You don't have to like it, and it doesn't have to rationalize with whatever your conception of how innovation works is. I don't like San Francisco either. My point is that you have to at least engage with the SFBA argument that YC is making.

I work for a large-ish all-remote YC company in which none of the founders live in the Bay Area (or in the same city, for that matter). People have some odd ideas of how YC actually works.