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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

If you don't trust YC to be pro-founder, then you should be very concerned about YC, because they're enormously powerful.

I can't convince you either way. It would be pointless to debate it. Reasonable people might disagree. I'll only say that I don't know any founders, including people who have gone through YC and not felt they got much out of it, that don't agree with me that YC is far, far on the "founder" site of the "founder vs. capital" spectrum.

I have less respect for the argument that YC might be pro-founder but would prioritize some secret conspiracy to inflate harassment claims above the welfare of their portfolio companies. (I don't see you making that argument, just heading it off.)

For what it's worth: I have no connection to YC, and am openly critical of Sam Altman.

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I am more curious what their criteria is for adding someone to the list would be. Is it simply number of reports?

Do they give a warning to a person if they received 1 single report, and then if they receive more over the years then they get added?

Bad behaviour usually continues in part because a person believes they're getting away with it. If there's an early signal that they're in fact not getting away with it, then that would be beneficial to everyone for them to hear about it - the person harassing and the community at large.

I suspect that YC's goal is to identify people who can be trusted with access to its ecosystem. There is a difference between someone who is on 'their good behavior' due to fear of being caught and someone inherently inclined to try and do the right thing. 'Character' is one way of describing that difference.

They're probably not going to tell you.

And that in and of itself is part of the problem of why these lists are hard to create and maintain.

The problem here has less to do about YC maintaining a list and more to do about the people reporting incidents to YC. Sorry, but people are ruthless, and I can see this being abused by founders who may feel vengeful they didn't get funded.

If the list was based on convicted sexual harassers, then so be it, but if it's based on feedback reviews, it'll be ripe for abuse. This is going to have tricky sociological impacts in the VC community that won't actually solve the problem.

Of course they're hard to create and maintain, and of course they're more complicated than simply a count of the number of complaints.

The idea that there's something unusual about this is pretty silly. Businesses track the reputations of other businesses all the time. There's never any transparency in those lists, and people that fall on the wrong side of those lists never have any recourse.

Really, what we're arguing about here is the simple concept of "reputation". It's tough for message board nerds like us to hear this, but reputation in the real world is powerful, and it's not tracked in public Bugzillas. Ironically, the only upsetting thing that has happened here is that YC took the time to tell you about what they're doing.

> Businesses track the reputations of other businesses all the time.

I know of no business that regularly tracks the reputation of any _individuals_ in a database as part of it's regular business practice (the individual part is important) and that isn't part of it's model to disclose to involved parties. Uber would be a good example of someone that does this, but at least you can see a users rating at the time.

> The idea that there's something unusual about this is pretty silly.

I never said it was unusual. I think you're honing in on the wrong thing on this thread - which is the presumption that people are disgusted that these tactics happen. I more concerned that they are actively tracking it in a "review style" database and the data is only access by a select few (which is the presumption here).

What about businesses tracking and reporting on former employees: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/10/28/499805238/episo...

The employees, apparently, don't usually get access to their U5.

> I know of no business that regularly tracks the reputation of any _individuals_ in a database as part of it's regular business practice (the individual part is important) and that isn't part of it's model to disclose to involved parties.

I bet recruiting firms do.

Not only do venture capitalists do this kind of tracking, but they collude with each other to share informal blacklists and whitelists. There may be no group of people operating in American commerce with less of a moral high ground on this issue than venture capital firms.

What's more, there's not much you can do about it. Ultimately, they're not employers. They're investors. You can't coerce people into investing.

> each other to share informal blacklists and whitelists.

Exactly, informal. That's my point. The suggestion here isn't that informal lists exist, its that they are publicly announcing that it's being formalized. That's what makes this a big deal.

I still feel like you're not reading what I'm writing and keep trying to make a point responding to a wider discussion in this thread.

This is special because someone could potentially get put on that list for sexual harassment. And a decent chunk of people here will never, in any practical sense, admit such a thing could occur. And even if such a thing could hypothetically occur, any consequences for the man involved should be delayed until after a jury trial.

Or (in the cases of sexual harassment or racial discrimination only) admit there could be behavior which may not rise to the level of criminality but still is a good reason to cause potential partners to shun you.

People can potentially get put on that list for all kinds of things, though, none of which they'd want to be on the list for. Consequences for investor behavior never wait for a jury trial. It's a reputation economy, how would that even work?

> admit there could be behavior which may not rise to the level of criminality

Very little bad investor rises to the level of criminality. And most bad investor behavior is still a good reason for yc to shun you.

The presumption here is that the list will be abused by founders more than the VCs it was explicitly created to enumerate do their position vis a vis founders.

I think that attitude is no small part of why this problem is as deeply rooted as it is.

That is: which is the greater harm? Founders getting abused by VCs without this list, or VCs getting accused by founders with it? Maybe it reflects my categories and biases more than reality, but I know which way I'm inclined to err, there.

Well founders discovered to be abusing such a list would instantly cut themselves off from future YC attention. Reputation extends to all the parties in any potential deal.

And I am 100% in favor of that outcome, in that case.

So you know founders that went through YC and don't feel like they got much out of it? I wouldn't want you to break any confidences, but I'd be interested in hearing more such folks and what they think of YC.

I spent a lot of time getting peoples' takes on their yc experiences back in like 2011. What I found is that no one really says "yc was bad for us". Even companies that didn't survive got immediate press credibility, money, etc.

If you think about it, the worst case for a company that goes through yc is that it's neutral. They can't really hurt anything — when companies fail (or struggle) it's never because of yc. There are hundreds of reasons companies fail.

So the tl;dr; is that people probably won't ever say "yc was bad for us", and companies that come out doing well won't think "yc wasn't great for us".

I would love to hear more as well.

First thought is that if pretty experienced founders who are starting a company in a space YC isn't experienced in(e.g. biotech 5 years ago) went through it they might not get much out of it.

When the exit its very low value and investors fight for the scraps YC donates is shares to the founders, in my opinion it doesn't get more founder friendly than this.

Are there public examples of this?

It as been disclosed by Sam Altman on this talk https://youtu.be/Y0zbiyIEqX0 (Sorry at the moment I don't remember the specific timeframe)

Curious to hear your point of view on Sam Altman. I don't know him personally (only met him twice at public events), but from what I have read and listened, I tend to like him a lot. Your perspective might be really useful.

He seems like he might be a fun person to get tapas with. I don't have a personal problem with him.

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