The thing is, with YC you get except the 20 grand or whatever it is, the advice from pg and others, and the alumni network, which is both worth something.
With 40-50 groups now your time spent with him as a YC'er is significantly less. He's added staff, but scaling out his time is a big problem. Plus with the 40-50 groups - I can only imagine that the demo days are a complete circus. Will angels continue to invest their money in what essentially has become a meat market? If I were to invest my money on a high-risk venture I'd like to get a little T.L.C.
That's not actually true. I was in the valley a couple months back and was able to book office hours with Paul as much as was useful (and more frequently than I had when we were doing YC in S09). Office hours with Paul and the other YC folks are in 15 minute blocks and have been since YC was much smaller. Most YC teams don't meet with Paul privately every week and even as such the upper bound on the number of those meetings that'd be possible per week is around 200. Also, now, in contrast to when we did YC you can also book hours with Paul Buchheit, Harj and Gary.
The last YC batch was the smallest in a while (I believe it was well under 20). I don't believe they've continued to grow the size of the batches. I'd be shocked if they ever grow to 40-50 groups. That many wouldn't fit in the YC office for the dinners. Where are you getting this "40-50 groups" number from?
"Will angels continue to invest their money in what essentially has become a meat market?"
The evidence seems to indicate that the answer is "yes".
"If I were to invest my money on a high-risk venture I'd like to get a little T.L.C."
Personally, if I were an investor, I'd rather get a little R.O.I.
Yes and that's what makes the equity trade worth it. The money is too small to justify giving up 5-10% if it wasn't for the quality of advisors (and their reputation) that you'd be adding to your company.
