Cool story, great read! I'm surprised how negative some of the comments here on HN were. They're probably just envious about how they're not getting that sweet, sweet investor money!
Based on the author's age, I assume he considers this the greatest failure in his life. He wrote this shortly after exiting an educational system that indoctrinates students to believe that success occurs without failures. So his perspective may have been from a point of low self-worth making it difficult to see his own strengths that will help him recover and succeed moving forward.
Thank you for writing about your experience Charlie. I hope the traveling has been beneficial, and I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
So it's all about money then, right? Well if you want to take that to the logical extreme then you would take advice from, say, Larry Ellison or Carl Icahn (over PG) because they have much more money than PG does (at this point in time at least). My point is you have to be very careful about putting people up on a pedestal (which is what happens at HN so often) and thinking that their advice ranks over someone who, by the standards of this community appears to be "less successful".
Also, YC isn't just about getting "sweet sweet" money, it's also about commitment, many times to the point of collapse due to overwork. This may be a worthwhile tradeoff for you, but it doesn't mean that whoever is critical towards the way YC works is actually broke and bitter. I'm actually quite confident that HN has a sizable population of mature, fulfilled and well-off readers who have better things to do than to pick on the unsuccessful.
Not to mention that many young people are in way over their heads when getting into this, and lack the experience necessary to come out on top. Some pull through, but in this case it was clear more or less from the start that it wasn't the case.
No one's envious nor blaming them for being too young or with half-baked ideas, it's understood that young people are naturally less adept at things. My impression is that they're rather criticizing YC for using inexperienced youngsters as fodder for investors, for just dumping responsibility on them, then leaving them to do the sweating and feel like hell for getting in without a clear plan.
Before being judgemental and assuming the worst about people, maybe you should stop and evaluate your own negativistic projections.