Haha, please be as harsh as you originally meant to be, I know what you mean.
I find any money hard to accept, stranger or not. To me, applying to YC (and all the possible consequences) was a harder decision than the decision to not accept friends/family money because it is from "strangers", and that's money I typically find hardest to accept.
However, while in a way preexisting relationships can be helpful, sometimes they can be a negative. I have lots of friends but not many that can honestly afford to chip in anywhere near that much (we're all entering that phase of student loans and new families). I have family but they usually want extortionate shares or interest in exchange (think like half of revenue for chipping in $20k at the beginning), plus the whole time provide the massive emotional burden of "you're a failure to this family if you don't succeed wildly". So given the alternatives, I'd prefer a more impartial stranger or group of strangers that don't do something like that, that can provide me with more than just money and a lot of international nagging.
That being said, I'd be stupid to think that $10k is a big issue. It's not, I hope it never comes to that, and I never have thought it to be at any point...in fact, this topic is the first time I even considered the idea of $10k or even $20k being a big issue, and I had to laugh at it. I have more than that in my savings alone, and although I like to have a little financial cushion at all times, I would consider using most of it for the startup if need be. It's just not money I can easily part with for the sake of working fulltime on the startup during the summer when the original pre-ycombinator plan was to do that anyway, just with some low maintenance/effort contract work on the side at the same time to take care of the small bills and inevitable money we'll need anyway.
I find any money hard to accept, stranger or not. To me, applying to YC (and all the possible consequences) was a harder decision than the decision to not accept friends/family money because it is from "strangers", and that's money I typically find hardest to accept.
However, while in a way preexisting relationships can be helpful, sometimes they can be a negative. I have lots of friends but not many that can honestly afford to chip in anywhere near that much (we're all entering that phase of student loans and new families). I have family but they usually want extortionate shares or interest in exchange (think like half of revenue for chipping in $20k at the beginning), plus the whole time provide the massive emotional burden of "you're a failure to this family if you don't succeed wildly". So given the alternatives, I'd prefer a more impartial stranger or group of strangers that don't do something like that, that can provide me with more than just money and a lot of international nagging.
That being said, I'd be stupid to think that $10k is a big issue. It's not, I hope it never comes to that, and I never have thought it to be at any point...in fact, this topic is the first time I even considered the idea of $10k or even $20k being a big issue, and I had to laugh at it. I have more than that in my savings alone, and although I like to have a little financial cushion at all times, I would consider using most of it for the startup if need be. It's just not money I can easily part with for the sake of working fulltime on the startup during the summer when the original pre-ycombinator plan was to do that anyway, just with some low maintenance/effort contract work on the side at the same time to take care of the small bills and inevitable money we'll need anyway.