I can’t really comment on US politics with too much internal knowledge, but from what I gathered, a lot of what YC start-ups are trying to do involves “making the world a better place” (to use what became a trope with the recent HBO series) and that involves bending the rules and needing the law to be adapted to modern conditions: understanding taxi licences when Uber is around; city planning with AirBnB; on-line gambling; airline insuring against delayed transfers when you are not flying a partner’s flight but a Chipmunk connexion, etc. Payment processing and taxing on-line commerce are probably the largest issues.
From what I gathered, raising money for is the simplest form of lobbying, and Y-Combinator feel they need that access to smooth transition from its alumni proving a business makes money to making it squarely legal. I’m not sure why the DNC rather than RNC or another party; I believe you can’t have both. It might be because it seems unlikely the RNC to win the next election either in San Francisco city-hall, or in California, or even at the Federal level.
In either case, I wouldn’t expect Y Combinator not to have appreciated the sensitivity of their decision off the bat.
From what I gathered, raising money for is the simplest form of lobbying, and Y-Combinator feel they need that access to smooth transition from its alumni proving a business makes money to making it squarely legal. I’m not sure why the DNC rather than RNC or another party; I believe you can’t have both. It might be because it seems unlikely the RNC to win the next election either in San Francisco city-hall, or in California, or even at the Federal level.
In either case, I wouldn’t expect Y Combinator not to have appreciated the sensitivity of their decision off the bat.