Seems like YC has simply become a credential for future fund-raising, like "Harvard" or something else on your resume. No sour grapes at all, full credit to pg, Jessica, and the rest for building it to be wildly successful like that, but yes founders should think hard about why they would do something like YC and if the trade-off is worth it.

While "YCXX" has always seemed like an interesting signal especially around these parts, personally my own radar is that anything post YC15 is less likely to grab my attention, because the original YC founders were less/no longer involved. Nothing wrong with the new generation of folks running it, but having followed this space since their early days, there is still a certain cachet that comes with the "OG" batches of YC, which were small and seemed more impactful, compared to the later ones.