It would stand to reason that many more people around the world could benefit from free course materials (as in freedom, not beer). The choice to make materials nonfree will significantly limit their distribution and derivative works, thereby reducing the amount of innovation enabled, and contradicting their own "enable maximum innovation" mission statement.
EDIT: And now sandslash has confirmed that Creative Commons is the ultimate intent. Clearly YC intends to remain consistent with it's core principles. I applaud them!
For-profit & permissive licensing aren't mutually exclusive. For-profits can release their material with permissible licenses too.
I think the parent's criticisms are valid. Consider YC's corporate mission [1]:
> Our mission is to enable the most innovation of any company in the world in order to make the future great for everyone.
[1] http://blog.samaltman.com/2017-yc-annual-letter
It would stand to reason that many more people around the world could benefit from free course materials (as in freedom, not beer). The choice to make materials nonfree will significantly limit their distribution and derivative works, thereby reducing the amount of innovation enabled, and contradicting their own "enable maximum innovation" mission statement.
EDIT: And now sandslash has confirmed that Creative Commons is the ultimate intent. Clearly YC intends to remain consistent with it's core principles. I applaud them!