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A PhD student just got into YC building a spy drone that looks exactly like a bird. Counter-drone systems ignore birds. Too many false positives. So the drone flies completely undetected. To stop it, you'd have to shoot every bird out of the sky. That's not a product insight. T hat's first principles thinking at its sharpest. It reminded me of Elon spotting a toy car with a single-cast chassis. That observation became Tesla's gigacasting advantage. The outsider sees what the expert stopped questioning years ago. YC is backing more of these founders now. Domain expertise helps. But it's not the ticket. A clear problem, a defensible insight, and proof you've done the work. That's what gets you in.