That's not how investors think. They don't want to bet on one pony winning the race. Instead they bet on the whole race, on the off chance that one of them turns into a rocketship to the moon.
I do not follow in detail the individual companies that YC puts money into at early stages (there's so many of them), are there any examples of two companies YC invested in that serve basically the same purpose and market vertical where one was clearly the "winner", or both became successful and self sustaining?
There's a clause in my company, once regulations around privacy that are al least comparable to the EU are enforced, we sell all assets and return money based on profits to share holders.
Then we start a new company creating just aggressive advertising patents so that they're not created by aggressive companies.
Edit : Hypothetical company, this is all satire.