It’s true. With 40k applications and roughly only 100s accepted… they likely only chose pearai because of nepotism. It would be self sabotage if they regularly do this so likely only a few companies are selected this way with pearai being one.

The above is a very educated guess on pearai, but whether or not YC engages in nepotism or not is unmistakable to me. They do and there is real corruption in the selection process. It’s not just gross incompetence.

Not only is there actual evidence that can be sourced but I can offer anecdotal evidence from inside sources from within the family involved with a company that passed via nepotism.

the company is called dreamworld. See here: https://www.pcgamer.com/dreamworld-infinite-world-mmo-kickst...

There’s whole YouTube videos about them including a post from one of the founders ex girlfriend. It’s all very shady the articles around them.

I encountered this company by being close friends with someone that is within the family related to the founders of dreamworld. I was literally told that the company succeeded because of family connections from dreamworlds ceo:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrisonbellack

Garrison is the ceo of dreamworld. And he’s from a rich family headed by his dad:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-r-bellack

who is part of some super rich real estate fund.

The bellacks regularly have big family gatherings in Tahoe and one of the attendees is Geoff ralston the previous president of YC.

Source not only confirmed dreamworld got selected via favors from Geoff but that Geoff was telling stories at this family retreat about how he had to fire Sam Altman from YC after getting a call from Paul graham. Yes pg fired Sam Altman from YC.

Dreamworld as it is right now got additional seed funding from VCs via connections as well and they are sitting on a pot of assets which is generating net positive income while that company can just stay afloat indefinitely. They don’t go through the hardships and risks other startup do thanks to nepotism.

There are other people in the bellack family creating startups and looking to Geoff to funnel them through YC via nepotism so Geoff is primed to make it happen again for sure.

So yeah. I’m sure Geoff isn’t the only person from within YC who does that.

Hacker news is pretty pristine, but the fund itself does shady stuff.

At least I think hacker news is pristine. Let’s see what happens to my post and my account. Maybe the moderators will be more strict with me? And use that to ban me? I am a bit rough with my opinions. But who knows?