Trending Thursday #3

The Startup Factory: Y Combinator went from 17 startups per batch to 400+ industrialized chaos.

Pricing models are getting flipped: 75% of software companies changed pricing last year as seat-based is dying.

Waiting Game: VC funds from 2017 still haven't returned money to investors, and what this means below.

Corporate FOMO: Fidelity launched a Carta competitor, but startup expertise can't be bought.

Robot Takeover: Amazon's CEO casually announced that AI will reduce their total workforce.

Office Recall: Remote-only startups dropped from 29% to 16% in one year

June 30: WorkTech Startup Pitch Night - Join us for a high-energy event where founders, investors, and experts come together to explore how AI is transforming the future of work. If you're a founder, apply to pitch here!

July 2: Caffeine & Capital - The next round of this morning coffee series. Come ready to get caffeinated and talk startups. Sign up on Luma!

July 7: Live Podcast Interview with Jeff Clavier - Be part of a special in-person recording with Jeff Clavier, the founding partner at Uncork Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s top seed-stage VC firms. Sign up on Luma!

The numbers tell the story: Early YC batches averaged 17 companies. Recent batches hit 414. That's not growth: that's industrialization. Plus, they're doubling down by moving to four batches per year this year.

The AI takeover: 67% of YC's latest batch is "AI" companies, compared to 15% two years ago. Everyone may be building a similar ChatGPT wrapper with different fonts.

The dilution is real: Investors are overwhelmed trying to evaluate hundreds of pitches at Demo Day. The YC label used to be like getting into Harvard. Now it's still valuable, just less exclusive.

Plot twist: YC's success stats remain impressive, with 4.5% of startups becoming unicorns, compared to 2.5% for other startups. But valuations are reportedly "out of sync" with the bear market reality.

Traditional Models Are Dying: Seats and flat-rate pricing dropped from 50% to 37% as AI decouples value creation from human headcount and subscription predictability.

Constant Evolution Required: 75% of companies changed pricing models last year, yet few have adequate team resources or tooling to maintain the required pricing agility.

The Transparency Paradox: Despite demand for transparency, complex hybrid models with AI credits are actually driving buyers toward human sales conversations rather than just buying on the website.

Hybrid Becomes the New Standard: Usage-based pricing combined with subscriptions surged from 27% to 41%, establishing hybrid models as the go-to approach.

Endless Customization Options: From pay-as-you-go with caps, to platform fees plus usage, the best companies are matching their pricing to their specific cost structures and customer behaviors.

Outcome-Based Pricing Wins: While only 5% currently use outcome-based models, 25% expect adoption within three years as AI agents demonstrate measurable ROI.

2017 funds are sitting at 11.5% IRR and have grown investments 1.72x on paper, but they've only returned 27 cents per dollar to investors.

Only 37% of 2019 funds and 30% of 2020 funds have given investors ANY money back.

Plot twist: Funds are getting smaller, as nearly half are now tiny, $1-10M funds, versus the $25-100M sweet spot in 2020.

The giant launched Fidelity Private Shares as a competitor to Carta, but being big doesn't necessarily make you better at startups.

The reality: Carta spent a decade figuring out founder problems. Fidelity is starting from scratch with a borrowed playbook and a corporate customer service approach.

Amazon has over 1,000 AI projects in development—from smarter Alexa to AI agents that handle research and coding.

Jassy wants to operate like "the world's largest startup," which historically has meant fewer people.

Companies with under 50 employees dropped from 29% to just 16% remote-only in a single year.

Why the reversal? Tax nightmares across multiple states, local talent abundance, security concerns, and investor pressure for in-person collaboration.

Bolt.new: Currently hosting the World’s Largest Hackathon, where you can no-code build with AI for a shot at some of the $1M+ in prizes.

Solar: Revolutionary "vibe-coding" infinite canvas like Figma, where AI agents build full-stack production apps in minutes.

Bubble: Complete visual programming powerhouse that transforms everyone into app creators without writing a single line of code.

Liveblocks 3.0: Ready-made AI copilots and multiplayer editing superpowers that make your product more engaging and collaborative.

Atlas: AI-powered "vibe" pricing engine that delivers instant, intelligent pricing solutions tailored to your business needs.

Lemon Squeezy: The all-in-one dream platform for effortlessly selling digital products, subscriptions, software licenses, and courses.

AgentX 2.0: Ultimate multi-agent command center supporting all major LLMs with 1000+ tools, where AI models collaborate.

FuseBase AI Agents: Intelligent AI workforce for seamless team collaboration that actually understands your workflow.

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: Google's blazing-fast, cost-efficient AI model with a massive 1M token context window.

Tila AI: Mind-blowing infinite canvas uniting GPT-4, DALL·E, Kling, and Luma in one visual workspace.

Chronicle: "Cursor for Presentations" with 100k+ waitlist that transforms raw ideas into stunning decks using AI storytelling.

Krea 1: AI image generation that completely avoids the "AI look" with accurate textures, dynamic camera angles, and vivid colors.

Screen Studio: Magical screen recording tool that automatically creates cinematic promotional videos.

Vapi: Lightning-fast voice AI platform for developers to build and deploy sophisticated voicebots in minutes instead of months.

OneInbox.ai: Game-changing voice AI agents that go live in just 15 minutes for instant customer engagement.

Scale kills magic: Y Combinator's growth from 17 to 400+ companies proves that exclusivity and industrialization can't coexist, so choose wisely.

Everything's getting repriced: From SaaS seats to remote work to job security, AI is forcing every business model to evolve or die.

The waiting game continues: Whether it's VC returns or finding the next unicorn, patience is still the startup world's scarcest commodity.