
Startup School: Every Company That Applied Is Now Accepted - runesoerensen
https://blog.ycombinator.com/startup-school-every-company-that-applied-is-now-accepted/
======
jackconnor
Man, credit where credit is due, this showed a lot of integrity. There was one
good solution, it was just a painful one, yet they still did it. Well done
YCombinator!

P.S. They make the point that this is an experiment, and I think all of us who
join should prove that it is a good one. Nobody rails against applications and
qualifying scores like HN peeps (check the comments of any article, ever,
about SAT/GMAT/GRE scores for evidence). And since YC choose to go the
universal route, standing strong to the HN ethos, I think we can prove that
decisions like this do work for the best by being focused, engaged, and
building some kickass tech companies.

~~~
threeisoneis
I disagree. They didn’t do anything except open up the grant application part
to everyone (no cost to them) and promise everybody that they would get some
credits (probably no cost to them). The course was always able to be audited.

What this really does is make clear the desire of the people at ycombinator to
open their pre screening program (which is what startup school is,
essentially) to more startups. The value to them is clear - they now get more
companies that have an initial touchpoint with ycombinator, and they can maybe
make money off them or whatever. But they don’t have to scale the thing that
was most useful about startup school - that is, the advisors and small groups.
For ycombinator this actually is a win win - they can now phase out advisors
next round if this is a success and then the course would be very simple to
run (and mostly free to create!).

The value that they were really providing (advisors, small groups) doesn’t
scale for a free program, and with this new method of acceptance they aren’t
offering that value to the newly “accepted” startups. For me personally, If I
wanted to independently learn the things they teach in startup school, I
already had the ability to watch last years lectures and read last years
course material.

If there are credits, that will be valuable I suppose. But, again, I want to
emphasize that ycombinator isn’t giving startups anything of real value here
that it wasn’t already giving away (except, I guess, the ability to save face
if you had already excitedly told friends that you were in this program).

~~~
kcorbitt
Hi, I was involved in the decision to open Startup School to all applicants
and am the developer primarily responsible for writing the software we’ll need
to make this scale. We're all planning on working overtime for the next 12
weeks as we prepare for and go through the course. Although we don't have the
resources to assign an advisor to every group, we do want to provide human
attention to every single company we've accepted.

In general, we're committed to making Startup School an excellent experience
for all 15,000 of the companies that applied. This is going to be a great deal
of effort for all involved, but it's a point we wanted to get to anyway (even
though the timing and communication that lead to this decision was a terrible
mistake that we're still really sorry for).

~~~
Gabriel_Martin
Thanks for your time and commitment. I'm not even an applicant, but it is
still quite an admirable thing.

------
throwmeoutoft11
Unpopular opinion here.

The value of startupschool (as a previous graduate) is the individual
attention we got from a hand selected instructor.

I know yc screwed up with the emails, and their response was to please those
that they have misled, accidentally of course. But I think they also devalued
the class. It's gonna be much harder to offer the quality attention of the
past.

I think the right thing they should have done, which is harder, was for yc to
apologize for their mistake and move on. I know it sucked for those who were
selected then deselected, but if you are a startup owner you need to be
prepared to be rejected, cause someone will reject you.

I don't know what criteria startupschool goes through to select a company, but
I think they must have seen something unique in those four thousands.

I do congratulate them for this decision still because obviously the influx of
students is gonna be a great challenge to surmount.

~~~
r_singh
I personally think that they've rectified this in a smart way by introducing 2
tracks: the advisor track and a normal one (this is just a guess since I
received mail saying I've been accepted to the 'advisor track').

So YC is giving forum access to all the companies that applied but advisor
access only to a subset of all the companies that applied. Is that correct?

~~~
enqa
I don't know. The fair way to handles this would have been to first honour the
original deal. They have already put people through the application process
and the were going to reject them if this hadn't happened. Instead of
"accepting everyone" they should have rejected the ones original being
rejected and then asked them forgiveness and confidence in this additional
track. Now they have left a lot of people in the awkward position of doubt if
they want to do it but without an easy way to say no.

------
jaysonelliot
As someone who was critical at first of the way the situation was handled, I
have to say that YC has been exemplary in their followup.

The response from all of the YC folks in the threads was respectful and
empathetic, and didn't try to make excuses or shift the blame. They just took
the heat and acted with honor.

I think we've just learned our first lesson from Startup School: how to handle
a bad situation with grace, and recover well.

~~~
desireco42
I am with you. I was really upset as I called my young cofounder to tell her
we were in. I felt she needs this way more then me and when I got a reject
letter it was a huge letdown.

Anyhow, they offered good save, it will not be easy for them, and they came up
with that quickly, before this blew up more.

I think they handled this way better then many CEO's handle their company
firedrills.

------
seanlinehan
I hope somebody runs the data in the future to see if there was a statistical
difference in outcomes between the companies intended to be accepted vs. not
:-)

~~~
snowmaker
That is a good idea! We conducted an inadvertent A/B test :)

~~~
solveit
Is there any chance you can blind yourselves to any extent? Or does everyone
involved already know too much about which companies were initially accepted?

~~~
DoreenMichele
_any chance you can blind yourselves_

I wouldn't worry too much about that angle, personally.

The human mind can follow a community of about 150. This is two orders of
magnitude larger.

I think they will be lucky if they can even remember names of folks they are
dealing with.

------
pilingual
Hi everyone! I went through SS last year, and I was going to email them
suggesting this exact solution.

Know that trying to decide 1000 out of 15000 startups is incredibly
challenging, especially given the fact that the application asks for very
little data. So don’t ever think you weren’t meant for this, because it is a
school program and everyone has the potential to dominate. This isn’t a zero
sum game.

As for startup school, there are two critical things: being accountable and
having a support network. Everyone will get those things which is great. I’m
not trivializing the role advisors play, but YC noted that everyone will get
access to advisors in the forums. Some startups will find them a useful
resource for specific problems, but you don’t necessarily need them every
single week; indeed some startups waived their five minutes some weeks.

Congratulations! Now let’s get to work! :D

~~~
mLuby
Do they really call it SS? Not to summon Godwin here but historically that
wasn't a great organization to be in…

~~~
dang
I haven't heard anyone call it that.

~~~
mLuby
Parent comment says it.

~~~
dang
Of course, but I meant 'heard' literally.

------
sudosteph
I can't stay mad at y'all after this response.

I am looking forward to making your application reviewer peeps feel silly
after this is all over though. Team 2nd chance has a lot to prove, and I think
many of us do really appreciate YC's new commitment to supporting ALL founders
at this point, even if it took a mistake to get there.

~~~
adora
I was the application reviewer and I look forward to feeling silly :) But
really, one of the things I've been thinking about for a long time is how YC
can help every startup in the world. We're still not there yet but this pushed
us some steps closer.

~~~
sudosteph
This is a big move in that direction then.

To me, the biggest thing this announcement signaled is that YC is getting
serious about inclusion. As someone from the "wrong" part of the country for
technology, I struggle immensely to not feel resentful towards founders and
VCs who give preference candidates from their social class, their university,
their geographical region.

The whole culture of "founding" and "connections" in general is like nothing I
ever had experienced growing up. My parents didn't just "know" lawyers,
investors, doctors, researchers, technical experts, we knew teachers and
mechanics and middle managers. They barely knew what startups were. How could
I have competitively prepared myself for this path when it was essentially
invisible to me until I was an adult?

Now I have a CS degree and have proven myself at one of the most intense
technical corporations, but I'll still never be as convincing as the person
who had parents that encouraged them to apply to Stanford and got admitted, or
the person who's family "connections" landed them the opportunity for an
investment at a younger age. Or the person who could actually afford to not
work part-time or over summers and could do their own projects then and build
a portfolio.

The Startup School was supposedly a chance for YC to expand their reach to
include people all over the world, but I wonder if the same exact biases
around social-class, university, and geographic area were key to the selection
of the preferred class.

Regardless, this is indeed huge step forward and on that improves my
perspective on YC and tech investment culture in general.

~~~
ramblerman
You will still have to attract VCs at some point. I would recommend you leave
the baggage behind when you do.

I hear what you are saying, but someone who wants to build their own custom
car garage would complain that he didn't grow up around mechanics.

It's relative, and honestly you know nothing about those people who supposedly
'got a head start', when it comes to their health, their personal
relationships, or even who they are as people.

Furthermore if you really want to play that game, why not compare yourself to
someone from Syria, or Africa and compare 'unfair advantages' then.

------
dang
For anyone who hasn't seen the previous thread where this all played out, it's
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17804371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17804371).

~~~
darklrd
Thank you for sharing the link.

------
ajiang
Startup School Battle Royale. Love it.

Way to handle a really messy, potentially embarrassing situation. I feel for
all of the founders that broke good news and then had to break bad. 10x more
painful than just saying 'oh well' and moving on. I wouldn't be surprised if
this becomes one of the best mistakes YC has ever made.

------
sanjanamane
I got a rejected email first and then I got the accepted email with an
apology. So I am assuming I was among the originally accepted startups, now
since everyone is going to be accepted, the originally accepted startups will
have a disadvantage and will we still get an advisor? The thing to rejoice is
being accepted out of a pool of competition but now since everyone is
accepted, its just something usual.

~~~
r_singh
Does your email say you're accepted to the advisor track? That's how you know
if you will be a part of a group that gets an advisor.

~~~
sanjanamane
Yes, it says I am in the advisor track but now since everyone is in the
advisor track, I am expecting it to change?

~~~
r_singh
Not everyone is in the advisor track. About 4000 out of the 15000 are in it—is
what some of the comments are saying.

The applicants that were initially erroneously accepted and then rejected are
in something like an audit track, except they will have access to the forums
and will stand a chance to compete for the $10k (I think).

Hope that clears your doubt. Congrats!

Are you a founder based in India? (just taking a wild guess from your username
and time zone activity, asking because I'm from Mumbai, got accepted to the
advisor track and would love to connect with my peers from Startup School as
well!)

~~~
rpm33
Founder from India, got accepted into the advisor track. Hit me up.

~~~
r_singh
Your bio doesn't have any contact info. I've updated mine to include my email
address.

~~~
allpratik
Hi guys!

I'm also a founder from advisor track and from India. You can ping me at mail
(at) Khandagale dot com

~~~
spdebbarma
I didn't apply and I've not been selected because I was moving but I would
love to connect with everyone here.

------
40acres
Wow! Thanks to YC for this opportunity. The valley is in no way perfect but
its these sort of moments that make you excited to be in technology. I'm sure
one of the companies that did not make it initially will earn the $10,000
credit.

------
dotBen
How can we volunteer to advise groups who didn't get an existing advisor?

~~~
r_singh
Interesting question. Now that the forum is going to be open to all
applicants, I guess you (and others like you) can post some information about
yourself and how you can help what kind of startups and how many. And then
startups can choose whether they'd like you and / or can get you to be their
advisor.

~~~
dotBen
I don't believe I have access to the forum - I think you had to apply to
startup school... which is why I'm asking YC if they have a plan here for
this!

~~~
r_singh
Yeah, it didn't occur to me that you weren't an applicant, sorry. Sounds like
something YC or Startup School applicants could do something about.

Although, realistically speaking, YC may not have anything to gain from
connecting the rest of the students to outside advisors, keeping in mind that
this would require some effort.

This may be something the students will have to do themselves, using the forum
as a place to coordinate.

------
olliej
I really like this response, I would totally understand if they sent up
follows ups "we're _really_ sorry...", but this seems like a really neat
response.

I'd be really interested if at the end of the cycle they published the success
stats vs. their original invitee success stats. I would _expect_ a lower
overall success result - I'm sure there are startups that would never work
("our business model is to just directly give our VC money to our users and
profit on scale") they would be denied, but it would be curious _how_ the
stats diverged.

e.g. comparing overall performance when controlling for gender, race,
religion, field, etc

~~~
Suncho
Hey! Our business model involves just directly giving money to our users. =)

~~~
olliej
Oof, that seems like a challenge.

I’m not sold on basic income, I think a solid welfare system would in effect
be “basic income” for low/no income people, but By essentially having a
tapering payout as the recipients earnings increase you resolve a number of
issues BI produces.

I do think it’s an interesting idea to have essentially a private fund do a
real world experiment, I’m just not sure of the long term feasibility. The
problem you have is that the addition of a basic income does not result in any
increase in the funds available to you. For a government back system, BI
theoretically should result in an over all increase in tax revenue that can
then fund said BI, while also reducing the amount spent on poverty related
disease, illness, crime, etc. (to be clear I’m not saying poor people are
criminals, just that some crime is a result of poverty - theft of food,
“crimes” like prostitution, etc).

Anyway, good luck to you fine folk!

------
chrischoy
I got the rejection email first then acceptance email. Regardless of those
emails, I am actually happier now cause everyone is getting in so that this
startup community is bigger.

I think it's hard to decide which companies can be in, but I know everyone is
working so hard for their startup. So, everyone being accepted is the best
outcome I want to see. Good job YC! Looking forward to exchanging ideas and
getting advice from everyone!

------
iphoneman123
Do all 15,000 still get AWS / Digital Ocean credits? Or is that only reserved
for the 100 selected companies?

~~~
snowmaker
We're working hard to renegotiate the credits with the companies offering
them. We'll definitely be able to offer some credits to all 15,000 companies
but we're not sure exactly which ones yet.

~~~
iphoneman123
Thank you! I was one of the ones who got the second email, and I really
appreciate the integrity YC has shown. Lot of respect for you all.

------
aliakhtar
We have a slack group of people who previously didn't get in but are now in,
feel free to join: [https://join.slack.com/t/startupschool-
rejects/shared_invite...](https://join.slack.com/t/startupschool-
rejects/shared_invite/enQtNDE5NTM5ODUxNjY1LTIxOGNhMDA3NGI0NjdlNjU5MWU1MWYxYjc5OTNmN2RjMDRmNmIwM2EyYmU3NjllZGZhOWE0ZWEyZDA1Y2Q3MDg)

~~~
aliakhtar
(I.e those who got accepted, then rejected, and are now accepted again. I.e,
Team 2nd chance!)

------
bobmazanec
Gutsy moves starting YC & offering SS to begin with.

Public stumble today—it happens.

Gutsy recovery.

Thanks.

Now it's up to all of us to make the most of it and make it _more_ than it
would have been.

------
acutesoftware
Nice save, well done.

Understand that the advisors won't be able to give personal feedback, but I am
happy to be discussing ideas / issues / feedback with other peers.

~~~
itsthisjustin
Excited to chat with you there as a fellow peer!

------
allanmacgregor
As someone that is now in the Team 2nd Chance, this has been a fun emotional
rollercoaster.

Two great lessons can be taken from this experience, first for those that got
accepted, then rejected then accepted; dealing with rejection is an essential
part of a startup or any business, shit happens and is how to deal with it
that makes or breaks companies.

Second, YC just thought a masterclass on how to handle mistakes and how to
fail forward. A mistake turned into an opportunity for them and the 11,000
people that got rejected.

Looking forward to be learning side by side with y'all!

~~~
mindcrime
There's another lesson in this as well: There's still a group of people who
aren't in this class... the people who didn't even apply in the first place.
How many people were either too lazy to fill out the application, or thought
"we won't get in, why bother", etc, who arguably would now be benefiting from
this had they applied?

To me this is a good example of how, while you can't _literally_ "make your
own luck", you can make decisions that put you in a position to benefit from
fortuitous events. (For the same of argument, let's assume that getting in to
SS, even as one of the 15,000+ is still beneficial).

"You have to enter to win" as they say.

~~~
1996
or alternatively, thought that the value to be gained from this was lower that
the next best use of their time?

10 grands at best, no mentoring - a consulting gig is worth more in money and
experience.

------
chelak
A bold and compassionate solution, that only YC would have the guts and
integrity to do. Well done.

~~~
snowmaker
Thank you so much! I was feeling terrible earlier today and your comment
really helped.

------
cetico
Is there a way for companies to tell if they are on the Advisory Track,
besides the emails?

That's totally OK, mistakes happen, but I'm not sure what the emails say. If
startupschool.org perhaps had the final status (advisory track or not), that
would be super helpful.

------
jakegold
Very exciting stuff. I hope this experiment is successful and it paves a way
towards a completely open model. It seems only logical that any startup should
be able to enter the arena and fail or succeed on their actual merit itself,
and not some kind of proxy or guess.

This really does seem like one of those magical "listen to your users" moments
in a startup's life. Startup School teaching by example and practicing what it
preaches.

------
adityapurwa
I was so happy seeing the email of me being accepted to Startup School, but
then I saw another email about it being an error, I am a bit sad, but then
after reading I'm feeling happy again, than you to YC for giving us an
opportunity.

~~~
soyapi
I went to bed after the false acceptance email and had a beautiful sleep! Woke
to the kinda bad news and then the acceptance but no advisor email. What a
roller coaster!

------
mic500
I feel like that one of the spirit of YC is try something new, well done. I
still have a question, can I join the class on Tuesdays? I mean be a live
audience. We're willing to give up $10k, and ask no questions in the class.

~~~
kcorbitt
There will be an application process open to all SS participants for the in-
person class (unfortunately our room has limited seating). We hope that
everyone who wants to will be able to attend at least one lecture in person!

~~~
wmattei
That's exciting to hear! I filled out the class attendance application
attached to the mistaken acceptance email before the correction was sent -- is
that the form you are referring to or will there be a new one?

~~~
kcorbitt
That form works fine! We're keeping track of all the form responses from both
the old and new emails we sent out, so your application made it in.

------
eghri
This is great! I may honestly be even more motivated now to prove YC wrong for
initially declining me :-)

~~~
ModernMech
Be careful -- If it turns out that those rejected end up with the $10k, YC
might start making it a policy of rejecting companies and accepting them on
their second application :P

------
kashprime
A great way to save the situation. And the resulting community created by 15k
startups might lead to interesting directions and developments. I'm looking
forward to participating and meeting our peers out there.

~~~
snowmaker
I totally agree! I am very excited to see how the community evolves.

~~~
ronix900
This is going to be really, really interesting run! Super pumped!

------
mindcrime
Nice. Understand this is going to stress the infrastructure pretty severely,
but it seems like both A. the right thing to do, and B. an interesting
experiment / learning opportunity.

Looking forward to the class.

------
leon_moodley
I've just been catching up on mails at like 2.30am and I also received the
initial acceptance and then the decline. I must admit that I didn't take the
rejection as personally as some might have. This is a norm in startup life.
Whilst I am thankful that everyone was accepted into the program, what would
have been of great value to me was understanding why I wasn't accepted,
learning from that feedback and applying again. Given the amount of
competition in the tech space its nice to know what your shortcomings are. I
think perhaps in the next batch there could be some scoring criteria perhaps.
I assume that if X amount of people are shortlisted there was some sort of
acceptance criteria and someone experienced rated your pitch anyway ? Big up
to y combinator for owning up to the mistake made. Many other organizations
would have just moved on.

------
chrismorgan
15,000, huh? That’s a _lot_ more than I expected.

How many had you originally accepted? (And thus, how many have advisors?)

~~~
geoff
We had originally accepted about 4000 - although our goal has always been to
make our MOOC as much about "open" as we possibly can. Our own misstep has
caused us to accelerate things.

~~~
proofread
Could you explain what happened more?

4,000 companies were accepted but 11,000 received acceptance emails?

~~~
dang
Yes, and the 4,000 received rejections. It was a big boolean fuckup.

~~~
jdoliner
Cornell University did a similar thing one year, needless to say, they did not
resolve it the same way.

~~~
Alex3917
While Cornell was the first big example in 2003, it's been done many times
since:

[http://time.com/3637980/college-admissions-mistakes-
johnshop...](http://time.com/3637980/college-admissions-mistakes-
johnshopkins/)

It actually happens dozens of times per year on a one-off basis, usually with
college coaches telling recruits they've been accepted when the admissions
office has only provisionally accepted them.

~~~
tlb
SUNY Buffalo seems to have held the previous record of 5109.
[https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/18/us/us-university-buffalo-
acce...](https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/18/us/us-university-buffalo-acceptance-
letters/index.html)

------
maz1b
1\. Is it possible to find out why a startup was (initially) placed in the
audit track?

2\. Does this mean all startups will get access to benefits such as DO, AWS?
And the chance to win $10k?

Rollercoaster of emotions, but thanks to the YC team for handling this well!

~~~
snowmaker
Yep, everyone will be eligible for the $10K equity free grant (on an equal
playing field).

We're talking to our partner companies and working hard on securing access to
credits for all 15,000 companies. You'll definitely get a lot of credits and
we're going to make it as close to the original list as we can.

------
megasquid
Thanks for the second chance. Will be cool to be able to connect with other
founders and access the private community forum.

------
xenator
For Russian speaking attendees, we made Telegram channel. Please join if you
want to share your progress and enthusiasm:
[https://t.me/joinchat/ATOCuBDWgp3s7S7y7rOQrw](https://t.me/joinchat/ATOCuBDWgp3s7S7y7rOQrw)

RUS: Мы создали канал в Телеграме для общения и обмена опытом среди
русскоязычных слушателей курса. Добавляйтесь и приглашайте своих друзей
[https://t.me/joinchat/ATOCuBDWgp3s7S7y7rOQrw](https://t.me/joinchat/ATOCuBDWgp3s7S7y7rOQrw)

~~~
oddworldz
this link isn't working, maybe there is some typo in the id?

------
meesterdude
I thought what happened earlier was pretty shitty - this is 100% the right
action to take and totally above & beyond. Congratulations to all startups who
applied and get to move forward!

------
aliakhtar
This is fantastic. It would be great if there could be a way for teams to
'level up' and get access to an advisor + the AWS / Stripe credits. Is that
possible @yc ?

~~~
sandslash
We have a limited number of advisors but YC partners/staff will be on the
forum to help out in any way we can.

~~~
aliakhtar
As some of the 'accepted' companies with advisors quit / drop out and spots
open up, could those spots be filled with promising companies who don't have
advisors?

~~~
sandslash
That's a great idea. We'll definitely consider that.

~~~
aliakhtar
Awesome, thanks :)

------
nodesocket
Aren't the partners that provided exclusive discounts going to be upset about
this? Seems to be fueling the extreme frugal ideology that hosting is an
entitlement and free. Reminders me of tee-ball everybody gets a participation
trophy, yet in the real world of business it does not work like that.

> EXCLUSIVE DEALS Cut startup costs and get discounts from the best in the
> business (Stripe, Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services, and more).

~~~
dang
Presumably the benefit they get from providing discounts to 4k companies will
apply as much or more with 15k? It remains to be seen if they'll go for it,
but people here are going to try.

The participation trophy analogy doesn't really hold because being open to all
startups was what the original planners of Startup School (including pg, Sam,
and others) really wanted to do. This forced things back in that direction,
which hopefully we'll all be grateful for in the end.

------
firemelt
I wish I applied :(, any chance for me to get all the course materials?

~~~
dang
Yes:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17806627](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17806627)

~~~
mockingbirdy
Is there a mail list or something to get notifications when it's ready?

Would love to see this. Seen many of the
[https://startupclass.samaltman.com](https://startupclass.samaltman.com)
videos

------
yatoomy
[https://imgflip.com/i/2g9y7k](https://imgflip.com/i/2g9y7k)

~~~
arxpoetica
Yesssss.

------
r_singh
I received a rejection mail at 02:15am IST and then an acceptance mail (saying
I should've received it in the first place) around 2 hours later for the
'advisor track'.

Making me wonder how many tracks are there? And what's the difference between
them? There seems to be no mention about the track in this blog post.

------
muhneesh
Hey guys - this is awesome and compassionate; thank you

~~~
sandslash
Thank you for giving us another chance. We're truly sorry for all the trouble
this caused.

~~~
proofread
I truly think that YC is going to be surprised by the entrepreneurs in this
group.

~~~
jaredsk
The Un-Snappening has occurred

------
PatriciaR
"FUCK IT! WE'LL DO IT LIVE!" In all seriousness, great decision. Well done YC.

------
swamiyeswanth
Classic "It's not a bug, it's a feature" scenario :) Amazing move, SS!

------
sbussard
Dang this is really cool! This is an act of faith on YC's part - they believe
in us. If nothing else, I think this is a great culture-shaping move that
should help bring what makes Silicon Valley special out into the rest of the
world.

------
wprapido
I initially received the rejection letter, to be followed with the letter of
acceptance. Good to know that the letter of acceptance wasn't a comforting
reward! The startup I've applied with is not the one same as my username.

------
joejerryronnie
Nice job guys, totally the right call.

Is this the beginning of a fully crowd sourced Y Combinator?

~~~
kcorbitt
We're definitely experimenting with different ways of opening YC's benefits up
to a larger group of companies. Startup School is one initiative of many that
we're trying.

------
confiscate
can we also increase the 100 slots for the 10k grant, to 400 slots?

because it used to be 4000 startups and now it's 15000!

~~~
dang
I asked Sam that exact question earlier and he was already working on it. But
it's complicated for fiduciary reasons, and not the sort of thing that can be
put together in a few hours.

~~~
confiscate
thanks for trying!

------
itsevrgrn
excited to see how we are able to connect with other founders. This is
something I have wanted for a long time.

------
hyperpallium
Will the course materials also be available to those who did not apply?

~~~
kcorbitt
Yes! All the videos and content from the course will eventually become public
for everyone – we're trying to optimize for maximum impact.

~~~
dreammaker
So, can you explain, what is the main difference between 'new-way'-accepted
participants and people who even did not apply to Startup School and will be
able to watch the videos also?

------
wiradikusuma
The more the merrier!

I got accepted last year, and I remember they have a group chat or something,
but pretty quiet.

Running your own startup can be lonely, and joining a graveyard group chat
doesn't help much. I hope this time is different!

Note: I have joined a couple accelerators, online and offline. By far, Founder
Institute has the best comradeship. I think it's bcoz you're still working
fulltime, while learning startup with tough weekly assignments that can get
you kicked out anytime from the program, creating strong group bonding.

------
syntaxing
For someone out of the loop, what exactly are in the discount code and the 10K
equity free grant? Does everyone get it on the completion of the course or
does YC choose a selected few?

~~~
sandslash
Since this is a brand new update to Startup School, we're going to work on
figuring out how we can offer discounts/deals to all founders in the program.
Stay tuned!

------
SpeckOfDust
So were all companies that applied accepted onto the Advisor Track? Or are the
Advisor Track companies a subset of the 15k companies that applied? If so,
what are the numbers like?

~~~
snowmaker
We mostly removed the differences between the tracks. Everyone is part of the
same community. About 4,000 companies will be explicitly assigned an advisor.
The other 11,000 companies won't have a dedicated advisor, but the advisors
(and YC employees) will participate in the discussion forums with them.
Everything else will be the same.

~~~
SpeckOfDust
Got it. Thanks for clearing it up :)

------
xmly
I first got the rejected, then acceptance yesterday. For me the feeling is
that, hurry up, a lot of works needs to be done to "win" 10k grant since we
have so much more "competitions".

Also a network of 15K founders would be very very helpful, especially for the
company providing services for small startups like us.

So let us forget about what happened and focus on providing the best product
to our customers. Without product and customers, your journey is not started
yet.

------
Ch3ck
Here is a slack channel I created to keep all interested entrepeneurs
connected and share our experiences. Feel free to join here:
[https://join.slack.com/t/startupschool18/shared_invite/enQtN...](https://join.slack.com/t/startupschool18/shared_invite/enQtNDIxNTA5NTI0MzU4LTg5NTgyZDNlODEwYWYzODNmOGFhYjkxY2NiYTRhNDgxYjk1NDY4NjYyNjJhY2Y5ZDhhM2FhNTY3NWYxMDk2NzU)

------
msea82
Nice job James Bond-ing the solution. Totally the right call.

------
vardhanw
Those who registered for the audit track only, did you get any confirmation
mail? I seem to not have got any and am unable to sign-in. I wanted to change
to advisor track later but was already late - there was a "Get content
updates" button/form which I duely filled, but still no email.

Is there no login for audit track? Will the content be shared later for all?
Is there any use of signing up for audit track?

------
dpeck
Good on yc. Now I’m disappointed that I’m just auditing the course this term
as I bet the forums will be a very interesting place with this many teams.

Best of luck to all.

------
Waterluvian
I'm out of the loop. What are the actual costs of advisorless groups? Is it
just bandwidth and server costs or are there further services.

~~~
kcorbitt
Mainly we just didn't build the course's functionality or navigation with that
volume of users in mind. We also want to make sure we provide a great
experience to everyone, whether their group has an advisor or not. We're going
to be working very hard over the next week making sure we're able to do that
for everyone.

~~~
jamesogunjimi
Thank you.

------
contingencies
I only received this email, and no other rejection or acceptance email.

 _We are deeply sorry, but an error occurred in the software that triggers
acceptance emails and you were actually supposed to receive the email below
accepting you into the Startup School Advisor Track._

I guess that means, unlike the apparent screwup narrative for others here, we
were actually accepted and really did make the cut.

~~~
dang
It sounds like it, but it's odd that you didn't receive the prior incorrect
email. Have you checked your spam bin?

~~~
contingencies
Yep, not there. Probably GMail's fault not yours, it's been randomly dropping
emails recently (have same addresses since 1990s ... heaps of spam ..
apparently exceeded daily limits for free GMail tier) so I am in the process
of attempting migration to Fastmail. Unfortunately they don't allow Chinese
phone numbers to sign up, and their SMS never arrives at my HK number, sigh.
Nothing ever easy.

------
ai_ia
I woke up to check my email. I was accepted, then rejected and then again
accepted. Nonetheless, will be looking forward to see you guys.

------
ericglyman
Startup School lesson one: keep iterating :)

~~~
halfjoking
First rule of Startup Club... you DO NOT get accepted to Startup club.

Second rule of Startup Club... you ARE NOW ACCEPTED to Startup Club.

Third rule... if either of these notices from the other two rules affected the
trajectory of your startup you are not a true founder. So get to work and stop
worrying if someone else approves your startup or not.

------
anonytrary
To send an email. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn something new! Hope
this motivates the startups even more.

------
eddieh
I applied, but haven't received a rejection or and acceptance email. Does this
announcement mean I'm in?

~~~
dang
You may be the only person who didn't receive a rollercoaster's worth of
emails today. Maybe check with startupschool@ycombinator.com to make sure they
got your application?

~~~
eddieh
Sent an email. Thank you.

------
wj
The email mentions organizing groups by yourself. My initial thought is that a
group of startups in the same industry would be the most beneficial but maybe
the cross-pollination from a wide-range on industries in a group would yield
different viewpoints and better results in the long run.

Any tips on organizing groups?

------
peter_retief
Probably not really a mistake at all, the ss is a remarkably ambitious project
as it is

------
Tunecrew
I think this is the best outcome - cheers to YC for handling this in this way.

------
justme24
I think this is a great solution! I hope this year will be amazing.

------
xmly
For wechat users... the wechat group qr code:
[https://goo.gl/wAmQ4F](https://goo.gl/wAmQ4F)

------
pacavaca
Let's see what they do for the real YC W19 :D

------
jamesogunjimi
Was a bit disheartening getting that second mail. I mean, I'd already shared
the news with Anita, the cofounder. When I woke up to the third mail, I wasn't
sure what to think. 'Getting in' is okay, right? But knowing you 'got in' on
merit is easier than knowing you got pushed in because of a system
malfunction. Was almost not going to participate, but reading comments here,
maybe I will. Hopefully, we get to learn and make something really worthwhile
from this.

~~~
DoreenMichele
If you think the primary value of acceptance is some social signal rather than
access to the system, wow. This is not the first comment of this sort I have
seen suggesting this will be a lousy deal. And I am resisting the temptation
to say "I'll be happy to take your slot if you don't want it" only because I
have other plans, basically.

~~~
fapjacks
I was a bit surprised to read that comment, as well. Opportunities multiply as
they are seized. OTOH, do not interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake
(that was a joke). Anyone in this position has an opportunity many many others
do not.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Metaphorically, getting into a YC program is not evidence that you are a good
egg. Instead, it is a guarantee of being kept warm so you have a chance to
hatch.

Even without an advisor, this gives applicants access to important stuff, like
discussion with other like-minded individuals who are also reviewing the same
materials. That's huge.

------
dimasf
besides having an advisor, is there any difference between those who were
supposed to be accepted originally vs the rejected ones?

~~~
dang
Looks like Jared answered this here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17807241](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17807241)

------
vardhankoshal
So the folks who got the advisor track already started getting access to
tools. Anyone without the advisor track who got access?

~~~
chaask
I am from the advisor track. What tools are you talking about.

------
rboyd
sweet, looking forward to those discount codes

~~~
fouc
Joke, or is that a thing?

~~~
ModernMech
"Stripe will be giving startups discounted payment processing and an
invitation to Stripe Atlas to incorporate and open a company bank account.

In addition, startups will receive over $50,000 in credits to a variety of
other services, Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services, and Clerky."

------
allenleein
Startup School may have the potential to become another HN-like community(But
focus on very early stage startup founder).

------
L_226
Was this all just a PR stunt? /tinfoil

~~~
r_singh
Pretty sure it wasn't because a lot of originally accepted startups received
the rejection email and to be honest it's slightly embarrassing to make such a
mistake.

However, saying that we're "accepting" all applicants does seem to be an
attempt to turn this mistake into something positive, when all that's really
changing is that all the applicants get forum access, whereas, only the
originally accepted startups still get an advisor (as a part of a group).

------
proofread
Since everyone is in now, are the spots that we signed up for in the live in
person classes still available to all?

------
t0nyh0
This is great news! Thanks YC for making things more accessible for everyone.
Can't wait to get started.

------
handymarks
Thank you.. !!!

------
zilongli
So, has anyone received instructions on how to access the private community
and courseware?

~~~
scottydelta
I had access to a group page where I could see companies in same group but now
its returning 404.

------
titojankowski
Anyone founders want to join our study group in San Mateo?

email me: tito@impossiblelabs.io

------
phoenix24
wow, this should be fun.

------
mercat
More than 15000 startups... I wonder how that will play out.

~~~
proofread
I bet that 25-40% complete the course fully. They expected 4000 so it will be
around there. We will see. Great move by YC and really excited to experience
the program!

~~~
Tunecrew
I was thinking the same thing - probably the number that actually starts the
course will be in the 90%s of the total and there will be a fair amount of
attrition as the course proceeds.

It would be interesting to see what these numbers look like as well over the
ten weeks.

------
d2161
Just saw this. Hah!

------
BoardSpeak
Thank you!!!

------
hvass
Well done.

------
escapecharacter
Huzzah!

------
tenfold
I was originally accepted and then got the second mail about the mistake and
it being opened up.

This may sound sour but it’s just some honest feedback, even if it’s bitter to
swallow. For an accelerator that prides itself on grooming some of the world’s
best in technology this is a trivially amateur mistake that just shouldn’t
have happened. There should have been a double check process for the
notifications. Any other company would have been lynched on HN.

Saying you’re opening it up is a popular response but talk is cheap. It’s easy
to make it sound like it’s a better thing but the reality is it’s a devalued
experience for those originally chosen. Both in terms of advisor bandwidth and
the quality signalling of being selected. Any company who partakes in this
course is now not considered special at all. YC took the easy road and sold
out a pound of their credibility for that but that’s their prerogative.

So I won’t be participating because of this as time is precious and it’s no
longer worth it for where I’m at but good luck to the others who still do.
Respect to everyone who breaks out of the conventional lanes to try and make
the world a better and more exciting place.

~~~
soyapi
The deserving 4,000 startups are not getting a devalued experience. They will
still have an advisor in groups of 25 startups. The remaining ~11,000 won't
have an advisor (at least not yet).

And innovators always make mistakes. YC has actually admitted to being "always
slightly broken" [https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/14/y-combinator-is-zeroing-
in...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/14/y-combinator-is-zeroing-in-on-bigger-
breakaway-companies-with-a-new-growth-stage-program/)

------
RoastBeats
Am I the only cynic who wonders if the original “mistake” was fabricated?

It doesn’t really cost YC anything extra, they get lots of good press and
praise, and ultimately they wind up with an even fatter pipeline of companies
they can select from. Win, win, win situation as far as they’re concerned.

~~~
dang
I hate to ruin a good theory but it wasn't fabricated. People were genuinely
upset, including all of us.

I guess it's worth a cheer if the outcome was so good that anybody would be
wondering if it was staged... but you'd have to be insane to stage something
like that. Nobody sane would play that game with their reputation.

