&gt; I wonder if it would make sense at some point for VCs to make seed investments at infinite valuations -- that is, taking no equity at all -- in order to obtain information rights. Even if there are no follow-on investment rights attached, having insider information on how well a startup is doing must be worth something...<p>Somewhat incidentally, I think this is one of the reasons why YC is such a powerful force. YC recently invested in their 1000th startup -- couple that with the many other thousands of applications they&#x27;ve gotten (when you submit an application to YC, you&#x27;re spilling a lot of beans already about yourself &#x2F; your startup to YC), all of that put together is quite the house of knowledge. And on top of it all, it owns HN and thus to some extent has the power to frame the prevailing narrative of tech, I think there is no other entity in the world more in tune with the spirit and direction of startups than YC.