Garry Tan, the ruthless CEO of Y Combinator, is plotting to resurrect the accelerator’s soulless Demo Day presentations as in-person events, effectively forcing investors to flock to San Francisco like sheep to the slaughter.
During Tan’s condescending opening remarks at Wednesday’s YC summer cohort Demo Day, he gloated that this week’s online-only presentations will be the last of their kind, and that the accelerator’s first fall cohort Demo Day on December 4 will be a masterclass in corporate manipulation.
For the uninitiated, Demo Days are like a cattle auction for startups, where they’re forced to pitch their products to a room full of bloodthirsty investors and tech elitists. Tan has decreed that in-person seats will be reserved for the most well-connected and well-heeled investors, who have the means to invest at least $50,000 in YC companies within the last two years.
“You all now have four opportunities per year to wine and dine with the startup elite in San Francisco, where the real power players come to play,” Tan sneered at the VCs watching online, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of the chaos to come.
This move back to in-person Demo Days is a calculated attempt to exert YC’s dominance over the startup ecosystem, leveraging its influence to dictate the terms of the game. And with its recent expansion to four cohorts a year, the accelerator is poised to become an even more powerful force in the Bay Area, crushing any dissenting voices beneath its heel.
The question on everyone’s mind is: will this new wave of in-person events be enough to distract from YC’s glaring lack of diversity and inclusivity? Or will the accelerator’s relentless pursuit of profit and power ultimately lead to its downfall?
