Guess, I got a problem with defining success of a person who works in a sphere that I don't know very well, unless there's an article in Wikipedia about him. That's my problem but I don't know how to resolve it.
I'd say Colin is substantially more "successful" than tarsnap has been as a business -- he's well regarded by basically everyone in the BSD community, crypto software community, etc. -- but that's because (IMO) tarsnap is a fairly niche product, executed well for that niche, but without much effort to make it a larger category product. Which is fine -- the effort to turn tarsnap into a more consumer-friendly or enterprise-IT-department friendly product might not be something he wants to do, and since he doesn't have external investors, no one is pushing him to do it.
I've seen a ton of examples of applications that have been accepted to YC. It would be very informative to see applications that were on the cusp of getting in to have a better gauge of mistakes to avoid.
I know that will never happen for a number of reasons - but it would be interesting nonetheless.
Do YC partners find stories such as "I grew up poor and in low income housing. My parents didn't graduate from high-school. By all measures I shouldn't have made it to a university nor should I have succeeded. But I paid my way through college and graduated with a high GPA in Computer Science" impressive?
I ask because it is my story albeit it is neither technology nor entrepreneurship related.
Similarly, is "I got rejected by a girl thrice, but turned that around over the course of 4 years, from the other side of the world" impressive at all? Depending on your perspective, it either shows extreme determination and ability to succeed, or a foolish aversion to "pivoting".
I'm assuming they are more like "I know HTML and Java" which is conceivably related to building a tech startup than "I ate 20 hotdogs in one sitting," right?
There is so little room on the application as it is to try to sell yourself and your cofounder (not your idea) that I could honestly not even imagine wasting it.
But in my case, I don't have a fancy school to list in the founder question, so I would have to find other ways to convince them that I'm good.
News.YC is giving me a nice week here. I'm starting to feel that I tend to undervalue my achievements and I feel much better about my answer now. (Self trained myself through HS to get a D1 Volleyball Scholarship)
I'm a business guy in our startup (and work with to tech cofounders) and wrote about starting and gaining reputation for my consulting company. Hope, that suits well. :)
I remember that from the application, so we must have been impressed by it.