Startups are a game of kings, courts and conquerers. Everything written by a player is propaganda, it was written with intention to further an interest. No one gives a fuck if a peasant can become Alexander the Great but they very much benefit from getting you to dream that you can, and your compliance.
I grew up working class and found that VCs were more accessible than, in my experience, any other upper class institution I have seen.
When I was younger I had an easier time getting meetings with partners at decent VC funds (including YC) than interviews with Google, for example. And accordingly an easier time getting seed funding than a prestigious internship.
VCs would generally look at prototypes and listen to the story, if you made the initial case concisely and it made sense, whereas other institutions would just throw my resume away with no calls because it didn't match whatever filters. I just wouldn't even get to talk to hiring managers at decent companies.
I didn't raise a really meaningful amount of money, but it seems implausible that VCs/angel investors who were willing to give me five-six figures for pre-seed wouldn't have given me six-seven in the next round if traction was there.
They said they would, and if they wouldn't, they knew the company had a runway such that it would need to raise again, so giving me anything would have been irrational. If I was going to be discriminated against for being from a working class background/not going to a good enough school/being a technical cofounder who didn't study CS, it would probably be at the very beginning.
Willing to believe that this used to be the case, especially when YC was less famous and G was wildly elitist in its hiring practices (less so now). But I’ve seen very few venture funded startup founders, then or now, who lack either family wealth or an elite education.
In fact I’d say the diversity of founders seems worse than it was five years ago, back then it seemed like founders from underrepresented groups were becoming more common.
The employees need to come from somewhere, and selling the dream helps with that. It’s also good investor storytime for the LPs, and great PR for prospective customers.
Not to mention it boosts applications from the unconnected, from which you can find the most appealing diamonds in the rough - or, if you’re more underhanded, you can just pass their ideas on to someone in your network.
This is the model Ivy League schools have practiced for decades; most applicants who get marketing materials from Harvard have no chance of getting admitted, and Harvard knows this.
VCs do not market to peasants. When a VC emphasizes "team" - that is a specific euphemism for "not peasant". But if they said that outright they would be cancelled.
