Thank you for taking the time to write this. I appreciate the info, and while this is not meant as a criticism I am curious how you measure for success.
> 4) I think the ultimate measure founders should care about - and certainly the one we do - is the success rate of YC companies on average. If we grew the YC batch and the success rate went down, that would be bad. So this is something we track extremely carefully to make sure that does not happen. And so far, it hasn't. Based on the last 1-2 years of companies, the success rate of YC companies is the highest it's ever been.
If fundraising at a higher valuation is one of the components used to determine success, I wonder how much the frothier market could contribute to being misleading here? Obviously a smaller cohort wouldn't necessarily solve this and I realize we can't really control for macroeconomic factors, but I could see it skewing the data (depending on how you measure it). Of course, if success is measured simply by liquid ROI my point is moot.
You guys have all the data and know way more than I do, but it seems YC has moved away from funding scrappier startups that might survive an economic setback whereas the much more growth-at-any-cost companies may not survive a hiccup in funding quite so easily.
Again, this is just a thought and you have all the data, so I don't pretend to be as informed as you.