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The AI startup drama that's damaging Y Combinator's reputation
- greenavocado 2y agoIt is becoming increasingly clear that YC is a recruitment pipeline for megacorps with the fringe benefit of a successful company launch.
- more_corn 2y agoSaved you two clicks “PearAI, an open-source AI code editor. When people looked at its code they found that it was a clone of an existing open-source project called Continue.dev.”
- add-sub-mul-div 2y agoWhy should people be dissuaded from clicking twice to develop a more nuanced take of their own than a two sentence summary from a stranger with unknown biases?
- sanswork 2y agoIf the link is to indiehackers it's just going to be a forum post from another stranger with unknown biases.
- islewis 2y agoRegardless of what you think of Pear, making the claim that they have damaged Y Combinator's reputation is pretty dramatic. Knowing the title is in reference to Pear (and not something that could be _actually_ damaging to YC's rep) lets me know the article is probably isnt worth the time.
- fakedang 2y ago> Regardless of what you think of Pear, making the claim that they have damaged Y Combinator's reputation is pretty dramatic. YC's main value is in subsequent fundraising, wherein companies are pre-vetted by YC before being invested in by VCs. If they lose the confidence of VCs as being a reliable arbiter of preseed startups, the better startups will just go elsewhere (already happening) and soon the VCs will too. Thus harming YC's reputation massively.
- dartos 2y agoAlso worth noting that continue is also YC backed
- heroprotagonist 2y agoWait, so that's.. three open source AI code editors backed by YC so far, or more? Including Void, Continue, and PearAI.
- dartos 2y agoThere’s probably a few, but it’s funny bc Pear is a fork of Continue
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- havan_agrawal 2y ago> In the wake of all this drama, a blog post titled "Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth" went viral and hit the top of Hacker News. Which you might have missed, because Hacker News — which is owned by Y Combinator — seems to have manually dropped the post lower in the rankings to suppress its visibility. Is this true? I never thought HN moderated content critical of itself
- P_I_Staker 2y agoThe bias on the site is really terrible. It's not always YComb itself so much, but all the valley stuff. As with anything you have "the powerful people" who have opinions on what critiques are "fair", and will demand them communicated with perfect decorum. Additionally, people are aware of how it will "look". In a way they don't care, but in reality there's always an appearance people prefer to keep. Anyway actually break out some pointy critiques, and they'll get mad.
- atxbcp 2y agoYes, that's true. The thread reached the top of Hacker News, then disappeared. I had to use HN Algolia to find it again.
- dang 2y agoThe thread reached the top of Hacker News, then went to #15. It spent 5 hours on the front page, which is a lot longer than it would have if the topic hadn't been YC-related. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41732846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41732846 for more.
- atxbcp 2y agoThe article only states that the post was deliberately lowered in the rankings to reduce its visibility. "Is this true" ? What your explanation is hinting at, although you're not saying it outright, is that "Yes, that's true." The graph posted below speaks for itself.
- tanvach 2y agoDon’t know why the link doesn’t go to the article correctly. Here’s the working link: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/starting-up/the-ai-startup-drama-thats-damaging-y-combinator-s-reputation-GQKuTmpGV2uWOCoxtHBn https://www.indiehackers.com/post/starting-up/the-ai-startup...
- dang 2y agoSubmitted URL was https://www.indiehackers.com/post/starting-up/the-ai-startup-drama-thats-damaging-y-combinator-s-reputation-GQKuTmpGV2uWOCoxtHBn https://www.indiehackers.com/post/starting-up/the-ai-startup... Our software changed it to the canonical URL it got from that page, which was https://www.indiehackers.com/starting-up/the-ai-startup-drama-thats-damaging-y-combinator-s-reputation-GQKuTmpGV2uWOCoxtHBn https://www.indiehackers.com/starting-up/the-ai-startup-dram... I'll change to your link above now. Thanks! p.s. I would have done this sooner but wasn't aware of this thread until an hour or so ago
- layer8 2y agoThat’s a pretty wild quote from Matthew Duke Pan, one of the PearAI “founders”: > dawg i chatgpt'd the license, anyone is free to use our app for free for whatever they want. if there's a problem with the license just lmk i'll change it. we busy building rn can't be bothered with legal [https://x.com/anothercohen/status/1840515897804623882/photo/1 https://x.com/anothercohen/status/1840515897804623882/photo/...]
- wordpad25 2y agoThe difference between 20-somwething founders and adults As an investor I'd probably pick passion and dedication over maturity and responsibility too
- layer8 2y agoThere are 20-somethings and then there are 20-somethings. That attitude isn’t just an age thing. The header image of his X account is also telling regarding his priorities: https://x.com/CodeFryingPan/header_photo https://x.com/CodeFryingPan/header_photo
- dehugger 2y agoSorry, but what's the image supposed to be telling? I see a relatively attractive man hanging out with some relatively attractive women. I don't see how that's indicative of passion or dedication one way or another.
- HaZeust 2y agoI think this comment says more about your priorities than his.
- stevage 2y agoWhoa! I saw that quote in the article and thought it was some random twitter snarky satire. Not the actual founder. I genuinely don't understand how you can make a business based on open source and not get IP lawyers involved.
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- dang 2y agoRecent and related. Others? YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41707495 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41707495 - Oct 2024 (256 comments) Pear AI founder: We made two big mistakes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41701265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41701265 - Sept 2024 (228 comments) Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41697032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41697032 - Sept 2024 (244 comments)