YC is not for founders who like to go their own route, who like to figure stuff out on their own, even if it takes more time and is more risky. If you have too much handed to you, you will not learn as much as you would from your mistakes. Also, just based on HN there seems to be an awful lot of groupthink around YC (not the partners I'm sure), which is annoying to lone-wolf types.
Btw. I think your "tipping point" statement has a lot of survivor bias. Was it a tipping point for the ones that ended up going nowhere? Well, not, by definition. And for the ones that did and raised a series A, yes of course it was, but so is raising a series A without YC.
All founders by definition must figure out stuff for their own and take risk. This invalidates your assertion that "YC is not for founders who like to go their own route." YC is for founders.
YC is not for founders who like to go their own route, who like to figure stuff out on their own, even if it takes more time and is more risky. If you have too much handed to you, you will not learn as much as you would from your mistakes. Also, just based on HN there seems to be an awful lot of groupthink around YC (not the partners I'm sure), which is annoying to lone-wolf types.
Btw. I think your "tipping point" statement has a lot of survivor bias. Was it a tipping point for the ones that ended up going nowhere? Well, not, by definition. And for the ones that did and raised a series A, yes of course it was, but so is raising a series A without YC.