I am in and have invested in YC startups, because I know which ones have growth potential and upside.

> you can make a coherent case that companies should be required to be public at a much earlier stage (I don't think it's going to happen, but you do you)

I didn't say they had to be a public company, you can invest in Stripe via the secondary market (which I have done before with other companies) but even then this is for accredited investors.

There are lots of unprofitable public companies on the stock market that also return $0 to investors and have no dividends.

But this trend of many private companies choosing to stay private obviously isn't going to help those except the very rich and accredited investors.