Questionable, sure, but there's an easy answer. Right now on the Techcrunch homepage there are two stories about small startups. One is a blog and one has $1MM worth of funding.
Techcrunch doesn't really cover prefunded startups anymore. They do more mainstream news about Facebook and Yahoo and Apple. As far as pre or microfunded startups go, YC is as good as it gets, so Techcrunch covers YC startups. Certainly they are much better than the average unfunded or microfunded startup.
Connections are always important. In an ideal world, ideas and startups would stand on their own merit. It wouldn't matter who you know.
In practice, it can't work that way. It's not that people are evil, it's just a question of how to be efficient. I can't spend my time listening in detail to every pitch of every person who says he has a great idea. It's jut not possible. I need filters to spend the little time I have on interesting stuff. Filters include my friends recommending me something. That gets my attention.
At the corporate level, a good filter is YCombinator: if you made it through their selection process, it tells me something. It's not a guarantee that you will succeed, but at least you passed some basic smoke check. Which in turn gives you an unfair advantage, because now you get easier access to smart employees, advisors, business partners, etc...
Well, I'd have to disagree. The only difference between a YC startup and a non-YC startup is (1) access to advising resources, and (2) a bit of pre-filtering due to the selection process. Of course, there is also the $15k of funding-- but for many entrepreneurs, getting 10-20k of seed money is really not too hard (you could probably drum up that much "dumb" money from family and friends-- after all, how many jobless or underpaid teenagers do you know who were able to persuade their folks to buy them cars?).
For your statement to be true, it seems that either the advice dispensed by YC advisors is sufficient to transform a bad idea into a good idea or alternatively, that the YC selection committee only selects ideas destined for success. While these points do hold /some/ water (good advice never hurts, and pg et. al. clearly know a thing or two about entrepreneurship), it is still important to note that YC makes mistakes from time to time and that (participated in YC) -> (good startup) does not imply that (NOT participated in YC) -> (NOT good startup). Heck, even the first implication is a fallacy.
Regardless, at the end of the day, you're asking me to assume that founders who either don't make the cut for YC or whom didn't apply in the first place are either inferior entrepreneurs or are pushing a bad idea. This is simply not true.
Entrepreneurship has been around for a LONG time and plenty of people are working their butts off for a shot at launching a successful, growing startup. For some, YC provides the perfect opportunity to actually sit down and execute an idea; for most, YC is either not an option or is simply not necessary.
In the past couple of weeks, TechCrunch has reported on YC startups with surprising frequency. Given that it is fairly difficult to get TC to profile one's startup, it seems a little suspicious that whenever a YC app launches, it gets a (typically positive) write-up. In light of this, my conclusion that YC and Arrington have some sort of friendly or financial relationship leading to a lowered-barrier-to-article for YC-funded startups is sound if not altogether true.
>Regardless, at the end of the day, you're asking me to assume that founders who either don't make the cut for YC or whom didn't apply in the first place are either inferior entrepreneurs or are pushing a bad idea. This is simply not true.
No, I'm not. I'm saying Techcrunch doesn't cover startups anymore.
>In light of this, my conclusion that YC and Arrington have some sort of friendly or financial relationship leading to a lowered-barrier-to-article for YC-funded startups is sound if not altogether true.
No, they don't. Techcrunch covers YC startups out of laziness and journalistic inadequacy. They want to give the appearance that they still cover early stage startups, but they don't. They only cover YC startups. YC offers an easy filter for TC to have some stories to give the outward appearance that their blog hasn't changed over time.
"Certainly they are much better than the average unfunded or microfunded startup."
If you aren't saying what I've asserted you're saying, please explain the above. Also, did you edit your original comment? Perhaps I misread it.
In any event, it remains awfully convenient to chalk up the evident YC fetish at TechCrunch to mere editor laziness: I've seen plenty of seed-funded or non-funded startups in the past months-- heck, TC pays folks to sort through the mountains of press releases that arrive every day; I'm sure that there is no dearth of interesting, upstarting startups to profile.
I've always gotten the impression that TechCrunch serves up a fairly decent mixed bag-- except when they seem to exclusively cover YC-funded startups. Hence, my prior remarks.
Techcrunch doesn't really cover prefunded startups anymore. They do more mainstream news about Facebook and Yahoo and Apple. As far as pre or microfunded startups go, YC is as good as it gets, so Techcrunch covers YC startups. Certainly they are much better than the average unfunded or microfunded startup.