YC is slowly drifting away from its original mission. I think that they tend to fund people who they think will have the highest chance of success. You end up

YC is slowly drifting away from its original mission. I think that they tend to fund people who they think will have the highest chance of success. You end up with priorities like: 1. Previous successes 2. Company with traction 3. Employee at Stripe/Google/Apple/etc 4. Smart MIT/Harvard/Stanford student 5. Misc. high magnitude achievements I think what you're seeing might be a higher number of 1-3 applying to YC, not leaving much room for 4 and 5. The four and fives who do get accepted are extraordinarily impressive.