Y Combinator

= investment firm that plugs seed money ($18,000 on average) into early stage startups in exchange for mentorship and access to its ever-growing network of alumni. [1]

Introductory Citation

"You know what’s great about the YC network? It gives the benefit of being part of a large company without being part of a big company," Graham says. "The problem with doing a startup--even though it’s better in almost every other respect--is that you don’t have the resources of a big company to draw on. It’s very lonely; you have no one to give you advice or help you out. In a big company, you might be horribly constrained, but there are like 1,000 other people you can go to to deal with any number of problems. Now [with YC] you have 1,000 people you can go to to deal with problems, and you don’t have all the restrictions of a big company." The YC network, he says, now operates as a "distributed peer-to-peer replacement" for the traditional company." (http://www.fastcompany.com/1818523/paul-graham-why-y-combinator-replaces-the-traditional-corporation)