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LARP – Revenue infrastructure for serious founders

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Re: LARP – Revenue infrastructure for serious founders

#71
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am the author. Yes, insurance is mostly a box ticking exercise for most startups. My concern with Corgi is that even after accounting for how unimportant insurance is to startups, they are so blasé about their underwriting that for the small number of startups that will eventually need the protection insurance offers, there is a substantial amount of exposure to Corgi going under. A typical startup needs D&O i…

I think that's a reasonable concern, but I feel like there's no meat to this accusation in in the article. They found a way to sidestep regulations in a non-traditional way, they're using AI for underwriting, but like I said, there's no actual evidence the underwriting is wrong. Is a startup gets insurance for something they couldn't get insurance for elsewhere and then Corgi goes belly up, the startup is our their p…

> Is a startup gets insurance for something they couldn't get insurance for elsewhere and then Corgi goes belly up, the startup is our their premiums but otherwise in the same place.

That’s not accurate if the startup is making a claim against their insurance. And even in cases where the startup hasn’t yet filed a claim, losing insurance that cannot be replaced could be catastrophic. Corgi are insuring things that are uninsurable elsewhere. If your startup relies on being insured against hallucination risk, and you lose your hallucination risk insurance, then what?

> For all we know, there are multiple risk groups under the hood for different risk types/profiles to insulate mispricing of different policy types.

There aren’t and there can’t be. A Risk Retention Group requires that all insured parties are equal members, Corgi cannot divide customers up based on risk profile. The entire premise of a Risk Retention Group is the risk is shared across all members. Hence, it is wildly unsuitable for how it is being used by Corgi.

> Honestly, I feel like startups don't buy insurance at all unless customers ask, there's just nothing meaningful there to insure.

Newfront built a $1.2bn business on startup insurance.

> If you fuck up that badly you're probably just going to go out of business even if the insurance check comes through.

We live in a brave new world. Startups are doing more and more politically and socially risky business, like AI medical advice. You are assuming that a startup being sued and losing their insurance is whatever, just shut down the company, but the founders are at risk, and losing legal coverage mid litigation has a material impact on their ability to defend themselves. Good lawyers can keep founders out of prison, no lawyers cannot.

Re: LARP – Revenue infrastructure for serious founders

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corgi is even worse than just circular revenue, their entire insurance business is a house of cards: https://reticulating.substack.com/p/ycombinators-corgi-insur...

> As of 2026-07-13, Corgi’s promise of a lawsuit against the author for this post has not materialized. Readers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about Corgi’s choice to try and suppress articles with the use of baseless legal threats. Did you write in more detail about that threat somewhere?

"Corgi builds insurance structures that allow us to best serve the needs of our customers. For technology companies, operating a technology liability line through a Risk Retention Group is not unusual, improper, or exotic; it is a standard insurance structure for specialty liability risks where similarly situated businesses benefit from tailored underwriting, specialized coverage, and risk alignment. The suggestion that Corgi customers are unknowingly taking on “balance sheet risk,” member-assessment risk, or responsibility for unrelated insureds’ liabilities is false.

Your draft’s statement that “Corgi will help you share that risk,” combined with the question whether customers understand the risk of other companies in the group, does not merely describe RRGs in the abstract. It falsely implies that Corgi leaves customers exposed to open ended financial liability for other insureds. That implication is defamatory and false. RRGs are regulated insurance carriers subject to financial, reserve, governance, and regulatory requirements. They are not informal risk sharing clubs where policyholders unknowingly become responsible for each other’s balance sheets.

The RRG structure unique to Corgi. Major insurance groups use different insurer structures for different classes of risk because different risks are best served by different structures. Berkshire Hathaway, which the draft itself invokes, has affiliated insurance operations involving Risk Retention Groups in specialty liability markets, including medical and legal professional liability. That underscores the point: RRGs are a widely recognized insurance structure for specialty liability lines, and allow insurers to provide more tailored coverage options rather than issuing a generic policy.

The draft’s statement that Corgi “innovated with AI in a regulated industry by cutting corners” is also false and defamatory. Corgi raised millions pre-revenue and spent nearly two years building and obtaining regulatory approvals for its insurance operations, including approvals and requirements relating to reserves, pricing, liquidity, governance, and compliance. That is the opposite of “cutting corners.” Any allegation that Corgi used AI to evade regulatory approval, underwriting standards, reserve requirements, pricing controls, liquidity controls, or other compliance obligations is false.

Any article suggesting otherwise, including by implying that Corgi misleads customers, conceals the RRG structure, exposes policyholders to undisclosed balance-sheet risk, or uses RRGs and AI to evade proper underwriting or regulatory obligations, is false and highly damaging.

To be clear, if you publish these false statements or defamatory implications, Corgi will sue you personally and will pursue all available claims and remedies against you and any other responsible parties. Corgi has enforced its rights before and will do so again. You should not mistake this for an abstract legal reservation."

From their head of legal.

Re: LARP – Revenue infrastructure for serious founders

#73

I had serious concerns as an accountant until I realized how familiar everything sounded.

I took quite a few accounting courses in University. For every topic we covered, our business school ensured that we wrapped up by examining a case of fraud involving that mechanism. I am grateful that now I know what not to do, and that professional accountants are well versed in all the lates types of fraud so that they can stay away from it.

Re: LARP – Revenue infrastructure for serious founders

#78
post #22

What I wonder is what LARP stands for. something like “looped/linked annual revenue platform”? (Don’t answer with something about role playing, it’s definitely not that)

It is definitely the life-action role playing definition. As in you’re LARPing a successful company with high cash flow. I know it has nothing to do with actual role playing, it’s just the popular way of calling someone a poser on the internet at the moment.

Re: LARP – Revenue infrastructure for serious founders

#80
post #22

What I wonder is what LARP stands for. something like “looped/linked annual revenue platform”? (Don’t answer with something about role playing, it’s definitely not that)

it does still stand for Live Action Role Plating, but the meaning of the acronym on the internet has been expanded over the past few months to mean anything like "pretending" or "lying".
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