> Jessica's statement subtly suggests that this behavior is less common, and that the vast majority of the investors Y Combinator works with are above engaging

> Jessica's statement subtly suggests that this behavior is less common, and that the vast majority of the investors Y Combinator works with are above engaging in it. My reading of Jessica's statement was that she was trying to make it clear that ycombinator wasn't accusing their customers without evidence. Investors, in a real way, are Ycombinator's customers. Yes, sometimes your customers do bad things and you have to deal with it, sometimes dealing with it means making them no longer your customers. As much as possible, you want to set expectations about those sorts of situations ahead of time. But, you want to set those expectations in a way that don't make your innocent customers feel like they are being accused of anything. When you are setting these sorts of expectations, it is easy to make it feel, to your customers, like you are assuming they are guilty without evidence, and that's not something you want your customers to feel. It is a mistake I've made myself. At one point, in response to one of my poorly-considered spammer-discouragement policies, a potential customer told me "we don't assume you are stupid; but we do assume you are a spammer." - you don't want to make your potential customers feel that way.