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Wednesday Nov 19 2025 06:10
2 min
In 2014, after selling my first company, I felt pulled in different directions. I wanted to build something meaningful, solving a real problem. This search led me to Y Combinator’s (YC) Request for Startups (RFS) list. It felt like a series of ambitious, problem-oriented questions waiting to be answered. But things have changed.
Today, the focus seems to have shifted from pressing problems to ideas that garner broad consensus. Instead of searching for innovative renewable energy solutions or exploring robotics in space, we see a focus on video generation, multi-agent infrastructure, and AI-native enterprise SaaS. It feels like a word cloud generated from a million tweets on Venture Capital Twitter.
YC has long served as a gateway into the startup world. But over time, the goal seems to have changed. Instead of making the world easier to understand, YC has started catering to the prevailing consensus. They are serving what the larger “consensus capital machine” demands – startups with a specific look and sheen.
How do we break the shackles of conformity and reignite the fire of individual struggle and independent thought? We can’t rely on the “consensus capital machine” or the “conformity accelerators” to help us. The solution lies in embracing ideological purity, believing in something, even if it's hard or unpopular.
In a world that seeks conformity, it is essential to anchor ourselves in beliefs. Find things worth believing in, even if they are difficult or unpopular. Technology is just a tool. It's up to us to decide whether it produces good or bad outcomes. Beliefs, if unwavering, can transcend incentives in the pursuit of something more significant.
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