Earlier quoted context omitted.
People were saying that about YC in 2009, when Airbnb and Stripe were funded. YC’s philosophy has always been to invest in a great many companies, accepting that you can’t know in advance which will succeed, most will fail, but the ones that succeed will be successful enough to pay for all the losses.
That's not just YC's philosophy. That's how seed level funding works in the industry. Spray and Pray.
“Spray and pray” is a deliberately belittling term for an approach that YC largely pioneered and has delivered outsized returns over two decades. There’s no “pray” about it. YC partners work incredibly hard to attract and select the most promising founders and support them through their most nascent and fragile stages. They keep turning out huge successes, whilst also giving off the appearance that most funded companies are unimpressive. That’s always been true; it’s the easy thing to focus on for people who are motivated to be critical, but it’s a valueless observation.