Delve removed from Y Combinator • Hacker News Board

Re: Delve removed from Y Combinator

#211

Post by ohashi » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 10:35 AM UTC

LunaSea wrote: post #209

jmcgough wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've graduated 5,000+ companies, so some fraud is hard to avoid, especially with young hungry founders willing to do anything to succeed. Honestly, it's a pretty good track record that there's only been a handful of companies like this.

It's precisely because they graduated 5000+ companies that fraud is more difficult to avoid. They scaled up massively the size of each batch and their frequency to a point where they are incapable of auditing them.

Maybe someone should start an auditing company for YC... oh

Re: Delve removed from Y Combinator

#212

Post by mgraczyk » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 10:36 AM UTC

Having gone through the SOC2 process multiple times and having worked with and read SOC2 reports from many public companies, it's difficult for me to understand the outrage.

The specific fraud allegations are bad (lying about US based auditors) but it's completely normal and common for soc2 reports to be templates with no company specific information. It would be unusual for reports to include anything about the specific information found during an observation window as some have suggested.

SOC2 is basically fake and it isn't possible in practice to fail to be compliant. You really can apply the same template to all companies and automate the audit process.

Re: Delve removed from Y Combinator

#213

Post by penguoir » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 10:39 AM UTC

Here is Delve’s defence to the whistleblower

https://delve.co/blog/response-to-misleading-claims

Re: Delve removed from Y Combinator

#214

Post by raverbashing » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 10:40 AM UTC

argee wrote: post #65

wenbin wrote: post #38

Curious - in this situation, does delve return money to YC? Or YC simply writes off the investment

Neither. "Leaving YC" or "being removed from Y combinator" really just means you (more precisely, your YC/HN account) loses access to internal resources like bookface. This does have the knock on effect of essentially isolating you from the community. It's not entirely a punishment , it can be as simple as you are a person who isn't working on a YC company anymore, for example. This has zero bearing on equity, which…

The investment details really depends on the term sheet details

And I don't think this is just not "getting locked out of the website", but losing the YC "nod" is a greater deal in itself

Re: Delve removed from Y Combinator

#215

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 10:41 AM UTC

vasco wrote: post #117

jacquesm wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came across a top tier compliance auditor doing the same thing recently. I tried to talk to them about it and rather than approaching this from a constructive point of view they wanted to know the name of the company that got certified so they could decertify them and essentially asked me to break my NDA. That wasn't going to happen, I wanted to have a far more structural conversation about this and how they probab…

It's auditing, nobody that is good at doing anything goes to auditing, unfortunately its one of those jobs. I haven't interacted with any auditor that actually understood all they were auditing, some are better than others but the average is worse than almost any other job description I have dealt with.

[deleted]

Re: Delve removed from Y Combinator

#216

Post by transcriptase » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 10:45 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #210

senko wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YC has a lot to answer for in the damage it's wreaked over the years. What damage is that? (excluding the present case)

They’re responsible for the existence of scribd. Not aware of any other obviously socially net negative companies.

For the uninformed what’s the deal with scribd?

Re: Delve removed from Y Combinator

#217

Post by energy123 » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 10:46 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #210

senko wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YC has a lot to answer for in the damage it's wreaked over the years. What damage is that? (excluding the present case)

They’re responsible for the existence of scribd. Not aware of any other obviously socially net negative companies.

Re: Delve removed from Y Combinator

#218

Post by vr46 » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 10:46 AM UTC

avaer wrote: post #57

hbbio wrote: post #50

This other profile is still up: https://www.forbes.com/profile/delve/ 30U30 never ceases to amaze.

I wonder if the kind of personality that gets you on 30U30 correlates with being willing to engage in massive fraud, and being able to get away with it for a minute. Holmes, SBF, Shkreli, Charlie Javice, Ishan Wahi...

When the stakes are high, non-compliance with the rules or the law might be worth the risk, see professional athletes and drug cheats, right?

Karma and integrity seem to be treated as an overdraft. But these folks are hardly held back by the systems they work in.

Re: Delve removed from Y Combinator

#219

Post by monsieurbanana » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 10:48 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #210

senko wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YC has a lot to answer for in the damage it's wreaked over the years. What damage is that? (excluding the present case)

They’re responsible for the existence of scribd. Not aware of any other obviously socially net negative companies.

Airbnb

Re: Delve removed from Y Combinator

#220

Post by rvz » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 11:01 AM UTC

kshri24 wrote: post #142

YC needs to go back to how it was. Choosing those who know what they are doing, and have been in the game for long and not blindly choose those who have graduated from tier-1 institutions. University degrees mean nothing at the end of the day. And please stop investing in slop/wrappers. They do not solve World's problems. I feel there has been complacency set into investing in general where investors are chasing quic…

Agreed.