It also entirely ignores the core point of YC, which is not (and never was) the modest sum of money. It's the network, the other entrepreneurs, the advice / mentoring, the reputation sharing that it provides when dealing with investors in the future, and so on. Going through YC is a form of validation, other investors will take you more seriously by default afterward (the reputation sharing).
You can get $150k from a lot of sources these days. The value of the YC network is far beyond that.
The author of the article here. Agreed. I wrote about this just 2 weeks ago! https://www.growthclub.online/post/what-to-do-after-an-accel...
Sam Altman: "We at Y Combinator always say we want to get a lot bigger because this is a network effect, this is a network that matters. Most venture capital firms will say out of one side of their mouth, “Oh no, smaller is better,” because they don’t want to work more. Then they’ll tell all their businesses, “The network effect is the only thing that matters.”
You can get $150k from a lot of sources these days. The value of the YC network is far beyond that.