13 ms·

Founder Ethics

182 points by austenallred 13y ago

Frozenlock 13y ago
> Keeping off-the-record or confidential information (whether about YC itself or a YC company) private and secret. > Not behaving in a way that damages the reputation of his/her company or of YC. This can turn 'unethical' pretty darn fast.
- Bootvis 13y ago
  Ethics are hard. And the law should be an overriding concern in most instances. I think more examples and more explicit guidelines would help the founders judgment. I fear this could get real ugly when (not if) conflicts arise and the punishment of revocation of founder status is strictly enforced.
tptacek 13y ago
I think you want "exclusively" where you have "uniquely".
mantrax5 13y ago
In the spirit of being honest as requested, all of these are so vague and context-sensitive, basically they amount to nothing. You'll have to do a lot more work and be more specific than this generic wishlist, if you want people to really abide by your understanding of ethics. Oh and this one: - Keeping your word, including honoring handshake deals. ... is plain dangerous. Handshake deals are not deals. They're just a problem about to happen. Someone's neurons keeping the memory of a "handshake deal" will start misfiring. Write it down. Even in an email after the meeting. If it's not written, it didn't happen.
- mkempe 13y ago
  The problem with vagueness is that the potential punishment for transgression is banishment from YC. It's not the end of the world, though. When governments pass non-objective laws that can be abused to persecute and punish individuals arbitrarily, that's terrifying. When private groups do similar things with vague rules, it's just sad.
- saalweachter 13y ago
  I would say it's worse than that. Writing it down won't even be enough in all cases, because communication is a hard problem. It is very easy to come out of a conversation believing you know what the other person said, or believing that you accurately communicated your thoughts, desires, or plans and just be completely wrong on all counts. There is a reason lawyers write contracts: it reduces the likelihood of a miscommunication about what each party expects.
mikeleeorg 13y ago
The curious cat in me is wondering, "Did something in particular prompt this post?"
- pyb 13y ago
  It looks like YC's answer to the Zidisha situation.
- balls187 13y ago
  Definitely or is this a solution in search of a problem?
- sama 13y ago
  Nothing in particular. But as we grow, I think it's important we're clear about our expectations. Because the amounts are small and we fund so many companies, we don't do much diligence before investing. So occasionally we'll fund someone bad. We've had problems in the past, but only twice that I know of. We have now funded more than 700 companies, so that seems remarkably low.
  - joshu 13y ago
    I would like to see "keeping investors informed" as part of the honesty thing. I've had a few YC founders dissapear without so much as a "we're shutting down."
    - rdl 13y ago
      Fold that into the "spend money for the unique benefit of the company"? A lot of these really fall into "fiduciary responsibility", but a more 20-year-old accessible statement of that would be ideal.
      - joshu 13y ago
        I don't think anyone absconded with anything. The company legitimately gave up the ghost. An email explaining it and then shutting down the company so I can take my losses would be nice, though.
mful 13y ago
> Keeping off-the-record or confidential information (whether about YC itself or a YC company) private and secret. If I recall correctly, Paul Graham asks the Summer 2011 class not to share tips on getting into YC at the end of Launch Pad. I wonder if this is in part a response to all the recent YC Applications/interviews going public (or at least showing up here on HN).
- rdl 13y ago
  There are different kinds of tips. Some which I think actually help YC if everyone knows them -- because YC wants to make the most accurate analysis possible in a short interview, it helps if everyone knows to give clear, direct, and succinct answers, be prepared to answer questions, don't depend on being able to show a demo, etc. The confidential information is more like Off The Record things during YC dinners, information about other companies, etc. There is much more information about other YC companies (especially batchmates), or speakers at YC dinners, which is confidential than there is information about YC itself which is confidential.
steveklabnik 13y ago
I'm really glad to see this. Kudos. There have been one or two YC companies which have been a bit on the sketchy side, I'm glad to see an actual statement about this kind of thing. I'm thinking specifically of the "We bundle ads with software installers," I don't remember what the company was.
- minimaxir 13y ago
  That was InstallMonetizer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711 Speaking of which, that startup appears to be dead/zombie, so karma may be in play.
  - TTPrograms 13y ago
    That was funded a year ago? It seems like some early 2000s garbage-ware :\
michaelochurch 13y ago
I'd like to add a few ethical principles pertaining to employee relationships. * Not misleading prospective employees using "bait and switch" tactics regarding the position or nature of the work. * If an employee requests an introduction, grant it. * Not behaving in a way that damages the reputation of an employee or ex-employee. * Separating with fair severance relative to the means of the company (possibly $0.00 and a good reference, pre-A; cash severance expected once rich). * Using open allocation if possible. * Not accumulating unreasonable technical debt. * Keeping the company engineer-driven as far as possible.
- nedwin 13y ago
  "* Not accumulating unreasonable technical debt. * Keeping the company engineer-driven as far as possible." Are these ethical issues?
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    I would say so, at least for the first (the second is more of a subjective preference). Accrual of technical debt usually comes out of a conflict of interest between management and engineers, and when the time-bomb goes off, it's usually engineers whose careers suffer.
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  Thanks for adding this. When I first finished reading the original guidelines, I thought I read through the entire thing without seeing any mention of the startup's employees. Upon second scan, I saw there was one mention. So many companies are treated like the personal fiefdoms of the founders. I'd love to see a business world where companies act like commonwealths for all stakeholders -- not just founders and big-time shareholders, but employees and the community. With many of the brightest startups flocking to it, YC is in a unique position of having the potential to be a major influence on the next 100 years of capitalism. I'd love to see it take an even more powerful stand on founder ethics.
- jsonne 13y ago
  > * Keeping the company engineer-driven as far as possible. That's an awfully large blanket statement that isn't right for many companies. Zappos places the emphasis on customer service and they're doing fine just as an example.
mbesto 13y ago
> Not using misleading, illegal or dishonest sales tactics. The grey area on this one is so big that I don't even know where to begin...
- andrewtbham 13y ago
  yeh... airbnb is in violation. They illegally spammed people on craig's list. http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-harvested-craigslist-to-grow-its-listings-says-competitor-2011-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-harvested-craigslist-t...
  - maxcan 13y ago
    And, as much as I love them, their entire business is predicated on wholesale violation of local ordinances restriction hotel and short term stay operations. Those ordinances may themselves be corrupt and unethical but they're still laws.
    - andrewtbham 13y ago
      Yeh... Tesla, Uber, airbnb all use illegal sales techniques. I miss PG's more unvarnished advice.
      - rtpg 13y ago
        Tesla and Uber's defiance are for things that are pretty hard to justify. As the multitude of airbnb horror stories show, anti-subletting rules and the like are usually there for some pretty valid reasons, and it's in a different category of illegal. I, for one, am glad that my neighbour isn't inviting a bunch of strangers into his house every other day.
        rdl 13y ago
        Uber in general is violating "things which are hard to justify", but their marketing tactics vs. competitors in NYC were unquestionably wrong, IMO.
harrystone 13y ago
The business world needs more of these kinds of no bullshit, no footnotes, no qualifier statements.
- mkal_tsr 13y ago
  It's sad when trust, transparency, and honesty become differentiators instead of expected.
  - sounds 13y ago
    You are quite right. But my posting history has led some to label me as naive... I think it's closer to the truth to say: Truth, Trust, and Transparency are always differentiators but the reality is they are only subjectively quantifiable, and therefore a problem waiting to happen if a majority of shareholders aren't exactly aligned. Or, simply put, large companies generally are forced into an amoral "objective and quantifiable" position. Thus it has ever been. As a founder, I have more control over my company's culture, but I have no illusions that I can set it in stone.
- amirmc 13y ago
  The business world has enough of them already. What it needs are people within the companies to abide by them (inc senior leadership).
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imkevinxu 13y ago
> We will stand behind you no matter how much your company struggles, as long as you behave ethically. I think this can't be re-iterated enough. Most investors would probably just write off a struggling company but YC stands by you
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general_failure 13y ago
Kinda sad that we have to explicitly write down the obvious. Things like 'be honest', 'say the truth', 'be polite', 'dont do illegal stuff' should all just go without saying.
- feralmoan 13y ago
  YC founders are predominantly 'young' so it could be chalked to general mentorship.
001sky 13y ago
"Keeping off-the-record or confidential information (whether about YC itself or a YC company) private and secret." VCs are very famous (as a class of investors) for not signing NDAs with anyone except under exigent conditons. Confidentiality and its context-dependent limitations should be adressed more formally if there is any concern here--by both sides.
mindcrime 13y ago
Beyond just the ethics of the founders in these terms, I'm a big believe in the idea that the company taken as a whole, should have values and principles, and that they should be communicated widely and clearly, and - most importantly - they should actually really be adhered to... IOW, don't write a "mission and values statement" because it's expected or for marketing purposes. Write that stuff because you know what you want your firm to stand for and represent, now and over the long term. We did this back when we first started[1], and we recently had a situation come up which tested our resolve, but knowing that we had written down what we believe, and what we are trying to be as a company made it a lot easier to make the right decision.[2] Or, at least, what we find to be the right decision for us. Note that in our specific case, the decision in question is one that many rational, well-reasoned people could disagree with. But we believe that our principles dictate the decision we reached. We aren't saying people who may have made a different decision would necessarily be wrong. [1]: http://www.fogbeam.com/company.html http://www.fogbeam.com/company.html [2]: http://wraltechwire.com/why-a-triangle-tech-ceo-just-said-no-to-cia-investment-/13607050/ http://wraltechwire.com/why-a-triangle-tech-ceo-just-said-no...
mkempe 13y ago
A code of ethics requires quite a bit more certainty and precision. As written, this is rather vague. It sounds like someone could be somehow kicked out of YC just because they're more or less disliked (who makes the decision? how?). The recommended behaviours are virtues, not values. Adherence to virtue is the principled pursuit of given values (e.g. honesty -> true to facts, integrity -> true to your beliefs and words, independence -> true to your own judgment). Here are examples of fairly strong codes of ethics relevant to engineers: - IEEE [1] - ACM [2] [1] http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html [2] http://www.acm.org/about/se-code http://www.acm.org/about/se-code
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Those seem plenty long winded, but no better in terms of precision. Selecting a random line from the ACM code: 4.01. Temper all technical judgments by the need to support and maintain human values. What does that mean? I say that a short bulleted list of expectations is going to be more easy to digest and adhere to. Someone could hardly be expected to even know all of the rules in the ACM code, to say nothing of following them.
  - mkempe 13y ago
    Indeed, these codes are far from perfect, and fewer rules are best. ACM members are expected to know that code and abide by it.
  - tinco 13y ago
    It isn't vague if human values is well defined. You can just look at your technical dilemma and go through the list of human values. If your technical solution compromises any of those values it is your moral obligation as a subscriber to the ACM ethical values to revise or otherwise mitigate your judgement.
    - jarrett 13y ago
      As far as I can tell, it's not defined in that document. If it were, what would that look like? What values would be on the list? How would you know whether a given action compromises one of those values?
Zak 13y ago
YC's generally good reputation has led me to take fewer steps to guarantee prompt payment when doing contract work for companies they've funded than I normally would with new clients. I'm happy to report that it has worked out well so far.
tsax 13y ago
I await Social Justice Warrior attacks using this new weapon. It's bound to happen. Let's fill every organization's charter with vague rules which can then be exploited by power-hungry self-righteous pricks. Brilliant idea.
- deleted 13y ago
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- thenmar 13y ago
  What's a "Social Justice Warrior"?
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    It is a pejorative term for civil rights activists.
  - ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
    A "Social Justice Warrior" is what happens when you take liberalism to an extreme. When you take Conservatism to an extreme you end up with "Religious Patriotic Fanatics" who desperately want to be their own group's hero at the expense of other groups. While Social Justice Warriors desperately want to be someone else's hero at their own group's expense. Both are extremes, unhealthy, and start out with good intentions. Social Justice Warriors often times fantasize about making bullying, name calling, and stereotyping illegal. They can be found in high concentration at places like Reddit, Vice, & Gawker Media sites constantly talking about race/gender/class while ignoring statistics on race/gender/class. They demand that you are politically correct in everything you say. Their favorite insults are "you're racist" and "you're sexist". Basically "the thought police". Example; When Paul Graham of Y-Combinator mentioned how strong foreign accents can hinder a founder's ability to communicate with his team (which is common sense) he was attacked by silicon valley news outlets for being anti-immigrant, possibly racist, and xenophobic. When he later gave his opinion on why there's so few women in tech he was again attacked and called sexist. This is the problem with Social Justice Warriors, they are warriors, warriors are willing to go to extremes to achieve hero status. In moderation social justice isn't bad. Religion or patriotism isn't bad either. Neither is conservatism or liberalism. But when taken to an extreme these ideologies end up becoming illogical, irrational, and causing damage to a society's expressive or civil freedoms.
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ejain 13y ago
Nice, but as they say, actions speak louder than words.
rajacombinator 13y ago
You might want to add something about treating customers ethically, even when not required by law. I think with some of the bitcoin companies out there, there is increased potential for financial shenanigans that could negatively impact YC's reputation. (Frontrunning, etc.)
tbrooks 13y ago
How does this apply to AirBnB?
capex 13y ago
"All founders in a company may be held responsible for the unethical actions of a single co-founder or a company employee, depending on the circumstances." This sounds like a decree issued by the Russian government.
- nperez 13y ago
  I can only assume this is to ensure that if an employee behaves unethically without repercussions, YC can hold the founder responsible for inaction.
  - capex 13y ago
    Yeah I think this clause is about with-holding information about bad things done by others in the team. But this seems to have been covered by other points on the page. Something to be reworded.
- angersock 13y ago
  As the old saying goes, "You are the company you keep."
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natch 13y ago
Some of the least defined words in here are: - Upstanding - Integrity - Respect When I say defined, I mean defined by the document. I wonder what they mean in the YC context. As an example of why I wonder, I noticed that when YC shared a building with a scrappy, extremely creative robotics company that made a virtual telepresence robot, it surprisingly funded another company that competed with that neighbor with what looked like a knock-off telepresence robot product. This product had an admirably more clever / agile design in that it leveraged the buyer's existing iPad. The idea that they funded a competitor to their own neighbor is not necessarily a judgement on YC. I frankly don't know enough about the companies and products involved, which is why I couched my statement with "looked like." It's more of a setup for my real question: where does YC stand with blatant ripoffs, copying, wholesale lifting of ideas, products, business plans, from other companies? Is that considered ethical? If yes, is there anything that's not fair game? Are there any lines beyond which the copying becomes an act that is disrespectful, is considered not upstanding behavior, or shows a lack of integrity?
jacquesm 13y ago
That's long overdue. Now that they're in place that sort of thing will hopefully be a thing of the past, too many YC funded companies have been visibly in breach of these at some point in time. Winning is fine but not by any means possible.
jamielee 13y ago
Enron's motto was "Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence." As we all know... it wasn't enough. Read their Code of Ethics, too. It's so ironic. Perhaps an essay about why ethics are important to the long-term success of a start-up would be much more effective. Why not talk about the start-ups that encountered ethical dilemmas, the thought-processes and the outcomes? That would be super entertaining as well as enlightening. I love the essays by Paul Graham. He inspired me to pursue what I love and to think about problems in the world. To simply be told to do so would not be as motivating. I think that as a technology start-up accelerator, there should be a greater purpose that is communicated. . . like improving the world with technology.
yaelwrites 13y ago
I'm so psyched to see this. It's incredibly heartening to see YC set a great example because of their visibility and the amount of respect we all have for them in the tech/startup community. As someone who's unsuccessfully worked on getting codes implemented, I think this is absolutely huge and predict others will do the right thing and follow suit. I agree that this is pretty vague. I don't think the more nitty gritty details (how to make an incident report, who's responsible for handling it, etc.) have to be posted publicly, but hopefully the actual policy is being worked on behind the scenes.

182 points by austenallred 13y ago

> Keeping off-the-record or confidential information (whether about YC itself or a YC company) private and secret. > Not behaving in a way that damages the reputation of his/her company or of YC. This can turn 'unethical' pretty darn fast.

Bootvis 13y ago
Ethics are hard. And the law should be an overriding concern in most instances. I think more examples and more explicit guidelines would help the founders judgment. I fear this could get real ugly when (not if) conflicts arise and the punishment of revocation of founder status is strictly enforced.

tptacek 13y ago

I think you want "exclusively" where you have "uniquely".

mantrax5 13y ago

In the spirit of being honest as requested, all of these are so vague and context-sensitive, basically they amount to nothing. You'll have to do a lot more work and be more specific than this generic wishlist, if you want people to really abide by your understanding of ethics. Oh and this one: - Keeping your word, including honoring handshake deals. ... is plain dangerous. Handshake deals are not deals. They're just a problem about to happen. Someone's neurons keeping the memory of a "handshake deal" will start misfiring. Write it down. Even in an email after the meeting. If it's not written, it didn't happen.

mkempe 13y ago
The problem with vagueness is that the potential punishment for transgression is banishment from YC. It's not the end of the world, though. When governments pass non-objective laws that can be abused to persecute and punish individuals arbitrarily, that's terrifying. When private groups do similar things with vague rules, it's just sad.
saalweachter 13y ago
I would say it's worse than that. Writing it down won't even be enough in all cases, because communication is a hard problem. It is very easy to come out of a conversation believing you know what the other person said, or believing that you accurately communicated your thoughts, desires, or plans and just be completely wrong on all counts. There is a reason lawyers write contracts: it reduces the likelihood of a miscommunication about what each party expects.

mikeleeorg 13y ago

The curious cat in me is wondering, "Did something in particular prompt this post?"

pyb 13y ago
It looks like YC's answer to the Zidisha situation.
balls187 13y ago
Definitely or is this a solution in search of a problem?
sama 13y ago
Nothing in particular. But as we grow, I think it's important we're clear about our expectations. Because the amounts are small and we fund so many companies, we don't do much diligence before investing. So occasionally we'll fund someone bad. We've had problems in the past, but only twice that I know of. We have now funded more than 700 companies, so that seems remarkably low.
- joshu 13y ago
  I would like to see "keeping investors informed" as part of the honesty thing. I've had a few YC founders dissapear without so much as a "we're shutting down."
  - rdl 13y ago
    Fold that into the "spend money for the unique benefit of the company"? A lot of these really fall into "fiduciary responsibility", but a more 20-year-old accessible statement of that would be ideal.
    - joshu 13y ago
      I don't think anyone absconded with anything. The company legitimately gave up the ghost. An email explaining it and then shutting down the company so I can take my losses would be nice, though.

mful 13y ago

> Keeping off-the-record or confidential information (whether about YC itself or a YC company) private and secret. If I recall correctly, Paul Graham asks the Summer 2011 class not to share tips on getting into YC at the end of Launch Pad. I wonder if this is in part a response to all the recent YC Applications/interviews going public (or at least showing up here on HN).

rdl 13y ago
There are different kinds of tips. Some which I think actually help YC if everyone knows them -- because YC wants to make the most accurate analysis possible in a short interview, it helps if everyone knows to give clear, direct, and succinct answers, be prepared to answer questions, don't depend on being able to show a demo, etc. The confidential information is more like Off The Record things during YC dinners, information about other companies, etc. There is much more information about other YC companies (especially batchmates), or speakers at YC dinners, which is confidential than there is information about YC itself which is confidential.

steveklabnik 13y ago

I'm really glad to see this. Kudos. There have been one or two YC companies which have been a bit on the sketchy side, I'm glad to see an actual statement about this kind of thing. I'm thinking specifically of the "We bundle ads with software installers," I don't remember what the company was.

minimaxir 13y ago
That was InstallMonetizer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711 Speaking of which, that startup appears to be dead/zombie, so karma may be in play.
- TTPrograms 13y ago
  That was funded a year ago? It seems like some early 2000s garbage-ware :\

michaelochurch 13y ago

I'd like to add a few ethical principles pertaining to employee relationships. * Not misleading prospective employees using "bait and switch" tactics regarding the position or nature of the work. * If an employee requests an introduction, grant it. * Not behaving in a way that damages the reputation of an employee or ex-employee. * Separating with fair severance relative to the means of the company (possibly $0.00 and a good reference, pre-A; cash severance expected once rich). * Using open allocation if possible. * Not accumulating unreasonable technical debt. * Keeping the company engineer-driven as far as possible.

nedwin 13y ago
"* Not accumulating unreasonable technical debt. * Keeping the company engineer-driven as far as possible." Are these ethical issues?
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  I would say so, at least for the first (the second is more of a subjective preference). Accrual of technical debt usually comes out of a conflict of interest between management and engineers, and when the time-bomb goes off, it's usually engineers whose careers suffer.
acjohnson55 13y ago
Thanks for adding this. When I first finished reading the original guidelines, I thought I read through the entire thing without seeing any mention of the startup's employees. Upon second scan, I saw there was one mention. So many companies are treated like the personal fiefdoms of the founders. I'd love to see a business world where companies act like commonwealths for all stakeholders -- not just founders and big-time shareholders, but employees and the community. With many of the brightest startups flocking to it, YC is in a unique position of having the potential to be a major influence on the next 100 years of capitalism. I'd love to see it take an even more powerful stand on founder ethics.
jsonne 13y ago
> * Keeping the company engineer-driven as far as possible. That's an awfully large blanket statement that isn't right for many companies. Zappos places the emphasis on customer service and they're doing fine just as an example.

mbesto 13y ago

> Not using misleading, illegal or dishonest sales tactics. The grey area on this one is so big that I don't even know where to begin...

andrewtbham 13y ago
yeh... airbnb is in violation. They illegally spammed people on craig's list. http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-harvested-craigslist-to-grow-its-listings-says-competitor-2011-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-harvested-craigslist-t...
- maxcan 13y ago
  And, as much as I love them, their entire business is predicated on wholesale violation of local ordinances restriction hotel and short term stay operations. Those ordinances may themselves be corrupt and unethical but they're still laws.
  - andrewtbham 13y ago
    Yeh... Tesla, Uber, airbnb all use illegal sales techniques. I miss PG's more unvarnished advice.
    - rtpg 13y ago
      Tesla and Uber's defiance are for things that are pretty hard to justify. As the multitude of airbnb horror stories show, anti-subletting rules and the like are usually there for some pretty valid reasons, and it's in a different category of illegal. I, for one, am glad that my neighbour isn't inviting a bunch of strangers into his house every other day.
      - rdl 13y ago
        Uber in general is violating "things which are hard to justify", but their marketing tactics vs. competitors in NYC were unquestionably wrong, IMO.

harrystone 13y ago

The business world needs more of these kinds of no bullshit, no footnotes, no qualifier statements.

mkal_tsr 13y ago
It's sad when trust, transparency, and honesty become differentiators instead of expected.
- sounds 13y ago
  You are quite right. But my posting history has led some to label me as naive... I think it's closer to the truth to say: Truth, Trust, and Transparency are always differentiators but the reality is they are only subjectively quantifiable, and therefore a problem waiting to happen if a majority of shareholders aren't exactly aligned. Or, simply put, large companies generally are forced into an amoral "objective and quantifiable" position. Thus it has ever been. As a founder, I have more control over my company's culture, but I have no illusions that I can set it in stone.
amirmc 13y ago
The business world has enough of them already. What it needs are people within the companies to abide by them (inc senior leadership).

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imkevinxu 13y ago

> We will stand behind you no matter how much your company struggles, as long as you behave ethically. I think this can't be re-iterated enough. Most investors would probably just write off a struggling company but YC stands by you

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general_failure 13y ago

Kinda sad that we have to explicitly write down the obvious. Things like 'be honest', 'say the truth', 'be polite', 'dont do illegal stuff' should all just go without saying.

feralmoan 13y ago
YC founders are predominantly 'young' so it could be chalked to general mentorship.

001sky 13y ago

"Keeping off-the-record or confidential information (whether about YC itself or a YC company) private and secret." VCs are very famous (as a class of investors) for not signing NDAs with anyone except under exigent conditons. Confidentiality and its context-dependent limitations should be adressed more formally if there is any concern here--by both sides.

mindcrime 13y ago

Beyond just the ethics of the founders in these terms, I'm a big believe in the idea that the company taken as a whole, should have values and principles, and that they should be communicated widely and clearly, and - most importantly - they should actually really be adhered to... IOW, don't write a "mission and values statement" because it's expected or for marketing purposes. Write that stuff because you know what you want your firm to stand for and represent, now and over the long term. We did this back when we first started[1], and we recently had a situation come up which tested our resolve, but knowing that we had written down what we believe, and what we are trying to be as a company made it a lot easier to make the right decision.[2] Or, at least, what we find to be the right decision for us. Note that in our specific case, the decision in question is one that many rational, well-reasoned people could disagree with. But we believe that our principles dictate the decision we reached. We aren't saying people who may have made a different decision would necessarily be wrong. [1]: http://www.fogbeam.com/company.html http://www.fogbeam.com/company.html [2]: http://wraltechwire.com/why-a-triangle-tech-ceo-just-said-no-to-cia-investment-/13607050/ http://wraltechwire.com/why-a-triangle-tech-ceo-just-said-no...

mkempe 13y ago

A code of ethics requires quite a bit more certainty and precision. As written, this is rather vague. It sounds like someone could be somehow kicked out of YC just because they're more or less disliked (who makes the decision? how?). The recommended behaviours are virtues, not values. Adherence to virtue is the principled pursuit of given values (e.g. honesty -> true to facts, integrity -> true to your beliefs and words, independence -> true to your own judgment). Here are examples of fairly strong codes of ethics relevant to engineers: - IEEE [1] - ACM [2] [1] http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html [2] http://www.acm.org/about/se-code http://www.acm.org/about/se-code

jamesaguilar 13y ago
Those seem plenty long winded, but no better in terms of precision. Selecting a random line from the ACM code: 4.01. Temper all technical judgments by the need to support and maintain human values. What does that mean? I say that a short bulleted list of expectations is going to be more easy to digest and adhere to. Someone could hardly be expected to even know all of the rules in the ACM code, to say nothing of following them.
- mkempe 13y ago
  Indeed, these codes are far from perfect, and fewer rules are best. ACM members are expected to know that code and abide by it.
- tinco 13y ago
  It isn't vague if human values is well defined. You can just look at your technical dilemma and go through the list of human values. If your technical solution compromises any of those values it is your moral obligation as a subscriber to the ACM ethical values to revise or otherwise mitigate your judgement.
  - jarrett 13y ago
    As far as I can tell, it's not defined in that document. If it were, what would that look like? What values would be on the list? How would you know whether a given action compromises one of those values?

Zak 13y ago

YC's generally good reputation has led me to take fewer steps to guarantee prompt payment when doing contract work for companies they've funded than I normally would with new clients. I'm happy to report that it has worked out well so far.

tsax 13y ago

I await Social Justice Warrior attacks using this new weapon. It's bound to happen. Let's fill every organization's charter with vague rules which can then be exploited by power-hungry self-righteous pricks. Brilliant idea.

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thenmar 13y ago
What's a "Social Justice Warrior"?
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  It is a pejorative term for civil rights activists.
- ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
  A "Social Justice Warrior" is what happens when you take liberalism to an extreme. When you take Conservatism to an extreme you end up with "Religious Patriotic Fanatics" who desperately want to be their own group's hero at the expense of other groups. While Social Justice Warriors desperately want to be someone else's hero at their own group's expense. Both are extremes, unhealthy, and start out with good intentions. Social Justice Warriors often times fantasize about making bullying, name calling, and stereotyping illegal. They can be found in high concentration at places like Reddit, Vice, & Gawker Media sites constantly talking about race/gender/class while ignoring statistics on race/gender/class. They demand that you are politically correct in everything you say. Their favorite insults are "you're racist" and "you're sexist". Basically "the thought police". Example; When Paul Graham of Y-Combinator mentioned how strong foreign accents can hinder a founder's ability to communicate with his team (which is common sense) he was attacked by silicon valley news outlets for being anti-immigrant, possibly racist, and xenophobic. When he later gave his opinion on why there's so few women in tech he was again attacked and called sexist. This is the problem with Social Justice Warriors, they are warriors, warriors are willing to go to extremes to achieve hero status. In moderation social justice isn't bad. Religion or patriotism isn't bad either. Neither is conservatism or liberalism. But when taken to an extreme these ideologies end up becoming illogical, irrational, and causing damage to a society's expressive or civil freedoms.

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ejain 13y ago

Nice, but as they say, actions speak louder than words.

rajacombinator 13y ago

You might want to add something about treating customers ethically, even when not required by law. I think with some of the bitcoin companies out there, there is increased potential for financial shenanigans that could negatively impact YC's reputation. (Frontrunning, etc.)

tbrooks 13y ago

How does this apply to AirBnB?

capex 13y ago

"All founders in a company may be held responsible for the unethical actions of a single co-founder or a company employee, depending on the circumstances." This sounds like a decree issued by the Russian government.

nperez 13y ago
I can only assume this is to ensure that if an employee behaves unethically without repercussions, YC can hold the founder responsible for inaction.
- capex 13y ago
  Yeah I think this clause is about with-holding information about bad things done by others in the team. But this seems to have been covered by other points on the page. Something to be reworded.
angersock 13y ago
As the old saying goes, "You are the company you keep."

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natch 13y ago

Some of the least defined words in here are: - Upstanding - Integrity - Respect When I say defined, I mean defined by the document. I wonder what they mean in the YC context. As an example of why I wonder, I noticed that when YC shared a building with a scrappy, extremely creative robotics company that made a virtual telepresence robot, it surprisingly funded another company that competed with that neighbor with what looked like a knock-off telepresence robot product. This product had an admirably more clever / agile design in that it leveraged the buyer's existing iPad. The idea that they funded a competitor to their own neighbor is not necessarily a judgement on YC. I frankly don't know enough about the companies and products involved, which is why I couched my statement with "looked like." It's more of a setup for my real question: where does YC stand with blatant ripoffs, copying, wholesale lifting of ideas, products, business plans, from other companies? Is that considered ethical? If yes, is there anything that's not fair game? Are there any lines beyond which the copying becomes an act that is disrespectful, is considered not upstanding behavior, or shows a lack of integrity?

jacquesm 13y ago

That's long overdue. Now that they're in place that sort of thing will hopefully be a thing of the past, too many YC funded companies have been visibly in breach of these at some point in time. Winning is fine but not by any means possible.

jamielee 13y ago

Enron's motto was "Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence." As we all know... it wasn't enough. Read their Code of Ethics, too. It's so ironic. Perhaps an essay about why ethics are important to the long-term success of a start-up would be much more effective. Why not talk about the start-ups that encountered ethical dilemmas, the thought-processes and the outcomes? That would be super entertaining as well as enlightening. I love the essays by Paul Graham. He inspired me to pursue what I love and to think about problems in the world. To simply be told to do so would not be as motivating. I think that as a technology start-up accelerator, there should be a greater purpose that is communicated. . . like improving the world with technology.

yaelwrites 13y ago

I'm so psyched to see this. It's incredibly heartening to see YC set a great example because of their visibility and the amount of respect we all have for them in the tech/startup community. As someone who's unsuccessfully worked on getting codes implemented, I think this is absolutely huge and predict others will do the right thing and follow suit. I agree that this is pretty vague. I don't think the more nitty gritty details (how to make an incident report, who's responsible for handling it, etc.) have to be posted publicly, but hopefully the actual policy is being worked on behind the scenes.