Well, I think survivorship bias is separate (though, agreed, it is endemic in our industry) -- the logic wouldn't change in this argument even if YC had
only funded Airbnb and Dropbox. It may be a case of misattribution by the founders concerned, but hey -- in the absence of RCTs, trusting them seems like the right default.
> The thrust of his argument is that YC is asking to be granted special privileges, in a circumstance in which they happen to directly benefit, in a way that only helps them unfairly cement their already privileged position.
I don't think Sam's argument is quite as self-serving, though I see how it could be interpreted this way. I think he'd agree that YC should not be a gatekeeper. (As in PG's original proposal.) But if the argument against the original proposal is that we somehow need more data before rolling it out everywhere, running a smaller experiment with YC would seem to be better than nothing at all.
I completely agree with you that a steady-state world of privileged visa-granters is not what we should be trying to bring about.