Hmm.. This and the "no idea" stream opening for more people to be able to apply makes me wonder if YC is indicating a lack of applications this time around.
The "no idea" track makes total sense to me for several reasons:
1. Many YC participants changed their idea in the course of the program, some of them multiple times. As an extreme example, the founder of Greplin started working on his final idea three days before demo day.
2. The YC selection process has already been biased towards the team vs the idea.
3. YC is all about experimenting. They like to try and see what happens – this is how the whole thing evolved. Based on the above two, this seems like a logical experiment.
I actually believe the "no idea" track will be a success. Though a major disadvantage is that an idea helps evaluate the quality of the team, even if they end up pivoting. But PG and the rest of the YC team are smart; they’ll figure it out...