I got a very nice rejection email last year. Here it is: We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding.Please don't take it personally. The

I got a very nice rejection email last year. Here it is: We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding.Please don't take it personally. The quality of the applications continues to increase with each cycle, and since there's a limit on the number of interviews we can do, we had to turn away a lot of genuinely promising groups. Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes. It's alarming how often the last group to make it over the threshold for interviews ends up being one that we fund. That means there are surely other good groups that fall just below the threshold and that we miss even interviewing. We're trying to get better at this, but it's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups.If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes. Y Combinator Staff