Fair play, I just seem to remember reading it somewhere that it wasn’t set in stone. Maybe that’s either changed or I misunderstood what I read or I’m remembering wrong (tried to Google for it but no luck). Clearly your knowledge of the matter takes precedence and my comments around the 7% should be disregarded.

Actually I don't know any more about it than you do :) - other than I vaguely remember a couple cases where founders tried to negotiate the 7% and just ended up coming across as irritating. But probably they didn't have the goods to justify it...if it's big enough, why not? but in that case maybe it wouldn't make sense to apply to YC in the first place.

I mean it depends, maybe you are bad at getting equity and don’t have a feel for what a good deal is. Also I would think having the catharsis of people who have suffered through exponential growth and your company nearly dying many times would be very helpful. If there’s a choice between doing YC and having great examples who have done it all before I’d personally be happy with the 7% just knowing I had people to reach out to with the same war stories.