<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>blhack</author><text>To anybody considering applying: I&amp;#x27;ve applied twice and been rejected both times.&lt;p&gt;Just the application process itself was hugely valuable.  The questions really make you think out your model.  It helped us identify some [now] obvious flaws in the way we were trying to solve our problem.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;re not wasting anybody&amp;#x27;s time by applying.</text><parent_chain></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Y Combinator is accepting applications for S18</title><url>http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/#Summer2018</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>staunch</author><text>YC is still the best and most open gateway to Silicon Valley investors.&lt;p&gt;But that&amp;#x27;s only true because they have no real competition and it&amp;#x27;s a closed system. An open system wouldn&amp;#x27;t require gateways. There wouldn&amp;#x27;t be a need to be walked into a private party by a trusted club member.&lt;p&gt;It looks like the answer to even this huge roadblock is new technology. Amazingly, it&amp;#x27;s not even theoretical at this point, it has actually begun.&lt;p&gt;These new decentralized protocols and &amp;quot;ICOs&amp;quot; are going to all but eliminate Silicon Valley as a center of orbit. All startup funding will move onto the internet, where it belongs.</text><parent_chain></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Y Combinator is accepting applications for S18</title><url>http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/#Summer2018</url></story>