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Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

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Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#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.

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#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

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#5

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.

You could hire a Chief Drama Officer

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#6
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 the contention is that Neo is directly calling out YC and making dishonest comparisons.

There are other things as well about the ethics and behavior of the Neo founder, Ali Partovi, but it is only hinted at. Not explicitly stated with examples backing up any claims.

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#7

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.

Right, it seems like with celebrities no press is bad press (with a couple exceptions) and Twitter feuds and drama bring more interest. But doing it on behalf of a company can only look bad.

The obvious example is Musk who regularly makes himself look like an idiot, though I think the kind of whiny defensive posts mentioned in this article look way worse.

Somewhat surprisingly, I think Yan LeCunn does a decent job of posting fairly aggressive tweets but not looking like a whiner, crazy or someone shouting pointlessly into the void.

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#8

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.

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#9
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…

so the "slander" went both ways then?

Re: Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?

#10
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

Pretty sure it's an HN trope to read some of the comments before the article, in part to get a sense of the quality of the article.

So, your duty was done.

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