I'm confused as to why they created bike paths in apartment building hallways.

Indoor races when the weather is bad? :-)

Great read.

I'm mid-application for the YC Winter 2016 cycle, but I'm concerned because neither my cofounder nor I come from a technical background, yet our idea is technical. Do you see this as a deterrent to being accepted?

Honestly yes, that's a negative. It'd be possible to overcome with a really good answer on how you will get the technology built, but it's harder than ever to be an entirely non-technical team--recruiting engineers is just so difficult and expensive.

Got it. Thank you for the reply. We both work in technology, so we do know people but were honestly hoping YC could help us with a sort of road map. The idea is worth what we may have to overcome.

I think as Socality Barbie has shown, these "moments" are becoming quite mundane and similar.

It seems if you wish to retain more control and give up less of your company, it would make more sense to scale slowly. Are VCs and other investors typically pushing product to market faster, in turn creating this landscape?