I wonder how much these people are giving up for this check? I guess part of what you’re buying into is an advisory network, but for an engineer or even a non-engineer in tech who manages their finances this is definitely an amount that can be self funded with a little effort. The only reason I would be considering this is for the network intangibles and even then it would be for a very small amount of equity.
Im surprised hacker news readers don’t know many yc companies take 10k checks at demo day. There’s also companies like <a href="https://attack.capital/">https://attack.capital/</a> where small amounts can be distributed into several companies.