Brian Norgard's recent tweet:<p>""It's such an unfair advantage." referring to @ycombinator >> what a great time we live in where young people have tools like this."<p>http://twitter.com/BrianNorgard/status/24136354265<p>I read this tweet and thought very quickly that no - YCombinator isn't an unfair advantage at all - it's something much, much less totalitarian.<p>Unfair advantages imply zero-sum games, that somehow the winners and lowers pit against one another in a game of deft and wit.<p>However, the beautiful thing about what Y-Combinator does and what their startups do is contribute in a way that is nonzero - everyone wins.<p>These seed-stage startups are of the type that they rarely "compete", in the purest, man-on-man thought of the word. The nature of YCombinator makes this pretty much impossible - such incremental sums of money would make it highly unlikely that they could compete with anything -- other than maybe a milk stand.<p>Instead, they solve problems and make people's lives better. Sometimes they contribute to zero-sum solutions, getting acquired by other companies, but mostly, their product and service offerings are based on purely zero-sum principles - unique web apps and add-ons that make functioning that much easier - and often, that much more fun.<p>So, to Brian Norgard and others who believe Y-Combinator to be an "unfair advantage", I say - no. I say, thank you, Y-Combinator, for being the advantage that all of us - not just the start-ups - get to benefit from.
"Unfair advantage" is sort of a term-of-art in business. It doesn't mean what it literally suggests. What he is trying to express is that given two equally situated firms, the one in YCombinator is more likely to succeed, and that this advantage is durable against easy attempts to duplicate it short of joining YCombinator yourself.<p>You will occasionally be asked "What is <i>your</i> unfair advantage?" by business type folks. They are really looking for defensible sources of competitive advantage.<p>It means something <i>radically</i> different if you are asked the question on a college campus.
I think the "unfair" is tongue in cheek. It's not that there's an element of fairness, it's just so beneficial that there's really no reason not to do it. Sure, some people might not be able to for personal or family reasons. I think it's like how pg referred to accepting a slot in YC as an IQ test - if you have the opportunity, there's no better possible choice than taking it.<p>Side question for pg: has anyone ever been offered a slot and declined? At this point with the track record and well-defined nature of the program, I don't see how you could get invited to interview and then not accept.