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As long as these companies keep bragging about being related to YC, anything they do will also reflect on YC. You can't ask people not to associate these things.

And in this case, these ads are given special treatment here on HN. So of course YC owns some part of the responsibility.

They’re advertising here on their platform, so the tie-in is strong.

They want to get all the credit and positive PR when things go well and not have any responsibility when things don’t go well?

It wasn't a single company, it has been a pattern for a while - that's why I made the post.