From the perspective of future YC startup investors, this situation is roughly analogous to the difference between winning an honorary degree verse getting a "merit-based" degree.
People post all the time on Slashdot/Reddit complaining about the unfairness of honorary degrees. That being said, if you're about to go into surgery then which would you prefer, the doctor who earned a degree from the best medical school in the country or the doctor who was awarded an honorary degree from the best medical school in the country? I'll take the surgeon with the honorary degree any day. All the traditional degree signals is that you had good grades is college, and who cares what grades your doctor had in college? I'd much rather go for the doctor whose already recognized as the best in their field.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this exactly, but I guess my point was that the people who are already most likely to succeed on their own are the ones who get the biggest social signaling value from joining YC, if in fact the system works as you say.
edit: The appropriate buzzwords here would have been "selection effects" vs. "treatment effects" (and that selection is better than treatment for social signaling purposes).
People post all the time on Slashdot/Reddit complaining about the unfairness of honorary degrees. That being said, if you're about to go into surgery then which would you prefer, the doctor who earned a degree from the best medical school in the country or the doctor who was awarded an honorary degree from the best medical school in the country? I'll take the surgeon with the honorary degree any day. All the traditional degree signals is that you had good grades is college, and who cares what grades your doctor had in college? I'd much rather go for the doctor whose already recognized as the best in their field.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this exactly, but I guess my point was that the people who are already most likely to succeed on their own are the ones who get the biggest social signaling value from joining YC, if in fact the system works as you say.
edit: The appropriate buzzwords here would have been "selection effects" vs. "treatment effects" (and that selection is better than treatment for social signaling purposes).