Do the other seed funding firms say that they'll float you an offer while you're awaiting YC's decision?
PS- I realize that with YC being the "gold standard" of seed funding, other firms will always want to get earlier commitment. But moralizing about adding stress makes little sense when other firms currently have no way to actually cooperate.
I think the problem somewhat isn't so much with YC being the gold standard, it's that the amount of differentiation of the various accelerators is less than desirable.
They all do pretty much the same cash, at the same time, with the same relatively wide net, for the same percentage.
If on the other hand, one group focused, say, exclusively on mobile or e-commerce or B2B or infrastructure or started at a different time of the year, or offered more cash, or wanted a smaller slice I think suddenly they could make the time frame less relevant.
And interview later unless they want to make long-standing offers. Perhaps making YC have an explicitly longer acceptance period would encourage the reputable funds to interview concurrently, causing the games played by the disreputable ones to become more transparent?
PS- I realize that with YC being the "gold standard" of seed funding, other firms will always want to get earlier commitment. But moralizing about adding stress makes little sense when other firms currently have no way to actually cooperate.