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There is no age limit for YC. Many people in their 30's (some in their 40's) have gone through the program.

jacalata 13y ago
There is no age limit for going to college either, but I have seen many people feel reluctant to begin/return to college later in life, for many reasons - they think they won't fit in with other students and hence will miss out on shared experiences, they think it's "too late" to get any use out of the degree by the time they finish, they think other people will think they are slow/stupid for being in college at their age, they think that colleges might not want to admit older people, they aren't sure if they can afford to support their family while being in college (not a concern for the traditional student), etc. I think that most of these fears are unfounded, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. One way to reassure them is often to give them specific examples of 'x went back to college to be a doctor when he was 33, and has had a long and successful career since then that totally let him pay off his student loans even though they were so huge!' or 'z did a degree in Mathematics in her 40s, and she said sure nobody invited her to keggers, but she was able to find partners for her group projects easily'. Are any of the older previous alumni open to being known as 'the guy who did YC in his 30s', or to being contacted by prospective entrants, to provide similar success stories?
- hobs 13y ago
  I agree that people fear to do something if they think they might fail or have that the something might have a bias against them. However, I would argue YCom graduates are people who do a thing even if THEY ARE TERRIFIED. Being afraid of failure is not a justification for not trying, it is in fact a thing any healthy person has. The successful among us are the ones who operate even though they are afraid of failure. Otherwise only the people that were born with a perfect hand dealt to them would ever succeed.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    That mindset could justify any arbitrary barrier to y combinator, but I don't see pg instituting a mandatory cliff dive as part of the application even though startup founders need to be able to show courage and deal with unexpected and crazy obstacles.
    - hobs 13y ago
      That's true! However, another quote that I thought was relevant to this same way of thinking: (this was just posted today on HN, and I thought, exactly!) “Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning. But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to control it, you let it work for you. If you don’t learn to control it, it’ll destroy you and everything around you. “You think you know the difference between a hero and a coward, Mike? Well, there is no difference between a hero and a coward in what they feel. It’s what they do that makes them different. The hero and the coward feel exactly the same, but you have to have the discipline to do what a hero does and to keep yourself from doing what the coward does.” ~ http://blog.garrytan.com/ http://blog.garrytan.com/ When I read this, it exactly encapsulated what I was trying to say. You are allowed to fear everything, but if you let fear control you or decide what you will or will not do you will not become great. You may even regret bitterly not taking the jump off the cliff.
      - jacalata 13y ago
        Well, you might. But I think you're either having a different discussion to 'is it a good thing for arbitrary barriers exist to entering YC?', or else you're conflating heroism and entrepreneurship in a way I find a little overblown.

There is no age limit for going to college either, but I have seen many people feel reluctant to begin/return to college later in life, for many reasons - they think they won't fit in with other students and hence will miss out on shared experiences, they think it's "too late" to get any use out of the degree by the time they finish, they think other people will think they are slow/stupid for being in college at their age, they think that colleges might not want to admit older people, they aren't sure if they can afford to support their family while being in college (not a concern for the traditional student), etc. I think that most of these fears are unfounded, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. One way to reassure them is often to give them specific examples of 'x went back to college to be a doctor when he was 33, and has had a long and successful career since then that totally let him pay off his student loans even though they were so huge!' or 'z did a degree in Mathematics in her 40s, and she said sure nobody invited her to keggers, but she was able to find partners for her group projects easily'. Are any of the older previous alumni open to being known as 'the guy who did YC in his 30s', or to being contacted by prospective entrants, to provide similar success stories?

hobs 13y ago
I agree that people fear to do something if they think they might fail or have that the something might have a bias against them. However, I would argue YCom graduates are people who do a thing even if THEY ARE TERRIFIED. Being afraid of failure is not a justification for not trying, it is in fact a thing any healthy person has. The successful among us are the ones who operate even though they are afraid of failure. Otherwise only the people that were born with a perfect hand dealt to them would ever succeed.
- jacalata 13y ago
  That mindset could justify any arbitrary barrier to y combinator, but I don't see pg instituting a mandatory cliff dive as part of the application even though startup founders need to be able to show courage and deal with unexpected and crazy obstacles.
  - hobs 13y ago
    That's true! However, another quote that I thought was relevant to this same way of thinking: (this was just posted today on HN, and I thought, exactly!) “Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning. But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to control it, you let it work for you. If you don’t learn to control it, it’ll destroy you and everything around you. “You think you know the difference between a hero and a coward, Mike? Well, there is no difference between a hero and a coward in what they feel. It’s what they do that makes them different. The hero and the coward feel exactly the same, but you have to have the discipline to do what a hero does and to keep yourself from doing what the coward does.” ~ http://blog.garrytan.com/ http://blog.garrytan.com/ When I read this, it exactly encapsulated what I was trying to say. You are allowed to fear everything, but if you let fear control you or decide what you will or will not do you will not become great. You may even regret bitterly not taking the jump off the cliff.
    - jacalata 13y ago
      Well, you might. But I think you're either having a different discussion to 'is it a good thing for arbitrary barriers exist to entering YC?', or else you're conflating heroism and entrepreneurship in a way I find a little overblown.