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Blomfield: Standard Oxford-to-McKinsey career paths are 'boring' for YC candidates

Tom Blomfield · Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · May 13, 2024 · at 24:31

Tom Blomfield, Group Partner at Y Combinator, explains what YC seeks when identifying exceptional startup founders.

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“That's the kind of exceptionalism that we're looking for in some area of their life. And it might come out through the application, it might be the interview video, or the interview itself, but we're looking for that spark that they are not average, like they're not, they haven't just gone through the standard steps of, you know, good high school, gone to Oxford or Cambridge, gone to McKinsey, just like boring, boring, boring, all the way through, that at high school they taught themselves to code and built websites for estate agents.”

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