Blind applications would make me more comfortable to consider applying.

A lot of this has to do with impostor syndrome which is why the idea of a blind applications would, in my opinion, help many other talented founders think of applying.

Thanks for your comment on empathy. That is something that makes me feel really welcome to comment here.

The last time I was hiring, I wished I could easily review resumes without seeing the names, email addresses, physical addresses, school names, or even telephone numbers as I felt that I was bringing in my arbitrary bias.

Telephone numbers? I found that I identified a lot more with area code 206 than 425 or 253, just as I identify a lot more with an @gmail.com address than @hotmail.com or @aol.com.

> "Statistics on the discrimination of Ivy league schools show that (east) Asian face a stacked deck in college applications at "selective" schools[0]. Its plausible that much of this is inferred from ethnic names."

I wonder how a surname like "Lang" would fair. It is either Germanic of Asian, though it seems to be primarily Germanic in practice but seems strongly Asian to people who are not familiar with it[0]. If there is discrimination keyed off of "Asian-ish sounding" names then it might be apparent when looking at these sorts of names.

[0] I know a germanic "Lang". Apparently he gets asked how his family got that name a lot.

Your comments on school history etc are completely valid in the context of inference.

I'd like to think that we could genuinely make a fairly well balanced system for meritocratic selection. Yes, it's a lot of work and there is always room for error however I'd like to think that ultimately the STEM industry favours these kinds of methods and they could be improved on so we'd see some kind of futuristic system that we saw in the Starship Troopers narrative (as a crazy example that in the movie at least, no-one complained about). Maybe we just need a ton more data to be able to make better predictions. But I also think that face-to-face interviews are ultimately needed as others have mentioned: cultural fit is important to a degree as well.

On that note it reminds me of the Declara article I read (about the founder Ramona Pierson), where data is working to pair relevant people.

https://www.declara.com

I'd rather have been me, 10 years ago (i.e. 25yr female) applying to an accelerator. Looking back however, that me needed an incredible amount of guidance regardless of talent and I'd think it's a million times easier to get productive work out of a me-now. In that sense I don't need an accelerator like YC at this point, more guidance and mentorship on how to get past the post-startup phase. And that's perfect for a 38 year-old anyone.

There is no age limit for going to college either, but I have seen many people feel reluctant to begin/return to college later in life, for many reasons - they think they won't fit in with other students and hence will miss out on shared experiences, they think it's "too late" to get any use out of the degree by the time they finish, they think other people will think they are slow/stupid for being in college at their age, they think that colleges might not want to admit older people, they aren't sure if they can afford to support their family while being in college (not a concern for the traditional student), etc. I think that most of these fears are unfounded, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. One way to reassure them is often to give them specific examples of 'x went back to college to be a doctor when he was 33, and has had a long and successful career since then that totally let him pay off his student loans even though they were so huge!' or 'z did a degree in Mathematics in her 40s, and she said sure nobody invited her to keggers, but she was able to find partners for her group projects easily'. Are any of the older previous alumni open to being known as 'the guy who did YC in his 30s', or to being contacted by prospective entrants, to provide similar success stories?