Prompted by the negative feedback that this essay received, ranging from being a sales pitch in disguise, to being a word salad going in all directions without answering the central question posed by the author right in the opening paragraphs, I had to go and re-examine the piece and see if these concerns are valid or not, and unexpectedly the second reading reaffirmed my initial positive reaction that this is actually a good piece, maybe not the best, but still good.<p>In spirit of open discussion and intellectual curiosity here, I share my insights in the following order matching that of the post:<p>1) PG opens with the best advice that he could dispense to prospective applicants which is "what you've learned from users".<p>2) He proceeds to ask himself the same question.<p>3) He then informs readers that his users; startup founders, usually face the same set of problems across the board.<p>4) Since these problems are the same, he thought of automating the solution to scale his business (dogfooding in some sense).<p>5) That blew up in his face spectacularly that he had to rework the plan and concede that his solution won't scale.<p>6) But these same problems are not recognized uniformly by founders as they sometimes face difficulties identifying them in the first place, that's where the YC partners' role come to fill this unmet need.<p>7) Even when people are good at identifying problems, some are bad at determining the severity or urgency that these problems pose, cue again the YC partners' role.<p>8) Even when they're good at risk assessment, some are bad at risk mitigation, and won't listen to the advice given by the partners but it is not made clear what he means exactly by "not listening", dismissing/not acting on solutions proposed by YC staff, or not acknowledging that there's a problem to begin with?<p>9) Getting down to business to solve these problems warrants focus, and how this focus is tied into speed, and how YC can help with that.<p>10) Startup colleagues are more important than YC partners when it comes to realizing success with their feedback, guidance and even practical help, and how YC is the best in class in this regard.<p>Even though the marketing language, esp the value propositions in the piece is a bit stronger for my taste, but I can't say with honesty that it overpowered the core message of the essay nor was it incoherent or disjointed in anyway that made following or understanding impossible as some have claimed here.<p>Verdict: 8/10