DeFiance Founder Strongly Recommends Article｜When VCs are busy chasing Consensus, how should entrepreneurs respond?

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Original Title: “Build What’s Fundable” Original Author: Kyle Harrison Translated by: Jiahua, ChainCatcher

In 2014, I had just sold my first company. The money wasn't much, but at the time it felt like all the wealth I had needed for a long time. After that, I felt myself being pulled in several different directions. I had previously written about one of those paths and the self-exploration that led me toward venture capital. But at that time, there was another pull that made me want to create something else.

I don't want to start a business just for the sake of entrepreneurship; I hope it can be more meaningful and focus on finding a problem worth solving. In my search for meaningful problems, I came across the RFS list from Y Combinator (YC), which stands for “Request for Startup proposals.”

I remember being deeply inspired. It felt like a series of ambitious, problem-oriented questions waiting to be answered. For example, seeking opportunities for cheaper renewable energy than anything before; exploring robotics from space to the human body; and Norman Borlaug-style food innovations. It was this captivating vision that led me to start my second company: dedicated to promoting solar energy in Africa.

Before we begin this article, there is an important reminder: I have never applied to YC. I have never attended a YC demo day. I only watched it once when it was streamed online during the pandemic. I have invested in a few companies that have participated in YC. I have only been to their office in Mountain View once. For most of my career, I have neither been a die-hard fan of YC nor a critic of YC. They are just a small part of this vast and beautiful world we call the “tech circle.”

But it wasn't until earlier this year that I saw this tweet, which got me thinking: 11 years have passed, how is that entrepreneurial proposal solicitation list performing now?

So I conducted an investigation. My findings left me extremely saddened. Dempsey was right, at least reflecting this from the shift in focus of the RFS list — it moved from “problem-first” questioning to a “consensus-driven” idea. Video generation, multi-agent infrastructure, AI native enterprise SaaS, replacing government consultants with LLMs, forward-deployed agent modules, and so on. It's like taking a million tweets from venture capital Twitter to generate a word cloud.

Back in 2014, I remember being deeply shocked by YC's entry about “one million job opportunities”: since then, I've often thought about how in the U.S. only Walmart (and later Amazon) really employed a million people. This is incredibly difficult to achieve! In a world where job opportunities are increasingly disappearing, this prompt aims to explore what kind of business model could employ one million people. This is very thought-provoking!

So, what about the version in the fall of 2025? It is “the first company with 10 people and a value of 100 billion dollars.”

At first glance, this may seem similar. But it is completely the opposite (for example: because of AI, hire as few people as possible!) and it basically vocalizes the “unspeakable secrets.”

“What problem are you trying to solve? Who cares! But a lot of VCs are talking about how crazy these 'employee income' numbers have become, so… you know… just go ahead and do it!”

This is Dempsey's comment. YC is becoming “the best window to glimpse the current mainstream consensus.”

In fact, you can almost feel this entrepreneurial request list morphing around the “mainstream consensus” in real-time. It is this disappointment with such an aspirational product that led me into a mental “rabbit hole.” I reflected on my understanding of the original purpose of YC and why it was so valuable in its early years. At that time, the tech world was an opaque field, and YC represented the best entry point into that realm.

But then I realized that the goal had changed. As the direction of the tech industry became increasingly strong, YC became less focused on making the world easier to understand and instead shifted towards catering to consensus. “Give the ecosystem what they want; they are just playing the game under existing rules.” They are serving the demands of a larger “consensus capital machine” — those startups with a specific look and shine.

However, the toxin of “chasing consensus” has spread from capital to cultural shaping. The prevalence of “normativity” has infected various aspects of our lives. With the demise of reverse thinking, independent critical thinking has yielded to a cultural adherence akin to party-line ideology.

We can diagnose some issues stemming from the evolution of YC. We can describe it as a symptom of a broader “normative consensus engine” that spans across capital and culture.

But in the end, there is only one question. How do we solve it?

How can we break the shackles of compliance and reignite the flames of personal struggle and independent thinking? Unfortunately, neither the “consensus capital machine” nor the “normative accelerator” (referring to YC) can be expected to help us.

From entry channels to manufacturing factories

When you look back at YC in the summer of 2005, you can see in the eyes of Paul Graham (the founder of YC, on the far right in the picture) a desire to mentor newcomers and a hopeful optimism. The original vision of YC was to serve as an “entry channel” for a startup ecosystem that was (at that time) extremely difficult to access.

In 2005, SaaS was still in its infancy. Mobile devices did not yet exist. Entrepreneurship was far from a common career path. Technology was still the emerging new force, rather than the dominant power in the world.

When Y Combinator was just starting out, it had a clear opportunity to help unveil the mystery of starting a startup. The phrase “Build something people want” might be scoffed at today as obvious, but in the early 2000s, the default business logic was more about feasibility studies and market analysts rather than “talking to customers.” We take for granted many of the truths that YC helped popularize, which unveiled the mystery of the entrepreneurial journey for future founders.

I have no doubt that YC was definitely more beneficial than harmful to the world, at least in the first ten years. But I don't know when the rules of the game changed. Startups are no longer so opaque; they have become easier to understand. YC can no longer just lift the veil; it must “scale up production.” The scale surged from just 10-20 companies in the first few years to over 100 in 2015, eventually peaking at 300-400 companies per batch in 2021 and 2022. Although this number has decreased, there are still about 150 companies in each batch now.

I believe that the evolution of YC has occurred alongside changes in the “understandability” of the tech industry. The easier it is to understand the tech industry, the lower the value that YC can provide with its original operating model. Therefore, YC has adapted to this game. If technology is an increasingly clear path, then YC's mission is to help as many people as possible walk that path.

Convergence in “excessive clarity”

Packy McCormick (founder and main author of Not Boring) introduced a term that I now use frequently because it effectively describes the world around us: “hyperlegible.”

This concept suggests that, because we can access information through various content and understand cultural nuances via social media, the world around us has largely become extremely clear: almost to the point of being tedious.

The technology industry is also so “overly clear” that the culture traits of a large group of people are still depicted extremely accurately in the series “Silicon Valley,” produced from 2014 to 2019.

In a world where the technology industry is so “overly clear,” YC's original mission to “reduce the opacity of the industry” has been forced to evolve. In the past, startups were the preferred tools for rebels breaking the norm; today, they are increasingly becoming a “funnel for consensus norms.”

I am not an anthropologist in the tech industry, but my interpretation of the situation is that this is not a deliberate decline on YC's part. It's simply the path of least resistance. Startups are becoming more common and more understood. For YC, a simple north star (fundamental goal) is: “If we can help more and more companies get funded, then we have succeeded!”

And today, those who can secure financing often look very similar to those who secured financing yesterday. Thus, you begin to see this kind of “normativity” among YC founders and teams.

A few days ago, I saw an analysis of the YC team statistics:

1. Youthful: The average age of YC founders has decreased from 29-30 years to about 25 years now.

2. Elite Education: The proportion of founders graduating from the top 20 prestigious schools has risen from about 46% in 2015 to now 55%.

3. Returning YC Founders: The number of founders with YC experience has increased from about 7-9% to about 20%.

4. Focused on the San Francisco Bay Area: The proportion of YC founders headquartered in the Bay Area is even higher than pre-pandemic levels, now reaching 83%.

Reflecting on these dynamics, they are merely a part of a larger story. YC has evolved from a “gateway” of opaque categories like technology into more of a “consensus-shaping machine.”

It is not only the founders who are being shaped by consensus. You can almost see the entire YC team shaping around “mainstream consensus.” As trends like voice assistants touch upon everyone's consensus, you can see its reflection within the YC team.

Ironically, Paul Graham describes this consensus as a logical reflection of technological reality. I'm sure that's true. But what I think is different is that the consensus characteristic of “what can attract investment” has become the ultimate goal of the entire operation, which has excluded those things that might have been more contrarian and unconventional in the past.

At the beginning of 2025, YC celebrated its 20th anniversary. During that celebration, it described its achievements as “creating an $800 billion startup market value.” Note that it is “created,” not “helped create” billions in value. They see it as something they “created.” Something they “manufactured.” I believe YC's ultimate goal has shifted from “helping people understand how to build companies” to “maximizing the number of companies through this funnel.” While the feelings may be similar, the two are not the same.

The most important takeaway here is that I don't think it's YC's fault. Rather than blaming an entire industry for the actions of a single participant, I would prefer to say that they are merely following a rational economic incentive shaped by a larger force: the “consensus capital machine.”

You must look “worth investing in”.

A few weeks ago, Roelof Botha (head of Sequoia Capital) stated in an interview that venture capital is not really considered an asset class:

“If you look at the data, over the past 20-30 years, an average of only 20 companies have ultimately achieved a value of $1 billion or more at exit each year. Only 20. Despite more funding flowing into the venture capital space, we have not seen a substantial change in the number of those huge outcome companies.”

In 2024, venture capital funding amounted to $215 billion, up from $48 billion in 2014. Despite investing 5 times the capital, we did not achieve 5 times the results. But we are desperately trying to get more companies through that funnel. And in the venture capital engine, every loud and clear voice feeding the startup manufacturing machine revolves around this idea: desperately trying to get more companies through a funnel that can no longer expand.

YC has become an accomplice in the process of pursuing a scalable model in this “non-scalable asset class.” a16z is no different. These engines, which thrive on more capital, more companies, more hype, and more attention, are exacerbating the problem. In the pursuit of non-scalability, they attempt to establish scalability in places where it shouldn't exist. In business building, the largest and most significant outcomes cannot be meticulously crafted. And in the attempt to create a formulaic scalability for the company, the “rough edges” of important ideas have been smoothed out.

Just like YC's “Startup Proposal Solicitation” has shifted from a “problem-driven” idea to the concept of “seeking consensus,” the formula for establishing a startup reinforces a demand: you must appear “worthy of investment” rather than creating something “truly important.” Moreover, this is increasingly true not only in the way companies are established but also in the way culture is shaped.

The normative trend from capital to culture

Peter Thiel is highly praised for his numerous correct judgments. Interestingly, one of the points that Thiel is most often talked about (such as “being a contrarian/inverse investor”) is also a characteristic where he has once again significantly outpaced everyone else, and which was once ridiculed as “trite and obvious.” As a result, it has now become increasingly rare, almost on the verge of extinction.

The relentless pursuit of consensus has poisoned every aspect of the company's establishment and increasingly tainted the way culture is built.

Venture capital, as a profession, also has the same “normative” characteristics. Starting a startup, participating in YC, raising venture capital, and creating a “unicorn” has become the new era version of “going to a good school, finding a good job, and buying a house in the suburbs.” This is a normative culture; it is that time-tested stable path. Social media and short videos only exacerbate this “programmable normativity” because we see these “overly clear life paths.”

The most dangerous aspect of this path is that it undermines the public's need for critical thinking. Because the thinking has been done for you.

When I think about the true value of something, I often reflect on Buffett's famous saying about the market. In the short term, it is a voting machine; in the long term, it is a weighing machine. However, a system that increasingly forms consensus, or even “manufactures” consensus, has the problem that it becomes increasingly difficult to “weigh” the value of anything. The formation of that kind of consensus “invented” the value of specific assets, contexts, and experiences.

The same is true in the field of technology. This “normative mindset” built around the idea of consensus is permeating the lives of millions of people and will have negative effects on them, not only because they will create worse things, but also because they will be unable to develop independent thinking skills.

There are always some people who know. They know that following a standardized path does not yield the best results.

Be a “Puritan” style founder

When reflecting on this cycle, honestly, the only answer I can think of is that we are facing a massive economic shock.

When you observe those successful counter-examples, you will find that many of them were established by existing billionaires: Tesla, SpaceX, Palantir (CIA data provider), Anduril (military drone company). I believe the insight we gain from this is not “first become a billionaire, then you can think independently.” On the contrary, it inspires us to reflect on what “other traits” often lead to those outcomes.

In my opinion, another commonality possessed by these companies is that they are led by “Ideological Purists,” that is, those who believe in a mission and dare to challenge consensus and authority.

Last week I wrote about “founder ideologies”, and there are different types of founders: missionaries, mercenaries, bards, etc. Among all these types, one of the most important categories is “missionaries”. The best founders often come from this category.

The key insight here is that for a “normative culture” increasingly built around “consensus formation,” the only antidote is to incentivize the participants of that culture to pursue ideological purity: to “believe” in something!

YC's slogan has always been “building the products people want,” which is quite insightful. However, more importantly, it is “building things worth building.” Step onto the right path.

The first element of becoming a Puritan in thought is something I have written about repeatedly: to embark on the right path.

Last week, YC announced one of its latest investments: Chad IDE, a project that “erodes the brain.”

This product can integrate your social media, dating apps, or gambling apps, so while you wait for the prompts to load the code, you can do other things. It's nothing, of course. Everyone knows we switch contexts between tasks, bouncing back and forth between mindless leisure and work.

But that “flavor” felt off, and the whole world noticed. A reaction to Chad IDE accurately captured the “atmospheric shift” that was taking place:

Will O’Brien, founder of Ulysses, commented: “Venture capital funds that choose to support 'startups on the assembly line' and other startups with ethical issues should be aware that mission-driven founders will notice this and will seriously look down upon the company's reputation.”

Startups on the assembly line carry a deep nihilistic tone. The founders and investors who support them are no different from saying: nothing matters. We should try to make money, even if it means producing complete garbage or encouraging evil. This infuriates mission-driven founders and creates a profound sense of aversion that is difficult to overcome when we consider potential partners.

The concept of “startups on the assembly line” is a natural extension of pursuing scalable models within an “asset class that cannot be scaled.”

It's not just YC that feels this shift in atmosphere.

Be the purpose of oneself, not the tool of tools.

Technology itself is not a benevolent force. Technology, like any amorphous concept and collection of lifeless objects, is a tool.

It is those who “wield” technology that determine whether it produces good results or bad results.

Incentives are the forces that drive people toward a specific path (whether good or bad). But beliefs, if unwavering, can transcend incentives in the pursuit of more important things.

My temptations may encourage me to lie, cheat, and steal, as these can make me financially prosperous. But my beliefs prevent me from becoming a slave to those temptations. They inspire me to live on a higher level.

YC was originally conceived as an “entry channel” to help people better understand how to create technology. What they choose to do with that capability is up to them. However, during this process, the incentives shifted, and the ugly side of scaling emerged. As technology became a more navigable path, YC's goal shifted from “illuminating this path” to “enabling as many people as possible to walk this path.”

From YC to giant venture capital firms, the pursuit of scale has turned many participants in the tech field into slaves of incentives. The fear of failure has further exacerbated this enslavement. We are shaped by incentives out of fear. Fear of poverty, fear of being foolish, or simply fear of being left behind. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).

That kind of fear leads us down the path of “normativity.” We are assimilated. We seek conformity. We grind down the rough edges of our individuality until we are smoothed out to fit the “path of least resistance.” But the path of least resistance has no space for “counter-beliefs.” In fact, it has no space for “any beliefs” because it fears that your beliefs may take you down a road that consensus is unwilling to tread.

But there is a better way. In a world of systems seeking normativity, anchor yourself in beliefs. Find things worth believing in. Even if they are difficult. Even if they are unpopular. Find beliefs worth sacrificing for. Or, better yet, find beliefs worth living for.

Technology is a tool. Venture capital is a tool. YC is a tool. a16z is a tool. Attention is a tool. Anger is a tool. The good news is that there are tools everywhere. But only you can become the craftsman.

A hammer seeks a nail. A saw seeks wood. But when you “believe” that something is possible, it allows you to go beyond the raw materials and see the potential. See the angel in the marble and chisel away until you set him free.

We must never become tools of our tools. In this 'normative' world seeking consensus, filled with incentives, they want to make you their slave. And if you have no particular 'belief', then they are likely to succeed.

But for those who truly understand the principles involved, there will always be a better way.