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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

#101

Post by pj_mukh »

mlyle wrote: post #88
CharlieDigital wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter so long as they didn't violate any licenses. Where the product starts and where it ends will be two totally different endpoints that are sure to diverge once they find their domain and business model.

Starting off by making an obviously hamfisted move matters. It's a headwind to overcome. Is it possible to overcome? Sure. Yes, you can heal after shooting yourself in the foot. (And, of course, removing attribution is violating licenses ). However, they're unlikely to face litigation for this. The possible legal consequences aren't the actual consequences they're likely to face.

AFAICT, the attribution's been there since the beginning on their GitHub? (see: About section)[1].

I agree adding their own license was hamfisted, but honestly, if I'm funding a company I hope they would spend less than https://github.com/trypear/pearai-app?tab=readme-ov-file

Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup

#102

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

paxys wrote: post #4

People 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.

What does this do to society when people with no product, no use, and no hope of profit are consistently rewarded with free money? It practically incentivizes bullshit.

Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup

#103

Post by lolinder »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #68

I've been in the VC-backed startup space as a lead/principal engineer or technical advisor for the last 4 years. In that time, I've worked at 1 startup that closed a $100m C, one that closed a multi-million B, one that recently closed a $30m C, and one that started with a $8m seed. I've started my own startup and worked with founders of other startups on the side advising on the technical side (and once in a while bu…

> bad teams can rarely survive turbulence and it is so hard to tell if a team has the right "vibes" or not.

Their apology makes it pretty clear that this team doesn't have the right vibes:

"We thought the license in the root repo wasn’t that important, so we just generated one that we thought was open."

The license that was generated was the "Pear Enterprise License". These guys thought the license didn't matter so their instinct was to ask ChatGPT to generate one that they "thought was open" and they didn't even blink when it generated one with "Enterprise" in the title.

These guys are either dishonest or completely out of their depth.

https://x.com/CodeFryingPan/status/1840831339337302204

Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup

#104

Post by drawkward »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #81
kibwen wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is not that they stole the idea, it's that they literally just took an open-source codebase and filed off the serial numbers to claim it as their own proprietary work, and they did so in the most comically inept way possible. From the OP: PearAI offers an AI coding editor. The startup’s founder Duke Pan has openly said that it’s a cloned copy of another AI editor called Continue, which was covered un…

It doesn't matter so long as they didn't violate any licenses. Where the product starts and where it ends will be two totally different endpoints that are sure to diverge once they find their domain and business model.

If you are so inept that copying someone else's codebase wholesale is what makes you a viable company, then perhaps you aren't worthy of investing in.

Unless, the investor is just trying to fund the most ruthless, least ethical, win-at-all-costs type of people, which as I type this seems like a sad but unsurprising move.

Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup

#105

Post by tb1989 »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #68

I've been in the VC-backed startup space as a lead/principal engineer or technical advisor for the last 4 years. In that time, I've worked at 1 startup that closed a $100m C, one that closed a multi-million B, one that recently closed a $30m C, and one that started with a $8m seed. I've started my own startup and worked with founders of other startups on the side advising on the technical side (and once in a while bu…

[flagged]

Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup

#106

Post by TZubiri »

"it’s a cloned copy of another AI editor called Continue, which was covered under the Apache open source license Apache open source license. But PearAI made a major misstep: PearAI originally slapped its own made-up closed license on it, called the Pear Enterprise License, which Pan admitted was written by ChatGPT."

Denormalize incompetence again

Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup

#107

Post by hallway_monitor »

oceanplexian wrote: post #48
paxys wrote: post #4

People 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.

It’s game theory. AWS would do the same thing by pitting teams against each other internally. Often times, we would have multiple products doing the same exact thing but slightly differentiated. Of course AWS claims to not deprecate services but they would resource the successful service team and PIP everyone out of the unsuccessful team and bring it back to a skeleton crew. If you wonder why the AWS Product offering…

With how terrible AWS is to use this makes complete sense. I will stick with Azure when I can, which is usually.

Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup

#108

Post by drawkward »

whiplash451 wrote: post #84
CharlieDigital wrote: post #68

I've been in the VC-backed startup space as a lead/principal engineer or technical advisor for the last 4 years. In that time, I've worked at 1 startup that closed a $100m C, one that closed a multi-million B, one that recently closed a $30m C, and one that started with a $8m seed. I've started my own startup and worked with founders of other startups on the side advising on the technical side (and once in a while bu…

Your comment is interesting but seems orthogonal to the problem at hand. We are talking about a company that clearly showed bad intent and dishonesty in their attitude. And that's doing a big disservice to the AI space coming from a high-profile incubator such as YC. If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to be a terrible warning.

Maybe the point isnt to invest in the team with the best ideas, but to invest in the most ruthless/least ethical because thats what the investors believe will win the day?

Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup

#109

Post by paxys »

jessriedel wrote: post #90
jsheard wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 co…

Yea I sorta figured YC was more like Harvard in that the brand and selectivity are super important. Isn’t this eating the seed corn?

Harvard admits 2,000 students every year, so it isn't all that different. The reputation is always built/sustained by the outliers rather than the average graduate.

Re: YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup

#110

Post by dewey »

sgarland wrote: post #62
dewey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I missing something? Yes, you are basically posting a modern equivalent of the famous "Dropbox reply". "EMacs and Treesitter...naive grep implementation". There's value in these tools, that's why GitHub, JetBrains, Cursor all built businesses on top of AI coding extensions. Personally I don't use the "Write this full function for me"-features but use it as a way smarter auto-complete. People don't really use the…

I don’t think expecting someone to know how to set up an editor (or not; there are plenty of turnkey distros like LazyVim) or knowing how to use the most basic of *nix tools is on par with the Dropbox reply. > there’s value in these tools, that’s why… all built businesses on top of AI Or is it because those companies realized they would rapidly lose market share if they didn’t? You don’t have to add value to become p…

> You don’t have to add value to become popular

Nothing in the company I work for got adopted as fast as GitHub Copilot. I think it provides value for myself too. So saying that it doesn't provide value is definitely wrong, and I was skeptical at first too.

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