I disagree with your approach on deciding if YC is worth it. I feel like VCs are particularly biased against YC and are incentivized to tell you it's not worth it. I think what you should have done is also seek out as many YC alumni as you can and ask what their opinion was. I guarantee you all of them would've said it's worth it.

+1 on this answer. Put another way, it's a programmable settlement layer for the internet that anyone can access and is always online. Add in standardized interfaces and all applications built on it become easier to work with and extend.

I agree with this. Worked with a guy who sounds exactly like OP. The official perception was that he was a smart 10x engineer. But off the record people actually hated working with him. He was a massive control freak and the only reason we bought anything up with him was so he didn't have a cry about it later.

Sometimes the "10x engineer" is just the one that's loudest and most persistent. Doesn't mean they're good. Just means no one else can be fucked dealing with them.

I've worked at all company sizes from big tech, scale ups, and early stage startups. From my experience, I've learnt the most and done a lot of interesting work when the company size was smaller. Although a lot of people seem to care most about what I did at the big tech company and get surprised when I tell them I spent the whole sprint fixing some line on some sub menu.