I agree. (actually I'd replace "taken as an indicator" with "taken as an absolute indicator")
In this case, with PG, I do believe that his stated intentions are sincere.
I agree.
Even if the deal flow was exactly the same, just having the founders suffering less from information assymetry would be a stone in the shoe of the Angels.
Think of it this way : if YC did all the same things, but also turned founders into being Angel patsies at dealtime, do you think they would be upset about it? I would guess it's the information about how to negotiate, and what a good deal looks like is the problem. I'm sure they love the concept of demo-day to go deal shopping, but would prefer it if the products didn't talk back.
Yes, I believe so.
How can it be a "PG vs Angels" situation when the parties involved are likely some of YC's portfolio companies biggest "supporters"?
That question might be better put to those Angels in the bar...
The real reason we started Y Combinator is one probably only a hacker would understand. We did it because it seems such a great hack. There are thousands of smart people who could start companies and don't, and with a relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place, we can spring on the world a stream of new startups that might otherwise not have existed.
In a way this is virtuous, because I think startups are a good thing. But really what motivates us is the completely amoral desire that would motivate any hacker who looked at some complex device and realized that with a tiny tweak he could make it run more efficiently. In this case, the device is the world's economy, which fortunately happens to be open source.
http://paulgraham.com/whyyc.html