Delve removed from Y Combinator

Post by alanknguyen » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 3:48 AM UTC

fontain wrote: post #98

maxbond wrote: post #34

I'm getting the impression that a lot of people in this thread think this is because they violated an open-source license and saying things to the effect of, "they're just the ones who got caught". I also thought that was the scandal initially. (And when it comes to license violations, yes, there's absolutely more where that came from.) But that's just the cherry on top. I don't think they're being thrown out because…

YC has no problem with morally questionable behavior, many YC startups do things that are just as shady. YC is, ultimately, not responsible for what these startups choose to do. Delve’s problem is that they betrayed so many other YC companies in the process. An important value of being in YC is access to a ready-made customer base. The licensing issue is nothing compared to their fake audits but it is an affront to t…

Post by kaashif » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 1:19 PM UTC

NeutralCrane wrote: post #290

kaashif wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but there is a difference between: 1. Customers want to do something, you help them do it, but it's illegal. 2. Customers want to do something, you tell them you did it, but you were lying and defrauding them.

Is there? At the end of the day both boil down to breaking the law. It’s not better to break the law because someone paid you to do so.

Post by wlonkly » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 9:02 PM UTC

miki123211 wrote: post #155

maxbond wrote: post #34

I'm getting the impression that a lot of people in this thread think this is because they violated an open-source license and saying things to the effect of, "they're just the ones who got caught". I also thought that was the scandal initially. (And when it comes to license violations, yes, there's absolutely more where that came from.) But that's just the cherry on top. I don't think they're being thrown out because…

There's an excellent podcast and writeup on this from Patrick mcKenzie, which explains the story in more detail, including an interpretation of their statement and background on why this is a scandal in the first place. https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/delve-into-co...

Post by soc2fraud » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 10:28 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #160

jacquesm wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But I'm not working at either company and I'm 99.9% sure that it would lead to absolutely nothing other than a lot of misery for myself. The NDA's I sign have some pretty stiff penalties attached. I was actually hoping to see my trust in the auditing company confirmed and I'm still more than a little bit annoyed that they did not respond in a more constructive way. My response however is a simple one: I used to…

Similar boat. Seen the same shenanigans being played with actors who really should know better - everything from military secrets to medical data, and absolutely YOLOing it with an audit mill. I have it on good authority that there are superuser credentials floating around for their production systems that they’ve lost track of. And no, I won’t whistleblow either, as it would mostly be me that would face repercussion…

Post by soc2fraud » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #124

vasco wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You should check out the banking industry sometime if you'd like to interact with a competent auditor. Compliance gets taken quite seriously in an industry where one of your principal regulatory bodies has the power to unilaterally absorb your business and defenestrate your entire leadership team in the middle of the night.