A bias toward people coming from those places indicates that the same old fashioned "good ol' boys" style network is a much bigger factor in "success" than intelligence or any other measure of capability.
But, hey, there's lots of money flowing, so that's cool, right? We can all sit around and grasp at success for the rest of our days!
(This is not an indictment of Muse; they sound like they know what they're doing.)
The simple fact is that it's easier for persons with these backgrounds to be less conservative in their entrepreneurial endeavors than for, say, the guy who struggled through a B.S. or B.A. program and who came from poverty. That sort of conditioning lasts for life almost every time. As a result, the population of people who are likely to put together a truly acceptable YC application are more likely to be found in the "pedigreed" group. It's a flaw in society at large, not necessarily with YC itself.
I had a pretty good shot of getting into an Ivy League school 10 years ago(4.0 and highest SAT score in the county), but I didn't apply because I thought my parents couldn't afford it.
Many wealthy families sink tens of thousands of dollars into preparing their child for university admissions - an advantage only the most brilliant middle class students can overcome.
Even then you have to ask yourself what it means to attend a prestige school. Are the students honestly getting a better education? It's not like they use a special set of books reserved for prestige schools only, and I have a hard time believing slave-labor TAs teaching skills would be any different at such schools.
Muse uses technology to tackle very traditional industry-type problems - career planning and recruiting. A team with a combined 5-10 years at McKinsey and the exposure to an international network of thousands of very smart and career-driven people (plus lots of client companies) is exactly who you would want for this kind of company.
Yahoo and Google were started by PhD students. AirBnB by designers. Marissa Mayer planed to start with McKinsey, Sheryl Sandberg actually worked there (and in politics). Peter Thiel was a lawyer and derivatives trader. Marc Benioff spent 13 years at Oracle.
Why all the hate for people who have not dropped out of college / have worked in another industry? Clearly great entrepreneurs come from all sorts of backgrounds.
But YC only funds one sort.
This is one of the best YC applications I've seen. Smart people working on a huge opportunity that they understand and have some traction in. Numbers and initial strategy suggest they've done their homework and can succeed.
This is exactly who YC should want.
It seems that by leaving such companies to form startups, such individuals would represent the very definition of 'risk-taker'...
