> … purpose-driven rather than money-driven […] is actually a negative signal for YC.

You can even find that in PG's “essays”, although he doesn't say it that directly.

It is a sensible position. YC and VCs are backing businesses, not charitable causes or research initiatives. It is the founders' responsibility to liaise the two sides in order to signal that the pursuit of their particular purpose is an undeniably attractive and fast-growing investment. Which obviously entails more work and has fewer market opportunities compared to the case "money is the purpose".

After getting backed and receiving adequate funding, all that matters is maintaining a good growth rate to remain a purpose-driven business.

To expand on this, and maybe this point is obvious, but accelerators and VCs purposefully fund a lot of companies they assume will not succeed. Something like 10% success is an acceptable target.

I wonder if all this focus on AI companies is actually denying opportunity to founders who have better ideas? Every AI agent company in YC and other accelerators is one that could have been taken by someone else.

But that’s the thing, AI is the highest risk highest reward opportunity, which fits the VC model. A boring CRUD app that solves an actual problem might be more likely to succeed but less likely to explode into a unicorn.