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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

YC isn't responsible for the actions of the founders of every start-up that they fund. Even worse: after funding them they have very limited ability to influence the companies they funded, after all, YC has a small minority stake and founders could just ignore them. Obviously YC can cut them off from further capital and blackball them but that may not be sufficient.

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on the contrary! They are indeed very much responsible, if only in part, for the actions of the people they are giving money and sharing connections with! Pretty sure there's an entire corner of criminal law and civil code covering exactly those responsibilities! And yeah, they can do all kinds of stuff to make sure that these things don't happen, or at the very very least publicly demonstrate that they will not tolerate it from future "founders" by responding appropriately to this one. I am always freshly amazed, probably from naivete, each time people make excuses for the terrible behavior of SV tech "founders" and the VCs that prop them up. I shouldn't be, on this forum, and thats on me.

As a seed investor and VC investor I'm happy to inform you that it very rarely happens that seed investors or VCs have a controlling interest in the company.

You may have a board seat. And if you don't like what the company is doing your most powerful move is resign from the board. Another option is to force a shareholder vote, but if the founders still hold the majority (as they should, at this phase) that will be overruled.

I'm freshly amazed by the lack of basic corporate law knowledge in the context of HN, this is really something that should be known if you partake of conversations like these.

I agree they should respond appropriately, but depending on what happened that response may not satisfy you.

I don't care whether you invest, nor do I care about corporate law. Nor, really, is corporate law at the heart of this matter! But, hey, if it shuts down opposition on forum arguments I'm sure thats an easy card to try and pull out. So let me be crystal clear, no one needs to know corporate law to comment on whether or not a YC funded startup is ripping off another startup, a startup that had previously applied to YC and was turned down! The idea that YC is in some way not responsible for the companies which would not even exist if not for the money and connections provided by YC is dishonest in the extreme. You should be embarrassed but I know you won't. In half an hour or less this comment will likely be flagged out of existence and no one will the wiser.

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