Good question. http://ycombinator.com/apply.html tells us that three founders (common situation) will get $20, 000, or roughly $6,667 per person. For three months. That's around $2200/month for skilled work, and it's not even a full-time job:
" Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. "
That sounds like 12-14hr/day, including weekends etc.
Now you can see how the rate drops a lot when you divide $2200 by, uhm, what, 70-80hrs a week? It's barely minimum wage.
Of course, you can say 'well, but they're giving you most of the stock if you succeed'. Yeah, but that also means you'll have to pay YC back in hundreds of thousands of dollars if you succeed. (Say YC is getting 5% of your $4 mln startup).
The equity is not guaranteed. YC does not guarantee you'll get huge. They'll just pat on your shoulder and give you some pocket cash in return for a part of your company.
The impression I get is that YC's investment is roughly analogous to a company paying your cab fare to get you to their office for an interview. Focusing on the one precisely measurable part of the transaction misses a whole lot.
I'm not going to rehash the old arguments here, as this has been discussed to death. Suffice it to say that any investment is not a job, is not a paycheck, and can't be compared to an hourly wage. YC and other high-quality investors provide more than just capital, they provide advice and connections, because they want their capital to succeed.
