6 ms·

Guys - we are deeply sorry for this screw-up. I know we got people's hopes up only to let you down, and I feel terrible about it. While it doesn't excuse our

Guys - we are deeply sorry for this screw-up. I know we got people's hopes up only to let you down, and I feel terrible about it. While it doesn't excuse our mistake, for what it's worth, Startup School makes the classes and all the materials available online to everyone. So even if you didn't get accepted to the advisor track, we hope you will follow along, watch the videos, and find the material useful. My apologies on behalf of everyone at YC for letting you down. We're still trying to figure out exactly what happened, and make sure nothing like it happens again.

jaysonelliot 8y ago
Mistakes happen. Waiting two hours to tell people, then doing so from a do-not-reply address, however, is a poor way to handle them. If we make a mistake like this as a company, we at least try to make up for it in some way, and make our users feel valued.
- zilongli 8y ago
  The 'apologies' email was another bulk no-reply message. Maybe they misapologised, too.
  - samstave 8y ago
    /r/oopsdidntmeantodidntmeantooops
- kcorbitt 8y ago
  It took us a little while to realize what we had done. Once we did, we sent out the correction email as soon as we could. That's not an excuse, but I don't want it to feel like we were intentionally leaving people in the dark. Sending the follow-up from a do-not-reply was also our mistake. Our default outbound address is do-not-reply, and we forgot to change it as we were drafting the correction. Please follow up to startupschool@ycombinator.com. :(
tolth 8y ago
How about making this up to those of us who got false-acceptance emails by providing some feedback on our applications?
- snowmaker 8y ago
  I'm happy to do that. Email us at startupschool@ycombinator.com with your name so we can do that.
  - tolth 8y ago
    My cofounder who led the application will be doing so in a moment! Thanks.
    - fabiandesimone 8y ago
      If you're going to do this, maybe do it for everyone and not buried in a comment.
      - sodafountan 8y ago
        Yeah, this should be an actual initiative. Work overtime if you have to, at least give us a bit of the mentorship that everybody here wanted.
  - soneca 8y ago
    I appreciate the initiative, very nice way to apologize. Thanks
  - chelak 8y ago
    This would be awesome. I’m sure all founders would love just a little insight on why they were rejected so that they can try to address the shortcomings.
PieShell 8y ago
Thank you for the apology. I think all of us in tech know how these things can happen and so I personally appreciate it. If YC wasn't so cool, we wouldn't be so bummed. :) Thanks again and good luck with everything!
jaysonelliot 8y ago
Has this thread been manually deleted from the HN front page?
- newman8r 8y ago
  submissions automatically get docked when the number of comments exceeds the number of votes after a certain number.
- dang 8y ago
  Definitely not. It was being downgraded a bit by software for reasons unrelated to the topic, but I just turned that off.
acutesoftware 8y ago
That really stung to get the "Your in" then "Sorry, Out" emails, but mistakes happen and appreciate the apology here. Did the "Your in" emails go to everyone who applied, or was it a subset of applications?
- heurist 8y ago
  Judging by similar forum threads elsewhere, it looks like some who were accepted were initially rejected and many who were rejected were initially accepted.
hellojebus 8y ago
Pretty certain I incorrectly received the "Ooops, you didn't actually email" Please confirm this bug. My company is basically a unicorn.
- samstave 8y ago
  "Oh youre a founder huh?" "Yep" "What company?" "We are in stealth-mode, currently" "Ah, what stage are you at, can you share that?" "Yeah, like I said, we are a stealth-mode pre-unicorn startupschool audit track company"
  - JayLy 8y ago
    Lol! I think this comment is the greatest thing to come out of the error.
    - jmu2018 8y ago
      I have been feeling less than and embarrassed all day, but this little back and forth really cheered me up.
  - hellojebus 8y ago
    No really, it's unicorn List of achievements: Startup School Advisor Track for 20 minutes
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - otto_ortega 8y ago
    I salute you and celebrate your epic comment! hahaha
pcmaffey 8y ago
Willing to share details about: - how many companies applied? - how many were accepted into advisor track? - how many received false acceptance email (if not the difference of the former 2)?
- pcmaffey 8y ago
  For anyone curious, the answers are: - 15k applied - 4k were accepted - 11k received false acceptance emails
  - briangonzalez 8y ago
    source?
    - pcmaffey 8y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17806459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17806459
heurist 8y ago
I hope this doesn't sound antagonistic since you're already getting a lot of flak for what seems to be an honest mistake. (I was accept-rejected fwiw). Could you shine some light on what your criteria were for acceptance? I have now seen a few projects that were actually accepted. They seemed pretty generic and not at all what I thought would have been accepted. As products, the only benefit they seemed to have were that they were in maybe the alpha or beta stage of development. For our future reference, could you please elaborate a bit on what you were looking for in these applications? P.S. If you were accepted, congratulations! I am not saying your product is generic :)

jaysonelliot 8y ago

Mistakes happen. Waiting two hours to tell people, then doing so from a do-not-reply address, however, is a poor way to handle them. If we make a mistake like this as a company, we at least try to make up for it in some way, and make our users feel valued.

zilongli 8y ago
The 'apologies' email was another bulk no-reply message. Maybe they misapologised, too.
- samstave 8y ago
  /r/oopsdidntmeantodidntmeantooops
kcorbitt 8y ago
It took us a little while to realize what we had done. Once we did, we sent out the correction email as soon as we could. That's not an excuse, but I don't want it to feel like we were intentionally leaving people in the dark. Sending the follow-up from a do-not-reply was also our mistake. Our default outbound address is do-not-reply, and we forgot to change it as we were drafting the correction. Please follow up to startupschool@ycombinator.com. :(

tolth 8y ago

How about making this up to those of us who got false-acceptance emails by providing some feedback on our applications?

snowmaker 8y ago
I'm happy to do that. Email us at startupschool@ycombinator.com with your name so we can do that.
- tolth 8y ago
  My cofounder who led the application will be doing so in a moment! Thanks.
  - fabiandesimone 8y ago
    If you're going to do this, maybe do it for everyone and not buried in a comment.
    - sodafountan 8y ago
      Yeah, this should be an actual initiative. Work overtime if you have to, at least give us a bit of the mentorship that everybody here wanted.
- soneca 8y ago
  I appreciate the initiative, very nice way to apologize. Thanks
- chelak 8y ago
  This would be awesome. I’m sure all founders would love just a little insight on why they were rejected so that they can try to address the shortcomings.

PieShell 8y ago

Thank you for the apology. I think all of us in tech know how these things can happen and so I personally appreciate it. If YC wasn't so cool, we wouldn't be so bummed. :) Thanks again and good luck with everything!

jaysonelliot 8y ago

Has this thread been manually deleted from the HN front page?

newman8r 8y ago
submissions automatically get docked when the number of comments exceeds the number of votes after a certain number.
dang 8y ago
Definitely not. It was being downgraded a bit by software for reasons unrelated to the topic, but I just turned that off.

acutesoftware 8y ago

That really stung to get the "Your in" then "Sorry, Out" emails, but mistakes happen and appreciate the apology here. Did the "Your in" emails go to everyone who applied, or was it a subset of applications?

heurist 8y ago
Judging by similar forum threads elsewhere, it looks like some who were accepted were initially rejected and many who were rejected were initially accepted.

hellojebus 8y ago

Pretty certain I incorrectly received the "Ooops, you didn't actually email" Please confirm this bug. My company is basically a unicorn.

samstave 8y ago
"Oh youre a founder huh?" "Yep" "What company?" "We are in stealth-mode, currently" "Ah, what stage are you at, can you share that?" "Yeah, like I said, we are a stealth-mode pre-unicorn startupschool audit track company"
- JayLy 8y ago
  Lol! I think this comment is the greatest thing to come out of the error.
  - jmu2018 8y ago
    I have been feeling less than and embarrassed all day, but this little back and forth really cheered me up.
- hellojebus 8y ago
  No really, it's unicorn List of achievements: Startup School Advisor Track for 20 minutes
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- otto_ortega 8y ago
  I salute you and celebrate your epic comment! hahaha

pcmaffey 8y ago

Willing to share details about: - how many companies applied? - how many were accepted into advisor track? - how many received false acceptance email (if not the difference of the former 2)?

pcmaffey 8y ago
For anyone curious, the answers are: - 15k applied - 4k were accepted - 11k received false acceptance emails
- briangonzalez 8y ago
  source?
  - pcmaffey 8y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17806459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17806459

heurist 8y ago

I hope this doesn't sound antagonistic since you're already getting a lot of flak for what seems to be an honest mistake. (I was accept-rejected fwiw). Could you shine some light on what your criteria were for acceptance? I have now seen a few projects that were actually accepted. They seemed pretty generic and not at all what I thought would have been accepted. As products, the only benefit they seemed to have were that they were in maybe the alpha or beta stage of development. For our future reference, could you please elaborate a bit on what you were looking for in these applications? P.S. If you were accepted, congratulations! I am not saying your product is generic :)