Which could be their first mistake. YC gets a lot of signal by requiring people to clearly answer so many questions. YC's questions are really good and it would

Which could be their first mistake. YC gets a lot of signal by requiring people to clearly answer so many questions. YC's questions are really good and it wouldn't have been a bad idea to wholesale copy them like some other's have. Not least of all because then founders could apply quickly using copy-paste. I suspect someone could out-compete YC just by obtaining the YC application data and funding on that basis alone, eschewing the interview process entirely as it very possibly introduces more noise than signal. It'd take some guts though, kinda like starting YC in the first place took guts.