I have my criticisms (or concerns to be more charitable) with PG and the YC model, but I don't think this is fair. In addition to people who have pointed out th

I have my criticisms (or concerns to be more charitable) with PG and the YC model, but I don't think this is fair. In addition to people who have pointed out the survivorship / selection bias, as well as the number of companies YC has funded that are aiming very high, there's also the issue of YC only being able to fund what people apply for. Though I guess they could convince people to drop a good idea for a pie-in-the-sky idea, but I think what happens more often is that they get them to drop a mediocre idea for a better one. But anyway, YC gets like 2k apps per cycle, but most of those are going to be for non-devastatingly-ambitious ideas, and then the ones that are have to have great teams behind them. If you don't see very many coming out of YC, it might be because there weren't that many to start with.