Are there any areas where an AI startup can actually make an impact? All I've seen is either billion+ funded foundational models, or thin GPT wrappers - all with the same probability of being default alive.
YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup
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Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true for every VC no? And the whole idea behind VCs? They aren't exactly only aiming to fund the startups they think 100% will be successful, as then they wouldn't fund anyone, so instead they spread out the risk to catch any surprise winners. Does anyone really look at the line-up of funded startups from a VC and think they're all winners?
Yes but there's a difference between a VC investing a billion dollars in one startup and one investing $100K each in a thousand of them. In the first case they will obviously do a ton of due diligence, go over business plans, get board seats, look at code and more. YC on the other hand has a 10-minute chat with the founder and...that's it. The earlier you invest, the larger the risk and looser the diligence.
> Yes but there's a difference between a VC investing a billion dollars in one startup and one investing $100K each in a thousand of them.
Isn't that just the difference between "seed funding" and "Series-A/B/C/$letter" funding? In the former, you want small amounts spread across as many parties as possible, while in the "Series" funding you do higher amounts but more concentrated, as you have more data to invest more in what you think will be the "winner".
> YC on the other hand has a 10-minute chat with the founder and...that's it.
I don't think that's true, but I've never been through the process myself. I know for a fact that the extensive written application is also part of it, that is reviewed by people before any interview even happens. I'm sure others who actually been through the process can add if anything is missing.
Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup
#33Wow, this clone and fork is pretty bad. This is the type of company that is accepted into YC batches now? Not good for the rep of YC.
Just the first one to be so bold. This happens in every batch AFAIK. YC continually invests in competing companies, sometimes back-to-back batches and sometimes in the same batch.
Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup
#34> YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup
Free market! Competition spurs innovation and drives down cost.
"If YC does not back them, someone else will" -- drug dealer logic applied to VC biz
Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup
#35The worst part is that instead of backing out and let's say kicking them out of the batch, YC doubled down praising the (pretty poor imho) justification that may also have been written by ChatGPT, like the license :) https://x.com/mwseibel/status/1840846817631879291
I don’t thinks its the worst , but it did feel in bad taste. YC have put money and trust in them, so why would they kick them down? Would you? They haven’t committed any crime so why would they distance themselves (Note: I am not a YC founder or affiliated with YC in any way)
They haven't built anything and didn't even bother to properly rename everything in the original repository.
It's clear they are not deserving of YC backing, nor are they trustworthy, as they seem to have misrepresented their involvement in building the software. They're not in crypto anymore :)
Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup
#36People look at the top 5 YC success stories and think every company they fund is of that standard. In reality they "graduate" 500-1000 startups every year . They aren't all winners. In fact I'd wager Pear AI is a lot closer to the norm in terms of quality and competency than, say, Stripe or Airbnb. If you look at their recent batches there is an endless parade of thin ChatGPT wrappers.
Well this just goes to the core of your view on the role of luck in life. Are there 1,000 startups coming out of YC every year and 5 of them are run by geniuses who single handedly disrupt loads of markets. Or are there 1,000 startups coming out of YC every year full of roughly equally good people 5 of which get extremely lucky and make boatloads of money. Airbnb just forked hotels, Stripe just forked Visa.
> Stripe just forked Visa
Clicking a button on GitHub is different from existing in the same industry.
Unless I am missing an Apache licensed code base that powers all of Visa…
Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup
#37I watched the video promoting Continue.dev and just think to myself, these AI editors don’t actually add much value.
EMacs and Treesitter is much faster way to “find all references to X” in the codebase. Other questions can be answered with the naive grep implementation and marginal brain power.
If all they’re investing in here is to write boilerplate code, well, that takes not much time in the grand scheme of things. Where the value add is actually in the design phase. And, as a result of these tools people are going to just skip those crucial steps.
Am I missing something?
Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup
#38People look at the top 5 YC success stories and think every company they fund is of that standard. In reality they "graduate" 500-1000 startups every year . They aren't all winners. In fact I'd wager Pear AI is a lot closer to the norm in terms of quality and competency than, say, Stripe or Airbnb. If you look at their recent batches there is an endless parade of thin ChatGPT wrappers.
> In reality they "graduate" 500-1000 startups every year.
I think people think otherwise because they used to be more selective, and haven't noticed just how much their volume has grown over the years. Early on it was a few dozen startups per year, then a hundred or so, and eventually the current state of greenlighting almost two startups every day on average (we're 275 days into the year and YC has racked up 509 companies in this years batches so far). They're less of a startup accelerator and more of a startup shotgun at this point.
Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup
#39I have been surprised recently how many competing companies YC have founded recently. I know VCs do this all the time but I still find it a bit strange - not sure how I would’ve felt if the same fund backed my competitor. That said, YC have always said that they were backing founders not ideas so …
> That said, YC have always said that they were backing founders not ideas so …
And apparently now that means they are investing in founders who know how to click a button on GitHub and have an active ChatGPT subscription
Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup
#40This is completely allowed under the apache open source license. I'm not sure why people are so upset about it. If you don't want this to happen, release software under a different licensing model.
This is a conversation I keep having with people who support permissive licenses. >Oh no, you're allowed to do whatever you want, but you shouldn't. >>Then why is Amazon allowed to do it if they shouldn't? >It's not polite. >>...
It is not that simple. Very few licenses are accepted by, e.g., Linux distributions. If you create your own modified license, for example BSD with two additional clauses that prohibit use for AI training and use in startups without significant modifications then no one will use it.
That is the reason why people are forced to release under the extremely permissive licenses and hope for moral behavior by their users.
That is the reason why the smug response "You allowed me to do this" isn't sufficient.