> Won't giving YC equity to these researchers (who are working not-for-profit and releasing IP freely) incentivize research that benefits YC startups directly and hence increases the value of the equity held?
That's equivalent to saying "won't paying in U.S. dollars to these researchers (who are working not-for-profit and releasing IP freely) incentivize research that benefits the U.S. Federal Reserve directly and hence increases the value of the U.S. dollars held?"
Obviously not the same scale, but you get where I'm going with this. Indirect incentives don't quite work that way.
The difference in scale is 4-5 orders of magnitude here, probably more. And at such different scales, I don't see how the same rules apply.
For instance, trying to increase the value of USD with your work when billions of people on the planet are doing the same is basically impossible and unpredictable even if you're a great researcher / business leader / whatever, to say the least. The same is not the case with YC equity, where you can expect, with a fairly high probability, a significant increase in your equity if your research contributes hundreds of millions of dollars worth to a YC startup.
I'm not trying to be poke holes in the idea or anything like that, just genuinely wondering -- and the analogy to USD doesn't seem like the right answer.
That's equivalent to saying "won't paying in U.S. dollars to these researchers (who are working not-for-profit and releasing IP freely) incentivize research that benefits the U.S. Federal Reserve directly and hence increases the value of the U.S. dollars held?"
Obviously not the same scale, but you get where I'm going with this. Indirect incentives don't quite work that way.