I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#1

Post by proberts » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 4:01 PM UTC

I'll be here for the few hours and then again at around 1 pm PST for another few hours. As usual, there are countless possible topics and I'll be guided by whatever you're concerned with. Please remember that I can't provide legal advice on specific cases for obvious liability reasons because I won't have access to all the facts. Please stick to a factual discussion in your questions and comments and I'll try to do the same in my answers. Thanks!

Previous threads we've done: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=proberts.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#2

Post by yu3zhou4 » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 4:09 PM UTC

What is a difference between acceptance rate among teams vs solo founders in YC?

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#3

Post by htrp » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 4:10 PM UTC

How are YC startups addressing the myriad of legal and copyright concerns around the AI models that seem to underpin so many of their business models?

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#4

Post by ub-volta-toss » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 4:11 PM UTC

Do you have a list of common red flags that engineers should avoid when considering working at a startup?

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#5

Post by baxtr » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 4:11 PM UTC

Just meta: You dropped the "immigration lawyer" part. Does this mean the scope of questions is different?

Thanks for doing this regularly!

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#6

Post by proberts » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 4:14 PM UTC

htrp wrote: post #3

How are YC startups addressing the myriad of legal and copyright concerns around the AI models that seem to underpin so many of their business models?

That's outside my area but the key is to engage with corporate/IP counsel at the outset, ideally before the company has been incorporate. One non-immigration issue that comes up all the time is incorporating before the founder has left his or her employer and thus putting the IP at risk.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#7

Post by proberts » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 4:14 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #5

Just meta: You dropped the "immigration lawyer" part. Does this mean the scope of questions is different? Thanks for doing this regularly!

Good catch! Thank you. Immigration lawyer should have been included.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#8

Post by proberts » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 4:15 PM UTC

yu3zhou4 wrote: post #2

What is a difference between acceptance rate among teams vs solo founders in YC?

Again, this is outside my scope. That question should be directed to YC directly.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#9

Post by vinnymac » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 4:15 PM UTC

I don't have a question, but wanted to let you know that your site, www.robertsimmigration.com has a self-signed certificate and therefore others cannot create a secure connection to it.

> openssl s_client -connect www.robertsimmigration.com:443 2>/dev/null

> ---

> SSL handshake has read 1859 bytes and written 427 bytes

> Verification error: self-signed certificate

> ---

Cheers

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#10

Post by porker » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 4:17 PM UTC

In the USA is there any concept of prior art when considering trademark applications, like there is with patents? If "YCombinator hosting" had been commonly used by businesses, and YC decided to trademark that phrase, would the prior usage be taken into account (and void the trademark application)?