The users have already shared their ideas with an AI company’s chatbot. The “IP” you’re worried about is already more than half the output of LLM chatbots and it could already be trained on.

Everything you’re speculating about regarding YC’s potential to steal ideas, along with the notion that they are “coasting”, is easily disproven by what YC is doing, literally right now.

Startup School 2026 is the most costly and elaborate event YC has ever presented. YC is hosting about 7500 people at the event, and entertaining them (meals, parties, small-group sessions and dinners) and paying for flights for many of them from elsewhere in the country and world. They recently did a similar thing in India, and are constantly running outreach events at colleges around the world. That’s in addition to running four YC accelerator batches per year, funding nearly 1000 companies annually (and hoping to grow that).

This is the opposite of “coasting” and is completely at adds with any notion what YC really wants to do is steal IP or ideas. YC’s business collapses if it loses the trust of the most promising talent.