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Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

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Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#11

Post by karmakaze »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #4

I don’t understand why it’s not possible to downvote posts, I’d have saved someone else from killing his own braincells too by reading this article, instead I could not contribute to the mental health of a fellow specimen, sorry random stranger, not my fault

This could be a good feature if there's clear guidelines on what's off-topic or undesirable by some criteria. Seems more tricky than downvoting comments which works pretty well for keeping discourse civil as interests and what's interesting is very subjective. I do like systems that have a controverserial section if it doesn't attract content by its own nature.

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#12

Post by gochi »

cowthulhu wrote: post #3

If I ever run a successful business, I’m definitely going to have a “no posting about the business on social media” rule to avoid situations like this! I’m not sure who’s in the right or not, but reading through the tweets (almost) everyone involved ends up coming across as somewhat childish, which seems like a total lose-lose.

On one hand, the rule is good, on the other a loss for everyone else who enjoys influential figures demonstrating how petty and childish they are behind the layers of image crafting.

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#13

Post by snickerbockers »

WisNorCan wrote: post #6
evbogue wrote: post #2

I feel like I missed out on some major drama by not following these guys on X. Can someone explain this a little more, I feel as if I don't quite understand what the beef is just from reading the article.

As I understand it, the beef is that Neo compared themselves to YC claiming to be a better incubator because they have comparatively more mentors. YCs contention is that the number of mentors on the website is not the right way to compare. For example, the YC mentors are working full time at YC helping startups while Neo’s mentors have full time jobs elsewhere and only spend a % of their time mentoring startups. So t…

No, YC's contention is that the other organization made the (supposedly false) statement that "YC does not offer personalized advice". Which is not actually what he said at all, what he said was that they both have the same number of mentors but YC has significantly more startups.

I don't know whether those numbers are accurate or not because i don't know (or care) about either of these companies, but he definitely did not say what he's being accused of saying.

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#14

Post by WisNorCan »

verdverm wrote: post #9
WisNorCan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, the beef is that Neo compared themselves to YC claiming to be a better incubator because they have comparatively more mentors. YCs contention is that the number of mentors on the website is not the right way to compare. For example, the YC mentors are working full time at YC helping startups while Neo’s mentors have full time jobs elsewhere and only spend a % of their time mentoring startups. So t…

so the "slander" went both ways then?

Not clear that slander is in play here. Neo used a framing that made themselves look better and others look worse. YC refuted it. I am assuming YC has the receipts for broader insinuations.

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#15

Post by dustingetz »

WisNorCan wrote: post #8
cowthulhu wrote: post #3

If I ever run a successful business, I’m definitely going to have a “no posting about the business on social media” rule to avoid situations like this! I’m not sure who’s in the right or not, but reading through the tweets (almost) everyone involved ends up coming across as somewhat childish, which seems like a total lose-lose.

To be clear these are not random people inside the respective organizations. These are the CEOs of the organizations. I trust that they had the judgment to decide that they needed to defend their reputation.

lol

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#16

Post by Retric »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #4

I don’t understand why it’s not possible to downvote posts, I’d have saved someone else from killing his own braincells too by reading this article, instead I could not contribute to the mental health of a fellow specimen, sorry random stranger, not my fault

Given the option people downvote without reading quickly creating an Ecco chamber. There’s a flag function which serves a similar purpose but the extra effort lets a lot of more marginal content slip through.

You want more diverse content because it attracts a more interesting audience. There’s several mechanisms to promote this. “Health risks of travel in early-modern Britain” only has 35 upvotes in the last 6 hours but still ranks #17 because diversity is encouraged.

Another story is talking about remnants of a structure dating back “476,000 years and predating the evolution of our own species, Homo sapiens” https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2023/09/20/archaeologists-disco...

There both interesting but so is “Fine-grained caching strategies of dynamic queries” etc etc.

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#17

Post by nuclearnice1 »

gochi wrote: post #12
cowthulhu wrote: post #3

If I ever run a successful business, I’m definitely going to have a “no posting about the business on social media” rule to avoid situations like this! I’m not sure who’s in the right or not, but reading through the tweets (almost) everyone involved ends up coming across as somewhat childish, which seems like a total lose-lose.

On one hand, the rule is good, on the other a loss for everyone else who enjoys influential figures demonstrating how petty and childish they are behind the layers of image crafting.

Exactly. Almost as much fun as when Garry wanted to take our money to keep him rich: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35118988

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#18

Post by dang »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #4

I don’t understand why it’s not possible to downvote posts, I’d have saved someone else from killing his own braincells too by reading this article, instead I could not contribute to the mental health of a fellow specimen, sorry random stranger, not my fault

Flags downrank submissions and in that sense work like downvotes.

Normally we downweight articles like this but when YC or a YC startup is the story, we err on the side of moderating less - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#19

Post by android521 »

cowthulhu wrote: post #3

If I ever run a successful business, I’m definitely going to have a “no posting about the business on social media” rule to avoid situations like this! I’m not sure who’s in the right or not, but reading through the tweets (almost) everyone involved ends up coming across as somewhat childish, which seems like a total lose-lose.

well, Elon Musk who run the must successfully businesses on earth tweets all kinds of $hit and his businesses are going up and up.

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#20

Post by lnxg33k1 »

dang wrote: post #18
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #4

I don’t understand why it’s not possible to downvote posts, I’d have saved someone else from killing his own braincells too by reading this article, instead I could not contribute to the mental health of a fellow specimen, sorry random stranger, not my fault

Flags downrank submissions and in that sense work like downvotes. Normally we downweight articles like this but when YC or a YC startup is the story, we err on the side of moderating less - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... .

I read dang and thought I was being given another yellow card :look: thanks
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