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YC's Biggest Scandals

ycombinator.fyi

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Re: YC's Biggest Scandals

#23

Post by tptacek »

YC has funded over 5000 companies, and this page catalogs 39 that failed, many of which, on the sites own terms, are simply business failures, with no additional drama. I don't think the authors of the site realize the case they're actually making here.

Re: YC's Biggest Scandals

#24

Post by ianm218 »

jnovek wrote: post #16

As an alum from the ancient days I take issue with many of the companies that YC funds these days. Flock? 9 Mothers? This shit is dystopian and I hate that I’m somehow even tangentially associated with it.

9 mothers appears to do defense from drones which seems completely ethical. What is dystopian about that?

Re: YC's Biggest Scandals

#26

Post by tptacek »

whiplash451 wrote: post #14
hotfixguru wrote: post #12

> DAMAGE: MIT LICENSE VIOLATED .. what? https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/

You can violate the MIT license by forgetting to preserve it. Apparently this was the case here.

So the damage here really is literally "MIT license violated".

Re: YC's Biggest Scandals

#27

Post by thekevan »

I wish there was a way to see how many grifters YC has under their umbrella compared to the general population of startups in general.

My gut says the general population has a larger percentage.

Re: YC's Biggest Scandals

#28

Post by tptacek »

theobeers wrote: post #11

While I agree that YC appears rotten to the core at this point, it’s almost impossible to sustain a criticism of the accelerator because they make so many little investments. No matter what you accuse them of, they’ll dismiss it by saying you’re cherry-picking. I have to admit, it’s a brilliant strategy to avoid any kind of accountability.

No, it's not impossible. All you have to do is make a case. Here, by the numbers, the case being made is a 3.9% failure rate, less than half of which is scandalous, all of which appear to boil down to "YC should have known better than to invest in these particular founders". Make a better case! If they're "rotten to the core", that should be easy.

I don't think the number of investments they make is your real hurdle here. I think it's that you'll have to confront people familiar with the status quo ante of YC.

Re: YC's Biggest Scandals

#29

Post by argee »

fillskills wrote: post #19

Some of these don't seem like "YC scandals": - Zenefits: A non-YC company put a spy in Zenefits. - Pebble: Still loved by many, just had black swan event of Apple launching a better product - Cruise: Looks very much like a GM issue.

A YC company (Deel) put a spy in a YC company (Rippling). Is that what you’re talking about? I can’t tell. Is there another incident?

https://www.rippling.com/blog/deel-admits-it-paid-spy-in-new...

Re: YC's Biggest Scandals

#30

Post by adrianwaj »

- allow claiming of each by founders

- release source code of each and have new section: "twinned"

- enable domain, trademark and socials acquisition and have new section: "revisited"

- enable full acquisition (including business name) and have new section: "returned"

- previous 3 becomes "legacy" or "sequel"

- don't limit to YC

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