I'd think there would be more of a drop off with opportunities like Y Combinator than there would be with other Angel investors. I'm surprised there are any at all.
I guess it's still an excellent opportunity to meet people so I mean no offense to those over 30 who did sign up but I'm a 25 year old and I wouldn't pick up and move for $5,000 bucks. I always thought part of the lure of Y Combinator was that young folks had nothing to tie them down. I can't think of a 30 year old I know who has no obligations.
"I mean no offense to those over 30 who did sign up but I'm a 25 year old and I wouldn't pick up and move for $5,000 bucks"
No offense taken (I was 32 when we accepted YC funding). But it wasn't for $5000. Nobody, at any age, (except for rdouble) is applying to YC for $5000. The reason to move is because you probably should be in the valley, if you're starting a technology startup that is going to need to raise money or build partnerships with existing tech companies.
Anyway, the money was not at all a motivating factor for us in applying for YC. If we could hire pg, tlb, rtm, and Jessica to work for us for some amount of money, I would happily give them money. But that's not the way they wanted to play it, so we took some money from them instead. You're entirely missing the point of YC, if you think the money is the primary motivation for anyone working with YC.
Actually, money was a large part of the reason I applied to YC. I had a huge medical bill while uninsured last year and it wiped out a large chunk of my cash.
I think the lure of YC (and really, the startup game in general) tends towards people who don't like being tied down.
If you don't know people like that it's probably because you're not sampling from a pool of founders, but of people that have conformed to the more usual social paths.
In our class there were lots of people driving $50k+ cars as well as people who could afford to not work for years.
Investors want founders who care more about their startups success than their own personal wealth/comfort. YC does an excellent job of weeding our people like you who wouldn't trade their comfort for a measurably better shot at startup success (which YC offers).
I guess it's still an excellent opportunity to meet people so I mean no offense to those over 30 who did sign up but I'm a 25 year old and I wouldn't pick up and move for $5,000 bucks. I always thought part of the lure of Y Combinator was that young folks had nothing to tie them down. I can't think of a 30 year old I know who has no obligations.