5 ms·

Not too surprising. YC’s more successful companies do have a history of skirting (Uber, AirBNB). When I worked at PagerDuty, some of the less ethical aspects

Not too surprising. YC’s more successful companies do have a history of skirting (Uber, AirBNB). When I worked at PagerDuty, some of the less ethical aspects of the company (like the product was initially developed while interns at Amazon) were explained to me with this phrase, verbatim: “Paul told us to be naughty, but not too naughty.”

teraflop 6y ago
Don't forget about that time YC funded a smuggling ring: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8199286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8199286
- ic0n0cl4st 6y ago
  I think every traveler has this idea, explores it, realizes it is illegal and moves on.
  - tpmx 6y ago
    I guess it's a sign of a true startup person to see that while it may be illegal, it will allow growth?
  - refurb 6y ago
    This is already a business though? Not high visibility, but there are companies that hire people to take packages on international flights. Of course it’s all above board, everything is declared, duty is paid, etc.
michaelcampbell 6y ago
I had looked at PagerDuty in the Atlanta area because of their use of Elixir, which I would really like to explore and get good at. Is your experience there overall negative?
- ic0n0cl4st 6y ago
  It’s been 10 years, but I would find it hard to say a good word about the founders. My experiences there taught me that no good deed goes unpunished. I dropped out of the startup world and become a “fuck you, pay me” consultant.
akavi 6y ago
I think most people here would agree that working on a side project in your free time using your own resources (Ie, not using your employer’s) is perfectly reasonable and hardly comparable to fraud. (Disclaimer: happy PD employee from 2011-2015)
- ic0n0cl4st 6y ago
  Oh hey I know you, didn’t know you stayed so long. I think of you every time I hear the phrase “fractured fricitive”. I remember the Amazon thing .. differently. Also some pretty shady marketing tricks, and you know, failing to protect a female employee from a predatory creep at a conference.
- defen 6y ago
  > I think most people here would agree that working on a side project in your free time using your own resources (Ie, not using your employer’s) is perfectly reasonable and hardly comparable to fraud. It's still probably against your employment agreement, especially if you work at a BigCo where just about anything computer-related could be construed to be in their line of business.
dang 6y ago
Uber wasn't funded by YC.
- staunch 6y ago
  Which doesn't say much, since this is (presumably) only the case because Uber didn't offer YC the opportunity to invest, and not because YC wouldn't have been willing to.
awhitby 6y ago
From http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html 4. Naughtiness Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination. Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the most successful alumni, so we asked him what question we could put on the Y Combinator application that would help us discover more people like him. He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications. I believe they took that question off the application in the last few years. Perhaps “rules that matter” versus “rules that do not” turned out to be not so cut and dried.
ipsum2 6y ago
YCombinator also backed a sketchy malware startup, but Google is failing me. Does anyone remember what it was called?

teraflop 6y ago

Don't forget about that time YC funded a smuggling ring: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8199286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8199286

ic0n0cl4st 6y ago
I think every traveler has this idea, explores it, realizes it is illegal and moves on.
- tpmx 6y ago
  I guess it's a sign of a true startup person to see that while it may be illegal, it will allow growth?
- refurb 6y ago
  This is already a business though? Not high visibility, but there are companies that hire people to take packages on international flights. Of course it’s all above board, everything is declared, duty is paid, etc.

michaelcampbell 6y ago

I had looked at PagerDuty in the Atlanta area because of their use of Elixir, which I would really like to explore and get good at. Is your experience there overall negative?

ic0n0cl4st 6y ago
It’s been 10 years, but I would find it hard to say a good word about the founders. My experiences there taught me that no good deed goes unpunished. I dropped out of the startup world and become a “fuck you, pay me” consultant.

akavi 6y ago

I think most people here would agree that working on a side project in your free time using your own resources (Ie, not using your employer’s) is perfectly reasonable and hardly comparable to fraud. (Disclaimer: happy PD employee from 2011-2015)

ic0n0cl4st 6y ago
Oh hey I know you, didn’t know you stayed so long. I think of you every time I hear the phrase “fractured fricitive”. I remember the Amazon thing .. differently. Also some pretty shady marketing tricks, and you know, failing to protect a female employee from a predatory creep at a conference.
defen 6y ago
> I think most people here would agree that working on a side project in your free time using your own resources (Ie, not using your employer’s) is perfectly reasonable and hardly comparable to fraud. It's still probably against your employment agreement, especially if you work at a BigCo where just about anything computer-related could be construed to be in their line of business.

dang 6y ago

Uber wasn't funded by YC.

staunch 6y ago
Which doesn't say much, since this is (presumably) only the case because Uber didn't offer YC the opportunity to invest, and not because YC wouldn't have been willing to.

awhitby 6y ago

From http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html 4. Naughtiness Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination. Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the most successful alumni, so we asked him what question we could put on the Y Combinator application that would help us discover more people like him. He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications. I believe they took that question off the application in the last few years. Perhaps “rules that matter” versus “rules that do not” turned out to be not so cut and dried.

ipsum2 6y ago

YCombinator also backed a sketchy malware startup, but Google is failing me. Does anyone remember what it was called?