This makes some interesting points, but it seems ridiculous to say that Dropbox's IPO is "make-or-break" for Y Combinator. Make or break in what sense? That Dropbox's IPO will influence the opinions of retail investors about other YC companies? That seems very unlikely; retail investors are unlikely even to know Airbnb and Dropbox share that in common. Or does she mean make or break in the sense that if Dropbox does badly, it will affect the opinions of potential YC applicants? Even if it did, which seems unlikely, it wouldn't "break" YC, because as she herself points out in the article, there is already a big pipeline of successful alumni. Nowadays the path to IPO is on the order of a decade (11 years in Dropbox's case), and while that means a long wait till liquidity, it also makes the ecosystem pretty robust.