Michael Seibel is synonymous with Y Combinator’s growth over the past decade.

He has opinions on bigger batch sizes, a growing standard deal, competition, the power of venture capital and why startup founders should be prioritizing more than just a check after Demo Day.

Seibel spoke to TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, co-hosted by Natasha Mascarenhas and Alex Wilhelm, about Y Combinator amid market change.

He sees the institution, which has backed thousands of entrepreneurs — some of which went on to build billion-dollar companies — as a software play at heart. His perspective matters, as one of the longest-tenured denizens at Y Combinator, he helps power its selection process and priority ranking.

The entire conversation is live now wherever you find podcasts, so take a listen. Below we extracted four key excerpts from the interview to analyze further. The questions and answers were edited lightly for clarity.

The future of the standard deal