[1] I'm not saying that if you sort investors by benevolence you've also sorted them by returns, but rather that if you do a scatterplot with benevolence on the x axis and returns on the y, you'd see a clear upward trend.
[2] Y Combinator in particular, because it aggregates data from so many startups, has a pretty comprehensive view of investor behavior.
Why can't YC, of all firms, publish this scatterplot? Wouldn't it hold people accountable in a way that nothing else would?
First, because there's no objective measure of benevolence, and second, because ranking VC's on a spectrum of benevolence vs. malevolence would strain the relationship between YC and these VC firms. You get a lot more traction making general statements like pg does here than you do by calling out individual firms.
Asking YC companies to crowdsource benevolence is hardly earth shattering. I'd be surprised if they don't already. The difference is offering this guide as a public resource. The risk is that firms could still treat YC companies well then treat others less well, but as pg notes, this type of duplicity is hardly worth the trouble.
[2] Y Combinator in particular, because it aggregates data from so many startups, has a pretty comprehensive view of investor behavior.
Why can't YC, of all firms, publish this scatterplot? Wouldn't it hold people accountable in a way that nothing else would?