I think one of the reasons for this is that people think YC has always expressed this be a "force for good ideal." You know, do the hard things etc... Maybe that was my misunderstanding but I think that this is a key misunderstanding. In fact, that they are expressly a force for good for the entrepreneur and startups and I guess ideally, a net good for society otherwise it wouldn't work. But it is pretty clear that billions of dollars and centralization (platforms) really do shape markets. So we have AirBnB, DoorDash etc... are they net good? Are they a massive long term grift on society? I don't think the answer is clear. Is the resultant destruction creative? Do we need new regulations? Probably. I am not saying YC invested in something like JUUL and Altria but take those as the most extreme... and even they are debate-able... are they a smoking cessation device? or addiction 2.0? I mean I would say net bad because they clearly do not market or offer themselves as a smoking cessation device, but rather as an alternative that's just as addictive and as it appears quite harmful bad. That they market to teens in my opinion makes them net bad even though they cut down on smoking. Breathing in super heated water is apparently just as bad as smoking and maybe worse.. Anyway, back to the entrepreneur, the model was in contrast to the search to find random Angels, and then the traditional VC model which would be to take the money and kick out the founders.

Being first in the funnel gives you vertical integration and it helps if you are pro-entrepreneur to get your customers. The rest as they say is history.