And, yet, I'm still at a loss as to why it is unreasonable to think that there could be different generic e-mails sent out to different groups.
>>If they're prepared to fund 1,000 companies they think are _really_ likely to make it, I think that implies there's no need for strata.
Only if every company not accepted was rejected for precisely the same reason, and this reason could not at all be broken down at all. Do you think that is likely?
Perhaps somebody could list out all of the YC philosophies of acceptance, and every type of generic e-mail that wouldn't make sense to send; then we could use deduction to solve this mystery of no stratified rejection e-mails.
All I set out to do was test the hypothesis: Were there different rejection letters sent, because it seems pretty reasonable that there would be. Maybe some letters would contain feedback, albeit generic? After all, they need to make a conscientious decision to accept/deny, why not have a few reasons for denying? I even proposed a method to test out this hypothesis.
Thank you to everyone who did the MD5 to verify that there was only 1 type of e-mail sent. That's what I was looking for.
But when I get in return, and not just on this thread, are people talking about the YC acceptance process as if they are part of YC, or (in this case) paraphrasing the fucking rejection letter or YC application notes, I find that to be really annoying. I can read and understand things myself. It would be a disservice to myself if I didn't express that annoyance.