The response is the same now as it has always been in the past: YC knows it can't predict in advance which companies could be home runs, so its approach is to "bet on the field" (which, thanks to power-law returns, actually works in startup investing in a way that it doesn't in horse race betting).
Remember, Airbnb and Dropbox were roundly panned when they first appeared out of YC, and in both cases were very nearly not accepted at all (Dropbox was rejected on the first application. Airbnb was accepted even though YC thought their home-sharing business was stupid and would most likely fail. YC accepted them because they were impressed that Airbnb had bootstrapped themselves by selling breakfast cereal).
Plenty of other companies that looked like winners early on have failed, and others that looked ridiculous have gone on to become very successful.
But nobody knew which would be which at demo day.
To understand more about YC's m.o., read these PG essays:
This comment has also been made pretty much every batch.
Trotting out companies that were picked before the growth strategy was implemented as evidence that the growth strategy is a good idea doesn't make sense.
Dropbox and Airbnb were massively successfully with in 2-3 years. What are the big successes from 2013 to the present?
That's debatable. They both went a long time struggling to get growth and big funding in the first few years, and (particularly for Airbnb) it was more like year 4 when they became mainstream hits.
What are the big successes from 2013 to the present?
Magic, Myo & Teespring are some of the more promising ones.
And if you take it back to 2012 you have Crowdtilt, Instacart and Coinbase.
And going right back through the batches you have dozens of companies that are doing very well - servicing big markets, generating big revenues, employing many people, making good returns for investors - but you don't know them because they're not mass market brands.
And as for Zenefits; yes they deserve criticism, but they're still a formidable company with big revenues and a strong leadership team and I'd expect them to survive and do very well long term.
But the main point remains: it's the easiest thing in the world to scoff at a bunch of nascent companies presenting themselves to the world for the first time after a few months' work.
And you will always be about 95%-100% right when you judge a whole batch of startups as trivial and doomed to failure or mediocrity.
But that says precisely nothing about the effectiveness of YC's strategy.
YC has been actively seeking to grow as fast as it could since 2009-2010, and was funding over 70 companies in a batch as early as 2012, then they scaled back in 2013 after experiencing growing pains.
Plenty of well-known companies have come through in that time eg, Pebble, Stripe, Firebase, Parse, Crowdtilt, Coinbase, Instacart.
Cruise went through YC in 2014, after the time you (inaccurately) assert was the beginning of the "growth strategy".
BTW when Criuse first hit HN, commenters were generally nonplussed or critical [1], just as they had been with Justin.tv (some dude with a camera on his head??) and then Twitch (watching other people play video games??).
From the dude with a camera on his head to Twitch's $1Bn exit took 8 years, and even at year 7 people didn't think it was a winner [2].
So, go easy on the new guys hey? :)
How many people are going to buy a special dropcam to point at their dog, rather than... a regular dropcam, which will be cheaper and better?
How many people are going to want a Basic interpreter for the Altair?
A few points:
- It's $120K
- PG is no longer actively involved (at least with selections or operations)
- They've always been very open about their heuristics for accepting applicants: pick teams that show evidence of being very talented and very determined, working on ideas that may seem laughably trivial now but over 5-10 years have some chance of developing into something huge.
- "The fax machine is nothing but a waffle-iron with a phone attached." But seriously, plenty of very successful products have been generic products tailored for a particular use-case.
PetCube would have been picked because they were able to explain how their silly-looking idea has the potential to transform pet care over the coming decade (using robotics perhaps?)
Remember, everyone including YC knows that the chances of huge success for any individual company are tiny.
But as long as about 1% of the companies they back become huge, YC does very well.
It took them a long time to raise funding as a result.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2006/01/31/the-online-storage-gang/
With that said, I completely agree that I would like to see them return to smaller batch sizes. I think the larger cohorts almost give an assembly line feel to the process. Again, not diminishing the accomplishment of any of the companies, but I think the larger cohorts is almost doing a disservice to the founders.
As I think about it more it seems to me that vision is really the problem, and maybe some of the teams have a vision that is limited by their experiences and surroundings.
Industrial safety inspections done by robots and affordable, modern zero-energy homes are the kind of difficult real world problems that will make the world a better place when solved.
On the other hand, I don't know if glass-by-glass wine delivery or another college social network are solutions to real "problems" that needed to be solved.
Now of course, it's still early for a lot of these startups and I can be proven wrong. But the potential impact of a something like a smart oven with a companion subscription meal service seems really small compared to an idea like a marketplace for farmers in India to sell directly to institutional buyers
Fluff was probably the wrong word.
When the perception you want to build around your incubator is about massive, life-improving, world-changing businesses (or at least that's my impression). There are some ideas I would consider leaving on the table for other investors and incubators.
- plush phones for toddlers / really loud speakers (kickstarter). - Slack or Zapier acquisition targets. - Chatroulette for phonecalls. - The next Whisper / Secret / YikYak / Gossup / Babbly / Cloaq - Yet another live streaming service. - A meal subscription service which makes me buy an oven to join?
No offense intended to any founders or investors. If I'm wrong that's great!
Social Developing World Middle Class US Consumer B2B ...and so on.
Of the set, I think the Developing World group is the most interesting. The markets there are huge and largely untapped, and a hit really does have the potential to change the world.
The Middle Class US Consumer group seems the least interesting. Some of the hardware projects wouldn't be out of place in a Sharper Image catalogue.
I can't help but think YC would see that, so - unless they expect those companies to be acquired quickly - other than if it is an attempt to corner the incubator market (once they are in every deal, they have all the leverage over both startups and VCs) I fail to understand why they need their batches to be this large. They could have a batch half the size or smaller and pour more gasoline on fewer (better) fires.
A few of the companies seem like ones that could have bootstrapped or funded via kickstarter. They don't strike me as businesses that will make venture capitalists back their money in any considerable way.
All that being said I absolutely love the shift toward hard tech and Africa. But I can't believe there's another 60 to come...