What does YC bring to tech heavy startups except connections to funding ? because most of the risk there is technology risk , not market risk, and YC is no tech expert at those subjects.
There is plenty of technology risk and market risk in hard-tech companies. A business with R&D cycles, long lead times, and heavy capex requirements is going to face a substantial amount of both types of risk.
Connections to funding and talents. It's not easy to find a group of tens of thousand engineers, and which has very high opinion of YC.