I'm not a partner at YC (as far as I know all the YC partners who were alumni were from fairly early batches, and also had exits; I have a YC funded company which is ongoing).
The relevant detail here is that I've had ~20-30 people/yr ask for advice on applications, and aside from "be concise and straightforward; emphasize your strengths in every answer; be clear and don't assume people will have the patience to decode some rhetorical trick", "wtf, I can't see your video because you left it as 'private'" and "I can't actually hear your audio" are common.
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I'm not a partner at YC (as far as I know all the YC partners who were alumni were from fairly early batches, and also had exits; I have a YC funded company which is ongoing).
The relevant detail here is that I've had ~20-30 people/yr ask for advice on applications, and aside from "be concise and straightforward; emphasize your strengths in every answer; be clear and don't assume people will have the patience to decode some rhetorical trick", "wtf, I can't see your video because you left it as 'private'" and "I can't actually hear your audio" are common.