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.
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.
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.
Sometimes I will see a domain on YC and immediately know it will be LLM-designed before clicking on the link. This was one of those projects. Wish they were more human and more understated.
I mean mostly the writing. The visual design is fine but the grandiose tone is clearly LLM, as well as attempt to be “data-driven” to an absurd degree.
The screaming “DAMAGE” blocks, “body count”, “(EXHIBIT)”, “7.8X MORE SCANDALS PER YEAR”, all of this looks extremely stupid, screams LLM, and undermines the points the authors want to make.
LLMs often seem to have trouble determining the severity of a bug/incident/problem in a vacuum. If you run an LLM over 1000 items in parallel and ask "is this bad," it will come up with reasons for it to be bad way more than it might if it were considering all 1000 at the same time.
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.
Mr. Ptacek, a) I have no affiliation with OP, and b) do you know what my actual position is (not presupposing that you care)? It's that I don't know anyone who has been inspired by anything that YC has funded in a very long time. The supermajority of these startups that don't make headlines for being scams is, in a way, even sadder.
I also think it's pointless to howl at the sky about how depressing this is. It's just the current reality of SV. I'm not going to pretend that what a16z is funding is any better (or worse).
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.
There's something ironic about vibe-coding an anti-YC site. They're why OpenAI exists!
Scrolling down, a bunch of these seem to just be "the startup shut down after getting customers", which doesn't seem particularly scandalous to me?
Only a portion of these are "scandals", the rest are just usual startup failures.
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?
Probably the worry that the jump from "we defend against slaughterbots" to "we built a better slaughterbot" is just around the corner
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...
LLM-designed sites like this are always so pompous. The obnoxious format does a disservice to what you’re trying to present.
Sometimes I will see a domain on YC and immediately know it will be LLM-designed before clicking on the link. This was one of those projects. Wish they were more human and more understated.
fwiw - i think the design looks good.
I mean mostly the writing. The visual design is fine but the grandiose tone is clearly LLM, as well as attempt to be “data-driven” to an absurd degree.
The screaming “DAMAGE” blocks, “body count”, “(EXHIBIT)”, “7.8X MORE SCANDALS PER YEAR”, all of this looks extremely stupid, screams LLM, and undermines the points the authors want to make.
LLMs often seem to have trouble determining the severity of a bug/incident/problem in a vacuum. If you run an LLM over 1000 items in parallel and ask "is this bad," it will come up with reasons for it to be bad way more than it might if it were considering all 1000 at the same time.
Putting things that are clearly not scandals damages the credibility of this site and masks the actual scandals.
Between every surface being a link and the needless redacted text flourishes, this site is kind of awful to navigate on mobile.
- 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"
- don't limit to YC
Those are ONLY the public ones, I wonder how much more is swiped under the rug
uBiome is probably the biggest one: https://ycombinator.fyi/exhibit/ubiome
A shame, because the idea was good. And, with a bit of patience, it was doable.
This is one of the most annoying click-baity mechanism I have ever come across.
Yeah, we know how the economy would look like if the society considers business failures "scandals."
If all that happened to your startup is that you couldn't get traction or compete, that's not a scandal.
If you do mass investment then it's almost impossible for everything to go perfectly.
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.
> 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".
I looked — 99% of them involve AI
web2isgoinggreat
meh. someone butt-hurt from rejection would make something like this.
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.
Mr. Ptacek, a) I have no affiliation with OP, and b) do you know what my actual position is (not presupposing that you care)? It's that I don't know anyone who has been inspired by anything that YC has funded in a very long time. The supermajority of these startups that don't make headlines for being scams is, in a way, even sadder.
I also think it's pointless to howl at the sky about how depressing this is. It's just the current reality of SV. I'm not going to pretend that what a16z is funding is any better (or worse).
Selling shovels baby! For a bonus move, create spatiotemporal nexus[0] for sheep-like investors to baaa together.
[0] demo day