with this many companies competing for attention, YC demo day feels like startup hunger games.
I think it is the opposite of that. YC companies are not really competing with each other for investment; the success of a few helps the others, too. That Dropbox is worth over a billion dollars probably raises the valuation of each of the YC companies in w2012 by some measurable amount. There are a lot of investors who would only invest in certain kinds of companies, too, so it isn't even possible to have a universal rank ordering of attractiveness to investors.
There is a lot of attention to distribute between them though. At this point the audience at dday is roughly the entire startup investment community.
I wonder if this reporter would have identified 'Dropbox' when it demoed as 'the next dropbox.'
I'm impressed by 42Floors and Your Mechanic. I like that each company identified an area full of inefficient orthodoxy and innovated - like AirBnb. 42 Floors also seems to have an especially strong team (Flightcaster) and has a slick design.
Or, which will Dropbox be the prelude of?
I don't know which is the next dropbox but shoptiques might be the next Etsy. That company is going places.