I think most people who invest in startups do it in the hope of actually making money. And while the average return may be negative, the best investors make a lot. You just have to be honest with yourself about whether you're a good investor.
At YC what drives us to make money is not wanting to be bad at what we do. If all the startups we fund fail, then we look bad, and we are the kind of people who really hate to look bad. That's arguably one of the unseen benefits of YC: if someone takes funding from us, they put themselves in a position where if they fail, we fail. YC is so public that we work much harder to make sure companies succeed than we would if we cared only about the returns.
At YC what drives us to make money is not wanting to be bad at what we do. If all the startups we fund fail, then we look bad, and we are the kind of people who really hate to look bad. That's arguably one of the unseen benefits of YC: if someone takes funding from us, they put themselves in a position where if they fail, we fail. YC is so public that we work much harder to make sure companies succeed than we would if we cared only about the returns.