Is the point that just having been accepted to those schools is a strong signal? I would concede that it could be, sure.
But a lot of people drop out of Ivy league schools and simply flame out. Many would consider dropping out of those schools after a few semesters as failure. And many companies still require degrees; a few semesters at Harvard won't cut it.
I guess my point is that college dropouts are also successful at creating startups. Two have started the two most valuable companies in the world.
These people dropped out to chase extremely lucrative business opportunities - that they created as a student, likely aided by structural/networking support inside that institution - due to timing risk.
One could argue they not only got into a highly prestigious institution, but they quickly leapfrogged everyone there. That's the opposite of flaming out.
I don't personally believe that -- I'm confident in my 23 years of experience. It's unlikely I'll apply this weekend, but I did find a cofounder through the YC dating app. Maybe next batch.
How about a native South African, born in SA?
Edit: I asked my informant and they said that YC has funded 6 South African founders since 2017, which I guess is how far that data goes back to. We agreed that it seems like there should be more!
I'll keep in mind, so won't make it for this intake.
Still on the fence on whether I need the rocket fuel or not, and my co-founder hasn't yet weighed in either (we're still in exploratory phase of some potential products, so not in 100% yet).