4 ms·

What's the big deal? Homejoy is just hacking startup downfunding... (/s) I'd like to see some kind of stronger YC influence on ethics in the companies they fun

What's the big deal? Homejoy is just hacking startup downfunding... (/s) I'd like to see some kind of stronger YC influence on ethics in the companies they fund. I realize that YC doesn't have any direct control over the companies, but it could be as simple as including good ethics in the traits they look for in startup founders. A while back I started compiling a list of YC companies that spammed or otherwise behaved badly. It quickly got back-burnered by other projects, but there was AirBnB from W09, InstallMonetizer and SocialCam from W12, Zenefits from W13, Abacus and GetAirHelp from W14, Gradberry and OmniRef from W15 ... while so far it looks like the majority of YC startups are well-behaved, the trend was looking like there's a few in every batch that are willing to do shady things to meet their growth metrics. Or, in Homejoy's case, maybe make a little more money while winding down.

JoblessWonder 11y ago
Does YC officially offer any ethics training/mentoring? It would be an interesting offering even if there isn't any weight behind it. Sometimes I think the message, "Hey, maybe we should all think about what we are doing and whether or not it is in the best interest of something besides our bottom line" isn't something that is brought up/told to a lot of founders. However, whether or not they listen is totally up to them and I am fine with that.
gkoberger 11y ago
YC makes it very clear they will disavow any company or founder that acts unethically. YC is strict about very few things, but this was made clear in no uncertain terms (especially by Jessica). When things go bad, YC always gets involved – even if you don't read about it online. Don't blame YC just yet. We don't know what happened here. Maybe Homejoy went into debt, had their assets seized, and lost control (like with GigaOM). Maybe the investors approved or forced a reincorporation under another name. Maybe Handy bought the assets and is quickly trying to stem off churn. Or, yeah, maybe something unethical happened. Until we know what happened, though, it's all speculation.
- thaumaturgy 11y ago
  Is this a new policy? Because the company that prompted me to start the list, Zenefits, is still a Paul Graham darling: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/654377298234224640 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/654377298234224640 Or, might be that our definitions of unethical don't match up 100%. I consider spam to be unethical, maybe you just mean more serious offenses.
  - ericsidelis 11y ago
    I guess we all have different views on ethics, maybe I'm just used to seeing spam and tossing it out. I find it harmless now because I'm so used to getting it...but its interesting to see how offended people get when they see unsolicited virtual mail which can be deleted with a click of a button. I'm actually more concerned about the actual spam in my real world mailbox that USPS dumps 3 times a week, no opt-out button there.
    - thaumaturgy 11y ago
      Among my responsibilities is systems administration for hosted services for customers, including email. What is for you a minor nuisance is for me a major time-consuming headache. For instance, even with a top-of-the-line modern mail stack, including SpamAssassin and greylisting and so and so forth, enough spam was still getting through to customer inboxes that I've had to develop additional non-trivial software specifically for dealing with it. I beat this drum occasionally because I don't want to have to pit my meager resources against the resources of someone like YCombinator who are willing to provide funding (and introductions to enormous amounts of even more funding) to companies that are OK with spamming. And I'm not including B2B cold emails as "spam", even if they're written as a template, so long as there's an actual human behind them and they aren't being sent out en masse (for example, Locbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4672162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4672162).
    - wpietri 11y ago
      At this point I have been hearing this sorry excuse for twenty years. At least it once had the value of novelty. Spam is illegal, so that's one good sign it might be unethical. About 90% of email is spam [1]; the reason you aren't spending all day "deleting with the click of a button" is that a lot of smart people and a lot of computing power are devoted to keeping most of that spam out of your inbox. You should be thankful for the people who get offended about this stuff, because its only their reactions and their hard work that have kept email a usable medium. [1] https://www.m3aawg.org/sites/default/files/document/M3AAWG_2012-2014Q2_Spam_Metrics_Report16.pdf https://www.m3aawg.org/sites/default/files/document/M3AAWG_2...
cortesoft 11y ago
Well, given that the YC official stance on founders is that they should 'be a little naughty' and that they expect founds to not care 'about observing proprieties', I am not surprised that the founders would be a little shady when things aren't going well. http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html
- ericsidelis 11y ago
  Looks like the list Santa uses to give gifts on christmas
ericsidelis 11y ago
I doubt that spam or cold emails are considered a major breach of ethics. We might as well start filing lawsuits against the thousands of startups that spam the crap out of my inbox everyday. To fix all of that I just have a really good spam filter.
leelin 11y ago
Yes, YC specifically posted about founder ethics a year and a half ago. https://blog.ycombinator.com/founder-ethics https://blog.ycombinator.com/founder-ethics https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ "To maintain our community, if a founder behaves unethically during or after YC, we will revoke their YC founder status. This includes access to all Y Combinator spaces, software, lists and events." "We will stand behind you no matter how much your company struggles, as long as you behave ethically."
forgottenpass 11y ago
I'd like to see some kind of stronger YC influence on ethics in the companies they fund. Great idea, maybe you should take that up with Paul "Morally, [the founders we want to fund] care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil." Graham.
- jarek 11y ago
  You say "lying", I say "exploring a few different angles on communication" /s

JoblessWonder 11y ago

Does YC officially offer any ethics training/mentoring? It would be an interesting offering even if there isn't any weight behind it. Sometimes I think the message, "Hey, maybe we should all think about what we are doing and whether or not it is in the best interest of something besides our bottom line" isn't something that is brought up/told to a lot of founders. However, whether or not they listen is totally up to them and I am fine with that.

gkoberger 11y ago

YC makes it very clear they will disavow any company or founder that acts unethically. YC is strict about very few things, but this was made clear in no uncertain terms (especially by Jessica). When things go bad, YC always gets involved – even if you don't read about it online. Don't blame YC just yet. We don't know what happened here. Maybe Homejoy went into debt, had their assets seized, and lost control (like with GigaOM). Maybe the investors approved or forced a reincorporation under another name. Maybe Handy bought the assets and is quickly trying to stem off churn. Or, yeah, maybe something unethical happened. Until we know what happened, though, it's all speculation.

thaumaturgy 11y ago
Is this a new policy? Because the company that prompted me to start the list, Zenefits, is still a Paul Graham darling: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/654377298234224640 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/654377298234224640 Or, might be that our definitions of unethical don't match up 100%. I consider spam to be unethical, maybe you just mean more serious offenses.
- ericsidelis 11y ago
  I guess we all have different views on ethics, maybe I'm just used to seeing spam and tossing it out. I find it harmless now because I'm so used to getting it...but its interesting to see how offended people get when they see unsolicited virtual mail which can be deleted with a click of a button. I'm actually more concerned about the actual spam in my real world mailbox that USPS dumps 3 times a week, no opt-out button there.
  - thaumaturgy 11y ago
    Among my responsibilities is systems administration for hosted services for customers, including email. What is for you a minor nuisance is for me a major time-consuming headache. For instance, even with a top-of-the-line modern mail stack, including SpamAssassin and greylisting and so and so forth, enough spam was still getting through to customer inboxes that I've had to develop additional non-trivial software specifically for dealing with it. I beat this drum occasionally because I don't want to have to pit my meager resources against the resources of someone like YCombinator who are willing to provide funding (and introductions to enormous amounts of even more funding) to companies that are OK with spamming. And I'm not including B2B cold emails as "spam", even if they're written as a template, so long as there's an actual human behind them and they aren't being sent out en masse (for example, Locbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4672162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4672162).
  - wpietri 11y ago
    At this point I have been hearing this sorry excuse for twenty years. At least it once had the value of novelty. Spam is illegal, so that's one good sign it might be unethical. About 90% of email is spam [1]; the reason you aren't spending all day "deleting with the click of a button" is that a lot of smart people and a lot of computing power are devoted to keeping most of that spam out of your inbox. You should be thankful for the people who get offended about this stuff, because its only their reactions and their hard work that have kept email a usable medium. [1] https://www.m3aawg.org/sites/default/files/document/M3AAWG_2012-2014Q2_Spam_Metrics_Report16.pdf https://www.m3aawg.org/sites/default/files/document/M3AAWG_2...

cortesoft 11y ago

Well, given that the YC official stance on founders is that they should 'be a little naughty' and that they expect founds to not care 'about observing proprieties', I am not surprised that the founders would be a little shady when things aren't going well. http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html

ericsidelis 11y ago
Looks like the list Santa uses to give gifts on christmas

ericsidelis 11y ago

I doubt that spam or cold emails are considered a major breach of ethics. We might as well start filing lawsuits against the thousands of startups that spam the crap out of my inbox everyday. To fix all of that I just have a really good spam filter.

leelin 11y ago

Yes, YC specifically posted about founder ethics a year and a half ago. https://blog.ycombinator.com/founder-ethics https://blog.ycombinator.com/founder-ethics https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ "To maintain our community, if a founder behaves unethically during or after YC, we will revoke their YC founder status. This includes access to all Y Combinator spaces, software, lists and events." "We will stand behind you no matter how much your company struggles, as long as you behave ethically."

forgottenpass 11y ago

I'd like to see some kind of stronger YC influence on ethics in the companies they fund. Great idea, maybe you should take that up with Paul "Morally, [the founders we want to fund] care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil." Graham.

jarek 11y ago
You say "lying", I say "exploring a few different angles on communication" /s