Can anyone who has applied or completed YC in the last couple of years speak to the class sizes? The idea of a much smaller cohort is attractive, but not sure if YC has felt large?
Ideally would also like to hear from people who didn't get in or decided not to go through the program, since I recognize that asking for YC founder's opinions on a forum paid for by YC is not a neutral location :)
I was in YC >5 years ago when batches were in person and in the large-two-digit range. The experience of YC is completely different. The class sizes are in the hundreds and many times I've spoken to founders who didn't know another company in their batch existed.
It's a highly optimized assembly line for getting a company to give a 1 minute pitch. They said they'd never do remote, for good reason, then (understandably) flipped when the pandemic happened. But the downsides of remote didn't disappear when covid appeared...
This doesn't mean that founders don't love YC or that it's not worth it. It doesn't mean that parts of YC haven't gotten better over time. Again, highly optimized. It doesn't mean YC isn't a huge boon to your company's reputation.
But if you're looking for small, focused mentorship then YC is no longer the same place.
Ideally would also like to hear from people who didn't get in or decided not to go through the program, since I recognize that asking for YC founder's opinions on a forum paid for by YC is not a neutral location :)