you can be motivated without going hungry. not being able to afford basic things is extremely stressful and takes time away from doing whatever YC wants them to do - that time is spent making sure that food is on the table. exactly the opposite of what you intend.
Yes - but this is what every company does at founding. Get really lean, survive on whatever it can. Founders should expect company building to be a nervous and anxiety inducing endeavor for 7 years. It is incredibly painful - and not for those who see it closer to a paid sabbatical
If that logic were true, then there would be far fewer companies built by founders who already have a successful exit. The success of a company is far more likely to be correlated by the founders not having to put their own wellbeing on the line than the other way around.
I think, as a point of failure, that most would agree that a system that allows a few people a 'free sabbatical' but also provides security for those founders who would not succeed without it, but who will with it is a good thing.
You have to work a second full-time job that isn't the startup.
Probably during the day, so you can't do daytime things with your startup.
You have to borrow on credit cards to pay the rent, bills and food.
You get evicted if you don't.
You don't eat much so you can't think as clearly.
You lose your computer when the bailiffs come to collect.
You have to have a borrowing facility, and it has to not be declined all the time.
If you hit a limit, you have to pause the startup and work elsewhere, probably for months.
You can't go personally bankrupt otherwise your startup will be liquidated as well.
You literally don't have as much time, energy and mental capacity to put into the startup.
Saying that every company does this at founding is false. For those with better savings, better support buffers, they do not have the same amount of the above problems. In particular they can eat and have somewhere reliable to sleep.
For those without, they literally cannot put as much time and cognition into the startup.
For some founders & entrepreneurs, it forces them to work smarter - not necessarily harder - and that's the goal, to figure out what isn't working right and change it to reduce/eliminate the anxiety caused by an under-performing startup.
