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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

#161
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's still selective compared to the volume of applicants though and the output isn't universally stellar but generally regarded as pretty high. Compared to YC's recent batches with a large number of ChatGPT and other gen AI model wrappers.

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

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless, the investor is just trying to fund the most ruthless, least ethical, win-at-all-costs type of people This is exactly what VCs are looking for. They are going to hand you a check worth several hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. They are not doing this because it's a charity; they are doing this because they are making a bet that they'll get some return on that investment. This is the purpose of a…

Spoken as if there was only one single binary option for investment! The strategy implies that the marginal value of the lack of ethics/the personality type to do that is the thing thats worth investment. If thats true, then venture capitalism and perhaps capitalism itself is super fucked: a machine for developing and rewarding the worst impulses of humanity.

Yes. That's exactly what capitalism is.

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

#163
post #42

I 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…

> 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 ve tried to use these editors. I tried using copilot and gemini... They all hinder me more than help. And yet I use chatgpt few hours per day copy/pasting my code between my editor and a browser and it makes me massively more productive.

Why? Because all these editors/add ons overwhelm the model with useless context while at the same time lack actual guidance of a proper prompt. They are all follies giving people false hope they can have stuff "happen" without any skill involved.

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

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless, the investor is just trying to fund the most ruthless, least ethical, win-at-all-costs type of people Just, Devil's Advocate. But isn't that kind of a smart strategy? Not saying it's "nice", nor even how I would do things. But I'd imagine many, many people get excessively wealthy investing in this fashion.

That's why I pointed it out. It's a perfectly legitimate explanation for this type of behavior. (And, imo, abhorrent and where capitalism-as-harnessing-greed really falls apart.) As for "smart," I assume there are some not well understood externalities to this kind of behavior, such as erosion of trust or other social ills that are hard to quantify until they reach a critical point.

>As for "smart," I assume there are some not well understood externalities to this kind of behavior, such as erosion of trust or other social ills that are hard to quantify until they reach a critical point.

I think the externalities may be hard to quantify but they are well-understood by now (and are things like erosion of trust, which you mentioned).

Just look at the societal attitudes towards Silicon Valley now vs. 25 years ago. VCs complain about how society now so full of negativity towards technology, but they only have themselves to blame for that. They shit the bed, and people got wise.

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

#165
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The code of note is in the pearai-submodule subrepo. Check out this fun commit:

https://github.com/trypear/pearai-submodule/commit/335436b47...

It's claimed to be accidental, but the entire commit history is full of commits saying "remove cont....." that neuter all references to Continue. They didn't even want the name in the commit history.

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

#166
post #56
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Is your standard for ethics really, "Well it's not a criminal violation of the law?"

There's a question in a (reasonably) dead reply that I want to resurrect:

> Are we to go out and memorize everyone’s personal framework/religion (cause I can tell I’m not going to) or do you have something else in mind except a dead end question that goes nowhere?

No, what I expect is for people to have thought about their own personal framework.

That said, it's worth at least understanding a bit about other people's frameworks, because a) people have been thinking and writing about these topics for thousands of years, and you just might learn something. And b) you are living in a world with other people, people who are not dummies. If your own moral code is, say, "grab the cash and run", there going to treat you differently.

That's part of why most professional organizations will have codes of ethics. E.g., IEEE has a good one for themselves [1] and another one specifically for software engineers. [2] It's true even in areas where making money is the primary goal, like business and finance.

Take the current article as an example. The PearAI founders have revealed something about their moral code. That will matter down the road. E.g., Whenever I'm hiring somebody I'll look at their resume and flag companies with known ethical problems. Maybe that gets them binned, maybe I ask them about it. And when I've founded something, the ethics of my cofounders has been among my highest criteria. That's true for a lot of founders and execs I know.

[1] https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html

[2] https://ethics.acm.org/code-of-ethics/software-engineering-c...

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

#167
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.

There’s legality, and bad taste.

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

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Unless, the investor is just trying to fund the most ruthless, least ethical, win-at-all-costs type of people This is exactly what VCs are looking for. They are going to hand you a check worth several hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. They are not doing this because it's a charity; they are doing this because they are making a bet that they'll get some return on that investment. This is the purpose of a…

There’s also ego and fame at stake. VCs are hardly optimal.

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

#170
Do we have public sources on YC’s recent returns, e.g. on its ‘20 or ‘23?

Pitchbook shows -16% IRR for YCCG21 (TVPI .73x, -1810 bps on benchmark) and -5% for ESP22 (TVPI .93x, +25 bps on benchmark). But those were notoriously difficult vintages.

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