In the beginning YC kind of was a UBI experiment. $20k isn’t enough for more than living expenses for some amount of time. Of course, $120k is a bit more, but in my mind YC was a very successful implementation of UBI.
It was a BI experiment, the U being eliminated by heavy selection. Xerox PARC started that way as well - select very talented people, then give them money to work. UBI presumes you are ready to give the guy begging on the street with an alcohol habit the same check you'd give Drew Houston.
A company can pick its most favorable market to make a profit (people with money to invest then boost the companies with most favorable returns). Government is a silent partner in all commercial transactions because it has to serve all of the other citizens too at a basic level (it can't just pick and choose). Non-profits get a pass on taxation by the government to serve the markets missed by profit-makers.
This is a reason I like paying attention to Sam, looks like he has an experimental streak and is not motivated primarily by greed but instead shows a benevolent or generous approach.
Unfortunately such an approach is not shared by the majority of well-heeled capitalists who are interested and available to supply the next round of funding for the growing number of the very entrepreneurs that he helps to get off the ground. This puts him in a unique position to see the effect first hand and looks like it's getting him started at a young age seeking solutions which could maximize the return from scarce resources (or in his case more abundant financial resources), one of the most important of which is to reduce the suction of pure greed from the mix.
Seems to me it is exactly that suction on what is supposed to be the most prosperous and promising nation that keeps there from being enough to go around anyway.
Then again I have always done the math a little differently than most economists, but I sure have been doing it a lot longer than the vast majority.
So I think it would add up better for a greater number of less privileged citizens if the bar were lowered for entrepreneurs and raised for follow-up VC's first and foremost on the greed factor itself, and this is something that YC for one can implement on it's own, at least within its growing sphere of influence. If Sam is not yet capable of accomplishing this just by saying the word, I hope that does occur during my remaining lifetime. This could be gradually accomplished, and if momentum is not lost along the way, taken to its logical conclusion from this one seed it could end up becoming more universal than anything anyone has seen before.
It's impossible to put numbers to the difference between committing resources to a less financially capable entrepreneur with an apparently weaker idea and market, versus an alternative that rings all the bells for the majority of VC's even when you try to include greed as the realistically destructive factor that it has always been.
Therefore you just have to do more advanced math without using numbers or prosperity will never become as universal as it could be.
When you leverage greed, you are only going to get more greed in return.
So it might be more accurate to restate this little problem as "Too many greedy VC's are investing in otherwise promising YC companies, and that keeps some of the most ideal investments for less greedy VC's from moving in the direction of YC to begin with".
“a less financially capable entrepreneur with an apparently weaker idea and market, versus an alternative that rings all the bells for the majority of VC's”
You are assuming those variables have any correlation whatsoever, and I’d argue they don’t. If YC was to decouple them in their decisions, they would see a lot more returns. If they could provide more info, so VCs could decouple them you would see a new golden age for Silicon Valley. Less financially endowed entrepreneurs who persist nonetheless can have resourcefulness or insights into bottom of the market ideas that can make a huge return with small improvements (Whatsapp). They often lack the wealthy network for similarly less burdened cofounders and investor intro and advantageous information often distributed at top schools with most affluent founder candidates (each top school takes pride in sharing nonpublic insights with their disciples from VC network tips, to the personal preferences of each judge in the supreme court).
YC has the network to beat all advantages provided by pedigreee schooling which means they can venture far beyond Stanford grads and invest in less trite and privilidged ideas that have actual potential to change the world. The founder disadvantages could be mitigated with a standard toolbook and the network. YC could play Moneyball for early stage startups, but they don’t seem to just yet.
A company can pick its most favorable market to make a profit (people with money to invest then boost the companies with most favorable returns). Government is a silent partner in all commercial transactions because it has to serve all of the other citizens too at a basic level (it can't just pick and choose). Non-profits get a pass on taxation by the government to serve the markets missed by profit-makers.