Every few batches, YC produces one of those moments where the exits look exceptional in retrospect. The W10 batch produced Stripe and Airbnb. The batches that looked ordinary in the moment turned out to contain the biggest outcomes.
The investors who tried to pick their spots — more exposure to "strong" batches, less to "quiet" ones — consistently underperformed the investors who covered everything. The reason is the power law.
The power law doesn't negotiate
In early-stage venture, a small number of investments generate most of the returns. Missing the unicorn in a batch costs more than catching it gains. If you skip a batch that turns out to contain the fund-returning outcome, that missed return is irreplaceable. No number of correctly identified strong batches compensates for one missed outlier.
The best YC companies at Demo Day don't look like future unicorns. The ones that do — the "consensus picks" — rarely become the biggest outcomes. The breakout companies are identified in retrospect.
The batch that looks like a good batch in March is not the batch that contains Stripe. You find out which batch that was in 2034.
The math on consecutive coverage
Eight Capital has invested in 11 consecutive YC batches from W22 through S25 — 200+ companies, every batch, no vintage skipped.
If each batch has a 50% chance of being a high-output batch (above the 6.25% average unicorn rate), covering 8 consecutive batches gives you a 99.6% chance of hitting at least one high batch. Covering 4 batches gives you 93.75%. The difference is small in probability but enormous in outcome — missing the high batch means missing the fund-returner.
The execution discipline required
Consecutive batch investing is operationally demanding. Every six months, 100+ new companies enter YC. You have to evaluate all of them, prioritize the top 10%, build founder relationships by Week 6, and deploy capital before Demo Day — every time, without exception. The temptation to skip a batch that "looks thin" is real. Those batches sometimes contain the breakout. VentureInsights, Eight Capital's AI research platform, helps maintain the discipline — systematic coverage that doesn't degrade under pressure.
You cannot know in March which batch is exceptional. The investors who cover every batch find out they were in it. The investors who picked their spots find out they weren't.