sama: can you comment on the various personal and financial interests you have in this case? Would you name and shame for a YC company in which you had not invested as an individual? One not run by a personal friend? One not about to be acquired for huge money and become another home run for YC?

Or similarly, you note in this post that you spent a whole day dealing with this issue. Hanging around HN we frequently read about how YC partners' time is in high demand, many applications to YC are viewed for literally only seconds, office hours are in fact not hours, etc. Would any YC company get such a chunk of your time?

I certainly don't mean to be some jerk on the internet telling you how you may or may not spend your hours. That's a) not my place and b) a topic I'm not qualified to philosophize on.

Nonetheless, it's more than a bit disconcerting to read a blog post which starts out with "here are some of my various connections to an interests in this company" followed by "and I'm doing them special favors, apparently at risk to myself, including writing this blog post."

This blog post gave me quite a sense of "well, sama and YC have a solid moral compass and plenty of self confidence but don't always follow the rules." The "I'm making an exception of my usual don't-be-on-YC-company-boards policy to be chairman of two YC companies" post from a year ago [1] had a similar vibe. Both posts made me wary of YC.

[1] http://blog.samaltman.com/energy Maybe I should clarify that I'm rooting for Helion and UPower and hope they go far with Sam. But a policy of I won't be on YC boards unless it's for my favorite company in one of my favorite application areas sounds a lot like I've given up desserts and other refined sugars (except warm brownie sundaes with ice cream and chocolate sauce).