Fair point. Sorry if I came across as argumentative - I just thought it wasn't the best example. Regarding your overall point of YC having a network effect -

Fair point. Sorry if I came across as argumentative - I just thought it wasn't the best example. Regarding your overall point of YC having a network effect - not only is it true, it's part of their thesis for scaling up YC as much as possible. YC made a big push when Sam Altman became president (he's now heading up OpenAI) to try to grow YC as much as possible. This was about 5 years ago. The real question is how will the network effects weather the storm of a recession, which is untested (YC really started right around the last recession). Are they inside their own echo chamber? Are they actually supporting self-sustaining businesses? Will the network become big enough that it can sustain many of its businesses? I'm curious to see how the tech startup scene shakes out with the next recession. Let's just say I'm not considered an optimist.