David Cohen asked PG's permission to start a YC franchise of some sort in Boulder. He said no. David Cohen cloned YC in virtually every respect (down to copying the application form).
Basically what Wimdu is doing to AirBnb.
Still, it has been 5 years and YC has certainly not suffered. I'm surprised PG isn't a bit more magnanimous towards them.
TechStars was obviously derived from YC, but it's no more a clone than McDonalds was a clone of existing Burger bars.
TechStars has only recently started trying to replicate their model on a wide scale. They're very far from proving that they can.
The fact that TS would be just as good without the founder isn't necessarily a positive sign.
If they have 'productized' the process so that they get, rather than one charismatic, super smart guy like PG, a series of founder types who go in and talk and mentor their startups, perhaps it can be made to "scale" to some degree, rather than be a program based exclusively on the brilliance of one individual.
Although, to be fair, YC seems to be taking on new people as well.
It's too bad, because Techstars seems like a pretty cool thing in its own right. To me, Boulder also sounds way more attractive than the Bay Area at this stage in my life.