It is great for the entire startup ecosystem that there are more early and pre-seed stage programs coming out in more places. YC's obviously seminal in that, a

It is great for the entire startup ecosystem that there are more early and pre-seed stage programs coming out in more places. YC's obviously seminal in that, and it's understandable the community around it is suss of the other players, and doesn't want to see the expansion accompanied by activities that could damage everyone, and that's clear in the posts the last few days. But we should all be cheering on the rise of this as a class of activity bigger than any one program (no matter how innovative or great any one program like YC is). The frenzy of new activity feels to me like a pointer to a coming boom in new ideas and investment and the creation of a new generation of great companies out of a dark period. At the same time, YC has obviously set the bar high, and it would damage the class if other players get it wrong. But having talked with guys who have been through both YC and TechStars, it seems pretty clear to me that the folks going through them have had massively overwhelmingly positive experiences, and there is no malevolent behaviour going on here. You're going to get coincidences, you're going to get competition over good companies and jockeying over them, and you're going to get some experiments with new stuff that do or don't work. And all of this is awesome for startups.