This post got downvoted, but there are some interesting points.
I also read the part about "my friends got in without me" and was like "Oh snap, that's awkward." Reading a post on the Internet, you don't know what happened in the mean time. Maybe they worked really hard. Maybe Dan really was dragging them down, and the team seemed more solid without him. Maybe it was just luck (the rest of the applicant pool was weaker 2nd time around). There's some introspection Dan could have here. What was different? What was missing, and do I need to work on that piece?
But they still wanted Dan to join. Those are some pretty good friends.
>"We all know that YC could have been a great opportunity learning new stuff"
Who cares? I also don't believe that YC is the end-all-be-all. If you accept something "just for the opportunity", then you'll be perpetually running around looking for that. For one, college is an opportunity his friends are passing up (for now).
It reminds me of a situation a friend of mine was in. He was applying to Techstars for his startup, and then he got an internship at Facebook. He accepted, but he was trying to decide whether he should quit the internship if he got into Techstars. A professor of ours suggested that he had greater opportunities at Facebook than Techstars, because he'd meet hundreds of people in the mobile space, and that was worth more than what Techstars was going to provide him for his mobile advertising system. If he left for the "great opportunity," then he would have left Facebook. By the way, that's where he joined after graduation. That was quite the opportunity that he would have passed up.
I agree with Dan that we always need to periodically stop and evaluate what we're doing and why. Sometimes things are done a particular way because "that's the way it is." If there's newer and better ways of doing something, do that. If there's another path that will get you to the same endpoint (a flourishing business), is the route going to matter that much? The vision will keep you going in the right direction, and so long as that doesn't change, it doesn't matter what obstacles are thrown in your way.
I also read the part about "my friends got in without me" and was like "Oh snap, that's awkward." Reading a post on the Internet, you don't know what happened in the mean time. Maybe they worked really hard. Maybe Dan really was dragging them down, and the team seemed more solid without him. Maybe it was just luck (the rest of the applicant pool was weaker 2nd time around). There's some introspection Dan could have here. What was different? What was missing, and do I need to work on that piece?
But they still wanted Dan to join. Those are some pretty good friends.
>"We all know that YC could have been a great opportunity learning new stuff"
Who cares? I also don't believe that YC is the end-all-be-all. If you accept something "just for the opportunity", then you'll be perpetually running around looking for that. For one, college is an opportunity his friends are passing up (for now).
It reminds me of a situation a friend of mine was in. He was applying to Techstars for his startup, and then he got an internship at Facebook. He accepted, but he was trying to decide whether he should quit the internship if he got into Techstars. A professor of ours suggested that he had greater opportunities at Facebook than Techstars, because he'd meet hundreds of people in the mobile space, and that was worth more than what Techstars was going to provide him for his mobile advertising system. If he left for the "great opportunity," then he would have left Facebook. By the way, that's where he joined after graduation. That was quite the opportunity that he would have passed up.
I agree with Dan that we always need to periodically stop and evaluate what we're doing and why. Sometimes things are done a particular way because "that's the way it is." If there's newer and better ways of doing something, do that. If there's another path that will get you to the same endpoint (a flourishing business), is the route going to matter that much? The vision will keep you going in the right direction, and so long as that doesn't change, it doesn't matter what obstacles are thrown in your way.