They've been posting this job for several months in monthly "Who's hiring" thread (here's one from 227 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12628215)

I can't imagine that they're hiring 100s of people.

I also assume that people do apply because it's YC.

And yet, the position goes unfilled for months.

Either they have extremely unrealistic standards (a dna-spliced cross-breed of Carmack and Torvalds with business acumen of Steve Jobs) or there's something extremely unappealing about this job (after all it does seem like building CRUD apps in rails; you get to rub shoulders with Greatness Of Other People but there's curious absence of "competitive salary", or any salary, in the job description).

> We [...] don't hire people who want to work remotely.

Boo. Hiss.

To quote Paul Graham himself (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13784):

"Ordinarily a startup should be a C corp. It's cheaper to be an LLC, but if you plan to succeed, you may as well do things right from the start.

With an LLC profits don't get taxed twice like in a regular corporation. So it makes sense to be an LLC if you expect to have substantial profits, but don't expect to grant options, sell shares, or get bought. Consulting firms and law partnerships are often LLCs. YC is an LLC."

So the shares in YC are worth $0.

Hell, I work for a publicly traded company and have an "ok" RSU grant for which I value the unvested shares at $0.