Because they want to have their cake and eat it too. YC has followed a similar trajectory to many successful tech innovations. A novel approach that has aligned goals with their clients, strong & visible leadership, a huge emerging market, an appetite for a new approach - we're now essentially 2 generations of leadership removed from PG & co and while I have no doubt the people in charge are very smart and good at VC'ing, YC is now a totally different beast from 10+ years ago. It's motivations, goals and practices have changed and I have no doubt the next incarnation will come along and eat their lunch too.
It's astonishing how quickly it happened, too. People underestimate the effect of a decade, but a decade feels so short. I still remember YC startup school in 2007-ish.
In what ways does it seems the motivations and goals have changed? I’m particularly interested in this as I just rejoined YC as a partner after running a startup for five years. I first joined as a partner 10 years ago.
For starters, back in the day, YC was mostly seen as a place anyone could get funding and build a great company whether or not they had a great network. Nowadays, it seems more and more like having that network is the primary thing that gets you in YC.
(Not a criticism, and I can see the merits of that choice. But, when I talk to my friends about YC that usually comes up.)
I'm not sure where that belief would come from. YC only takes online applications, rather than getting introductions to founders like most investors do. When we're reading an application, we wouldn't even know if the founders have a big network or not.
> YC was mostly seen as a place anyone could get funding and build a great company whether or not they had a great network.
that's likely because before the success, there was no way anyone with the network would come to YC as a first port of call. And with technical partners able to judge the incoming seed company on the merits the founders themselves, YC managed to pick the successful ones (mostly - obviously there are failures).
When the success of YC's model became so prominent that it is a culture all on its own, the technical partners no longer work the same way as the old way. I don't think it's possible. So network, and human capital is used as a filter, rather than deal with the massive amounts of no-name people.
> Nowadays, it seems more and more like having that network is the primary thing that gets you in YC.
They can’t really afford that model, that’s why funding is being slashed: insiders successful in the 2010s are not better poised to be successful in the 2020s than outsiders, even if network and critical mass help them raise and burn money to have a more structured shot.
