Comparing MacArthur Genius Grants and similar awards to venture capital isn't particularly apt. YCR or the fellowship might be slightly more comparable, but still pretty off mark.

To the parent: MacArthur Genius Grants have been given to computer scientists... IDK about "coder"; ostensibly, that code should be pretty remarkable if you're getting that kind of windfall. And if the code is so remarkable, there's probably some science or engineering behind it that is the actual reason for the award. In other words, by the time code is doing something that is societally significant, there are probably ideas extant in that code that are worth codifying and explaining in something other than a programming language. And probably those ideas/results have impacts that go far beyond a particular implementation.

I've started companies which have taken (small amounts of) VC funding, and I can tell you definitively it is nothing at all like a MacArthur. Try to close a deal while telling the investor you will treat their investment like a gift, and you will know exactly what I mean. Now granted, YC is starting to do things more MacArthur like, i.e. with their YC Research initiative. In particular the equity grant in YC component is very interesting.

Companies are formed to generate a profit, and investment is a direct expectation of that, or more directly, an expectation for a company to grow their market cap irrespective of any actual profit. MacArthur is the abject opposite of that, cash money without expectation.

Not exactly "free", you have to do something for it and there are strings attached.

It might be free if you get accepted, but accommodation in NY + not working for a few months has got to hurt