Contra vex .hgroup #masthead Y Combinator: The American Idol of Venture Capital .entry-header What seems like ages ago, Mircea Popescu took a stab at Y Combinator i and its lulzy missteps in the Bitcoin space, particularly with Coinbase . ii To wit: [Y Combinator] boys, if you mattered at all you’d have done something I’d have heard of by now. Something a little more like Google and a little less like AirBnb. You haven’t done it, and it’s pretty much because you don’t matter. No matter what the circlejerk might have been telling you, the fact of the matter is you (collectively and individually) suck. Never one to mince words, iii MP aptly noted that the success of AirBnb is predicated entirely on their ability to hawk graphic design iv and buy newspaper pump pieces. And that’s sort of a best-case scenario for YC. Which brings us to Russ Roberts of EconTalk, v who lin...