Yes, you're right. In fact the founders practically say as much in their Launch HN post.
I'm assuming the reddit post is by someone who is just really unfamiliar with YC and modern tech entrepreneurship. Hopefully, their question was sincere and they'll receive sensible answers.
As for the question of whether YC has lost its way - most institutions lose their way at some point, so it's a fair question, but I don't think it's fair to single out this particular company.
I actually posted this on reddit (mainly to get other viewpoints besides the HN echo chamber), and I’m not new to the tech entrepreneurship scene. I’ve launched 3 startups, two bootstrapped that are chugging along quite well and a third one VC funded that is doing just ok.
This is less an attack on Superpowered as it is a critique of YC. I think the idea of a unified Notification Center is interesting but the space is quite simply too crowded. You have slack, plus all of the companies like station trying to solve the same problem with much more features and a much bigger moat. YC used to pick companies that were more or less going to be at least decently successful even if they had never encountered YC, while this one seems like it wouldn’t have been successful without YC.
It seems like YC has fully switched to the shotgun model of fund everything and see what sticks instead of the boutique smaller cohorts of the past. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but that also comes with a reputation change as well.
I'm assuming the reddit post is by someone who is just really unfamiliar with YC and modern tech entrepreneurship. Hopefully, their question was sincere and they'll receive sensible answers.
As for the question of whether YC has lost its way - most institutions lose their way at some point, so it's a fair question, but I don't think it's fair to single out this particular company.