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> “Can this be a $10 billion plus company?” like Airbnb and Dropbox

I have said it before and I will say it again: this nonsense is going to be the death[1] of YC. Airbnb/DropBox/Stripe/Twitch would not stand a chance getting funding from YC today.

They fell into the same trap that kills innovation like everyone else: as they grew bigger they started taking less risks.

[1] In the Yahoo/IBM sense

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What makes you think YC takes fewer risks today than they did before? Going through the list of companies on yclist.com for the most recent batch, there seem like quite a few companies I'd consider risky, even compared to a nascent airbnb, dropbox, stripe, or twitch.

Stripe could have still painted a $10Bstory easily.

Agreed with the rest, though in 2017 gaming ecosystem business is more of a thing than it was in 2009.

To be clear: I think they would all likely be the same valuable businesses. My point is that not one of these companies would be funded by YC today.

They succumbed to credentialism. They traded hackers for MBAs. The proverbial John Sculley has fired Steve Jobs and taken over.

Wasn't YC always a place of credentials? Its founders hail from Harvard/MIT, and even early admits were from elite institutions.

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