[rachellaw]

It's more of a natural evolution. We had one idea on how to use the technology, but the user feedback preferred a smaller aspect that we overlooked. So we narrowed down and turned that one small aspect into the company focus instead. The technology that powers it all, is still the same

I guess you can call it baggage, but nothing works right out of the box. Youtube was a dating site before it became a video site, but they didn't start fresh/reincorporate. They just grew from what their users wanted.

[tptacek]

That makes sense.

But then all else equal: if you're a possible YC pick-up at the margins of being accepted, so they have a choice of accepting you or someone with similar prospects but without the baggage, it would be irrational of them to pick you up.

It gets fuzzier the less marginal you are relative to all the other companies that want to be in the next YC batch, of course.

[rachellaw]

Yes, that's what we thought as well when we got rejected. With such a large group of applicants, the core reason is probably "you're on the wrong side of bell curve"

At the same time I wish they were more transparent. Dropping bits and pieces in no particular order like "don't do a previous accelerator" or "get a recommendation from another alum" makes their process seem irrational.