Ask HN: Why does Y Combinator seem to be consistently funding AI slop?

Because everyone is funding AI slop.

The example you gave is more about AI workflow management vs actual slop. It's a slop enabler.

Remember that the “Air” in AirBnB came from the idea of renting air mattresses. Smart motivated people can have dumb ideas. Iterating from a dumb idea is how good ideas are made.

I'm not making a statement about the quality of businesses funded, but rather the fact there is a lot of opportunity.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Uy2aWoeRZopMIaXXxY2E...

I found a few of the companies that YC invests in have two non technical founders looking for a “founding engineer” to build their product who they were going to pay $150K to and “equity”.

I guess there are people that gullible?

1. FAANG or Ivy/Stanford/Harvard pedigree

2. Ex-founder with a good exit

3. Physically attractive/charismatic, a good salesman

4. Extremely high intelligence, ability, track record of aptitude

These qualities are more important than the idea of the company, which they expect to pivot or evolve over time. What doesn't change over time is the founders' relative advantage over their peers in these aspects, so it makes sense to prioritize them in selection

The other side is they like to fund in area's that have a strong why now. One great answer to that is "Because it wasnt possible to build this X years ago" in other words they like to fund companies that are taking advantage of a new technical property, regulatory change, or cultural change.

AI hits 2/3 of those.

Now you can say "AI slop all you want" just like you can say "Crypto is a scam" but its a statement that ignores there has been profitable and viable new ventures built on top of these new compute properties.

TLDR: technological change is the basis of how VC's make money.