He has four points of comparison, so I want to address them below from the perspective of someone who has done YC.
Location: I really don't see the NYC advantage. It's even MORE expensive than SV, there are fewer angels and VCs, and the culture worships investment banking instead of startups. I would say NYC is probably the second best place to start a startup after SV, but it's a distant second.
Mentorship and events: This does seem to accurately describe a difference between the two programs. In YC you'd never[1] spend an entire month (let alone the first month) in meetings. And YC is mostly about advice from YC rather than from a larger group of mentors. [2]
Size of the program: YC is much bigger than TechStars. Of course, YC can be bigger because it gets so many more applicants. While you may share access to the YC partners with more startups, they commit enough time to make sure everyone has all the access they need.
Demo Day: If you've ever been to a YC demo day, you know it's incredibly intense. Three days of presentations to many of the top investors in the world, packing the house. The presentations may be shorter, but it doesn't seem to hurt anyone's ability to raise money.[3]
[1] There are probably exceptions to this, for people who somehow already have products coming into YC, but offhand I can't think of one.
[2] Of course YC can introduce you to pretty much anyone at this point due to the size of the network, but I don't think that's really the central point of YC.
[3] Side note: I find the complaint that the pitches are "informal" a little weird, since I think one of the things that makes startups so dangerous is exactly that they are allowed to skip the formalities and cut to the chase.
WRT NYC, there's probably a big advantage to the less competition for talent. When you're recruiting out of college, NYC is probably as easy of a sell as SF, if not easier, and you're not fighting Facebook, Zynga, Twitter, etc. for those same people. A lot of people choose where they want to live and then where they want to work, especially programmers since a guy with a CS degree from MIT or CMU can get a job anywhere.
Possibly true given that startup employees tend to also not mind being Google / Facebook employees. However, don't discount the Wall Street / financial industry pull. For hacker employees, median cash compensation in finance dominates startups.
Plus, the number of hacker-friendly finance firms doing heavy recruiting seems to be on the rise (as a first order approximation, that's any finance firm run by mathematicians or computer scientists).
"When you're recruiting out of college, NYC is probably as easy of a sell as SF, if not easier, and you're not fighting Facebook, Zynga, Twitter, etc. for those same people."
If we're talking about programmers, I think you're also fighting with Wall Street and $$$'s.
Having lived in both SF and NYC, I would say NYC is more expensive IF you live in Manhattan. If you live in Brooklyn (which is not a bad 'consolation' prize since the bars/concert halls/people are great), it's pretty comparable.
I also found it much easier to find designers because of the agencies/firms that choose NY as their HQ. Living in SF now, I'm still trying to find where they hang out.
Location: I really don't see the NYC advantage. It's even MORE expensive than SV, there are fewer angels and VCs, and the culture worships investment banking instead of startups. I would say NYC is probably the second best place to start a startup after SV, but it's a distant second.
Mentorship and events: This does seem to accurately describe a difference between the two programs. In YC you'd never[1] spend an entire month (let alone the first month) in meetings. And YC is mostly about advice from YC rather than from a larger group of mentors. [2]
Size of the program: YC is much bigger than TechStars. Of course, YC can be bigger because it gets so many more applicants. While you may share access to the YC partners with more startups, they commit enough time to make sure everyone has all the access they need.
Demo Day: If you've ever been to a YC demo day, you know it's incredibly intense. Three days of presentations to many of the top investors in the world, packing the house. The presentations may be shorter, but it doesn't seem to hurt anyone's ability to raise money.[3]
[1] There are probably exceptions to this, for people who somehow already have products coming into YC, but offhand I can't think of one.
[2] Of course YC can introduce you to pretty much anyone at this point due to the size of the network, but I don't think that's really the central point of YC.
[3] Side note: I find the complaint that the pitches are "informal" a little weird, since I think one of the things that makes startups so dangerous is exactly that they are allowed to skip the formalities and cut to the chase.