you are reading this blog post like a research paper, which is wrong. This is not a research paper. this is the writers trying to influence the market so that

you are reading this blog post like a research paper, which is wrong. This is not a research paper. this is the writers trying to influence the market so that future start ups they work with accept terms that are more favorable to YC. they are using data and statistics because their target market would dismiss the information outhand if they did not.