YC is a massive outlier and they have insanely good deal flow because of their brand.
You won't find a better group of truly qualified, highly accomplished people giving advice to startups, holding talks for cohorts, etc. in any other accelerator anywhere, period.
But remember that unlike the stock market, investing in a VC means locking up your money for 10 years. Slightly beating the market is not worth the liquidity loss, you have to do a good bit better.
Selection bias. There are a heap of other companies that tried the YC model, and failed. It isn’t “just” good founders and 10k.
I know in the past though that, at a minimum, the amount of money was different. I'd say it's still safe to assume they own 7% though - so more than a billion USD on paper, not bad.
Paul stumbled on an absolute goldmine by just giving a bunch of promising companies with good founders 10k in exchange for a decent portion of equity and then some of these companies being worth billions.
NOw you know what those homes and are so expensive in Palo Also and elsehwre, You got of these guys making fortunes, and that money tricked down everywhere.