[jacquesm]

It's actually pretty easy to explain.

YC has global reach and is now very well known. That increases the applicant pool and that in turn means there are more quality applications as well. Having a larger pool of quality applications means that it becomes easier to select companies before a batch is considered 'full', lower quality applications will therefore have a much smaller chance of getting selected in a given batch.

So even if YC's first priority hasn't changed at all there is still a very plausible explanation for the effect you are seeing.

[austenallred]

I'd argue it's just much easier to get to $20k MRR than it used to be. A lot of companies barely have traction before YC and get it during YC, and $20k isn't that hard to get to.

[tarr11]

MRR without in isolation, without churn, CAC or WoW growth is fairly meaningless. It's basically just a different way to report run rate.

You can buy 20k in MRR with your YC investment, just for a pop at demo day. Keeping up growth is another thing all together.