The research behind this article is pretty flakey. Measuring accelerator success by exits only works when you do cohort analysis, not when you compare companies

The research behind this article is pretty flakey. Measuring accelerator success by exits only works when you do cohort analysis, not when you compare companies created 6-7 years ago (YC and TechStars) against companies created in the last couple of years (the others accelerators). YC's scaling back of class sizes wasn't anything to do with the quality of the cohort dropping, but rather due to YC's ability to handle a cohort of that size. First-time startup founders tend to make the same mistakes as each other, and that's one area in which it's easy for accelerators to add value (some do and some don't). Clearly some accelerators are better than others, and some will undoubtedly fail, but this article doesn't really provide any compelling argument for it.