Some fear a glut in incubators
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
... Or rather, that's the sarcastic response I would give if the people quoted in the article seemed to actually be agreeing with the headline. Instead, what are they saying? Max Levchin is worried that a lot of startup incubators have too much of a conservative, short-term focus, so he's starting another one to compete with them. Scott Brown said that doing YC for his first startup was worth it, but didn't think it would add much for his second -- hardly a scathing denunciation of such programs. Bill Lee, down at the bottom of the article, says that he's started avoiding very early financing rounds, which doesn't sound particularly alarming.
I'm going to chalk this one up to a journalist taking some creative liberties.
Too much competition?:
A bubble is when too much investment (the incubators here) chases too few good deals (the "meh" startups). The question is what the distribution looks like - do most of the most successful startups come out of the top incubators? I'm not sure, but it's probable. If so, this means that the playing field is more of an oligarchy my market share and the also rans are just getting the scraps.
Levchin's incubator:
He thinks they're all clones of YC/TechStars - so he's starting one on a new model to make hardcore startups (in his opinion) that solve big problem. Given this - how doesn't that make sense?