[pedalpete]

A few oppositions to this view. 1) Reddit and AirBnB were viewed to have very little impact when they started. Nobody wanted to stay on somebody elses couch, and we had Digg instead of Reddit. 2) YC is investing in more hard-tech companies.

I agree, there are lots of things where you say "why would YC invest in that??" particularly with so many SAAS companies, but then they take a flying leap on things like Boom, Flirty, Coinbase, etc etc.

YC started in the early-ish days of the internet, so most of the outlier successes were in the internet space. The major internet companies have probably already been founded, so YC needs to focus on what's next. It seems to me their straddling both sides, like most VCs are attempting to do.