Ask HN: What are the ethics at YC?
A “hiring” link came across the front page yesterday. After saying they plan to acquire “profitable SaaS companies,” they soon follow with “No support staff answering tickets.” That’s a pretty big red flag; if I’m the paying customer, I’ll be working hard to find a replacement if this company acquires one of my vendors.
This business plan reads like Soulless Private Equity who comes in, eliminates staff expenditures and increases subscription pricing by an order of magnitude to pump the valuation, then sells to some unwitting buyer at a huge profit with a total disregard for the consequences to customers, employees, and whomever else might provide resistance to their monetary motives.
“If you think we're wrong, don't apply.” I’m pretty sure that should go without saying for any job on offer. Phrasing like this just confirms to me there’s no nuance.
Are these the current ethics in Y Combinator?
YC is very ethical. I actually saw a couple of the VC's giving out sandwiches in bags to all the homeless. Inside the sandwiches were monitoring chips from a new W26 startup batch. Innovative as always
what were they monitoring that could be useful? digestion patterns? that sounds like a felony you witnessed.
I agree with the premise of your post, but after dealing with countless low quality/low knowledge support staff, I'd rather engage with an AI on the level of modern GPT models that are trained well on the support knowledge base. Perhaps this is what they're thinking?
Ethics?
From the VC cabal that brought you Flock's pre-crime police state AI tax syphon?
Sure, there are ethics. If it might make us heaps over heaps of money, and won't get us arrested (greasing a few wheels notwithstanding), we're excited to see see how our incubees can "make the world a better place" with us.
If it might make us money, but only modest amounts, you should probably search for funding elsewhere. VCs in the seed stage usually want moonshots.
I come to HN because there are absolutely wonderful discussions in the threads. Not always, not consistently, but often... the sort of conversations (even sometimes arguments) that leave me feeling energized, better informed, and/or fired up over some new project or technology I'd never heard of before.
That said, equally often I feel like a hermit who limps into town every couple weeks, wild-eyed and twitchy, and listens to other people's conversations, smiles and nods, maybe says something friendly and innocuous, and then I notice that there's a circle of people gambling on street-fighting urchins or chanting "ass-to-ass" at some degrading sideshow, and I have to haul my ass back out to the sticks before I'm found out and my blood is ceremonially drained to inaugurate some hellish techbro kegger 'n' orgy.
Expected(returns) > everything else possible.
This is fiduciary responsibility morality. It cannot be otherwise.*
* Source: 15x YC rejectee with idea cross-over with multiple YC acceptees. I guess I have to accept that the genii of silicon valley consider me a degenerate retard?