[onion2k]

If you feel you're funding direct competitors...we're talking about startups. More of a validation of your base idea than a real edge for the competition.

There are startups and there are YC startups. If you've got in to YC you've probably already proven your idea and you're generating revenue - YC is about accelerating rather that actually starting after all. If you're directly competing with a YC company then this does put you at a disadvantage, especially if you're in a space where computational power is a big part of your burn.

Mind you, hasn't AWS given huge blocks of credits away to startups in lots of accelerators since forever? This isn't really a new problem for competitors.