For the uninitiated like myself, PearAi just took the source code of continue.dev (not fork, they copy pasted) and did some clunky work on it. That was their entry to YC.
(also, I did some poking around, this is the founder 3 months ago talking about using continue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0OylwLzBQw&t=257s - no horse in this race, just sharing)
People have been claiming that since COBOL came out (actually, probably before; I bet some people claimed it about _assembler_), so, er, yeah, will believe that one when I see it.
I think you’re right that that’s the evaluation happening, but it’s totally misguided. If you’re indexing for differentiating levels of taste I would be very wary of empty vessel young influencers. Taste is built over years and years and imo requires a certain disdain for the crowd. Look at Linus Torvalds as a pinnacle of taste in code for example.
For more context, YC doesn't judge your code, never has. It was never a code quality competition. Orthogonally, they do judge the results (user metrics).
it shows
[1]: https://jaredheyman.medium.com/on-the-176-annual-return-of-a...
They fund competitors because most YC companies usually pivot out anyway.