Ask HN: Why so many solo applicants, against the odds?

Seems like every third applicant team went at it solo, despite clear indications that this wouldn't be helpful to their application.

I also see plenty of fishing for co-founders, though interestingly enough there's almost never a co-founder looking for a founder with an idea. How many founders could find cofounders if only they dropped their ideas?

It stands to reason that the ideas solo founders have occupy a continuum ranging from brilliant and groundbreaking to derivative and pedestrian, and that the talented solo founders working on the low-grade ideas could table their existing projects in order to combine their talents with another solo founder to make an awesome 2-person team with a whiz-bang idea.

If this is true, that means that half our (solo founders') ideas have negative value, but nobody knows (or can admit to themselves) who. Any thoughts on how to agglomerate solo founders into powerful teams when both sides are already committed to their own ideas?

Or is it possible, post-rejection, that there really is no need for cofounders outside of YC, and we're all just better off going it alone?