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The hard part is not gathering the money, but knowing who to back. That's why there are not a million successful Y-Combinators.

OTOH it is probably possible to figure out how PG and company are judging the people and ideas, and duplicate the methodology.

The world doesn't need a bunch of bad YC clones, but it sure could use a few more good ones. :-)

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Paul Graham backs companies that fit into the Paul Graham philosophy. This probably causes YCombinator to miss the majority of possibly profitable investments. I am not criticizing YC here, they are only looking for a few dozen startups each year so it is fine if they miss most of the good ones. However, there is room for several YC clones, perhaps run by other successful founders, that invest with a different worldview than Paul Graham.

If there is not room for a far bigger number of YC clones or angels similarly then this entire method of growing companies is doomed.

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