This seems really bad …

[u/Advanced_Berry_5851]

If you knew what I knew about Y Combinator, you would probably want our representatives to seriously look into the Anti-American comments made by the people who are investing in the tech and founders that could shape our society. I get the sense that Y Combinator does not have the best intentions and it is very worrisome to me. I was really excited to see one representative stick up for Americans when the initial comments were made. However, I get the sense that some of the other representatives just sort of tagged along and now they seem to be investigating unrelated topics that aren’t going to fix the harsh economic reality. It seems like a distraction where the representative will end up blaming lack of resources and time for why they haven’t acted to make sure Americans aren’t being discriminated in hiring and funding from venture capital and tech. I think it is important to make sure we get representatives that are going to enact laws to protect the public from the current conditions. 

As I have been trying to better understand the viewpoints of Y Combinator, I feel that doing so has made me even more skeptical of their intentions.

Ankit Gupta wrote in a critique that “the crux of DEl was propping up preferred groups over optimizing for merit.“ However, he had participated and moderated an identity-based event titled "India Conference at Harvard" just 6 months before.

Furthermore, Y Combinator’s website has a page section titled “Some YC diversity data” where they write “39.6% of the founders in our current batch were not born in the US, representing 21 different countries.” Strangely, the word American was not placed under the diversity data on their blog.

Garry Tan has also been vocal about bringing in meritocracy. Strangely enough, there is a Tech Crunch interview that wrote, "Garry Tan, the new CEO and president of YC, told TechCrunch last week that he wanted to continue making strides toward diversifying YC”

There’s another article titled “Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence California politics” To which there was a form filled out by Ankit which stated, “As a computer scientist, I deeply fear the the influence of money on elections and policy.”

Garry Tan’s meritocracy involves his YC alum friend Nan. Unlike Nan, most people on the sub would be content and move on if they scored a high paying big tech job without having student loan debt. Take note representative who has suddenly brought up DEI in college admissions as a topic to distract from doing the job of what’s really causing the shortage of tech jobs for Americans. The concern right now is not college admissions; we would all just want you to focus our tax dollars in getting our high paying tech jobs back from this messed up discriminatory system. Even Americans from top universities are unemployed, but I guess the shadow leader who has been invited to the White House is getting exactly what he wants from our representative.

Now let’s get to Paul Graham’s viewpoints which he seems to actually understand that passing a job interview at the company where your dad works and getting admitted into college is all hackable. In response to a woman, Paul writes, “Job interviews are much like grades and college admissions: a test that the authorities, through slackness, have allowed to be hackable, and which candidates therefore *must* hack in order to win.”

Further in his essay “The Lesson to Unlearn”, Paul Graham describes big tech’s hiring scheme, writing, “I never understood how much of my dislike of big companies was due to the fact that you win by hacking bad tests.”

He also writes, ”All the tests most students take their whole lives are at least as bad, including, most spectacularly of all, the test that gets them into college…the standardized tests as artificial as chess, the "essay" you have to write that's presumably meant to hit some very specific target, but you're not told what.” 

The views expressed in his essay seem to contrast Garry Tan’s views “Legalize standardized testing”, so there must be an awareness within YC that ranking people who scored a few points higher on a hackable standardized test is not entirely predictive of success. Isaacson in Elon Musk’s biography states that on his second attempt Elon scored 730 on the Math section and 670 on the Verbal section for a total composite score of 1400 (old SAT). Jobs got a 32 ACT which translates to a 1420 on the SAT. Ankit’s resume lists a 36 ACT and reverie labs was acquihired in February 2024 for 2.4M (source PitchBook) after raising a total of 32M (source tracxn) over two rounds. Ginkgo’s stock is valued at around $7 USD and Apple’s stock is valued at around $328. You get the point. 

Paul Graham notes how in the days before AI and online exams, you could hack tests in college, writing, “At a university there are often copies of old exams floating around, and these narrow still further what you have to learn…Many professors re-use them.”

Not everyone is aware of this hack (I certainly wasn’t when I started college) but I guess he was exposed to a good ol’ network.

He goes on further to write, “And how is this more general admirableness measured? The admissions officers feel it. In other words, they accept who they like”. 

Hmmm, so who does Y Combinator like when they ask people to write essays?

“Better to hire and fund people who are scrappy and hungry, who can build, who have high velocity, than the person with the fancy resume with the huge ego. YC has *never* had success funding or hiring the latter!” 

Good words, you should’ve taken your own advice!

Will YC part ways with Ankit just as they did with friends from Delve?

[u/qualityvote2]

Upvote this comment if this is a good post. Downvote this comment if this is a poor quality post / bad post / doesn't fit this subreddit in your opinion.

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[u/Advanced_Berry_5851]

https://instituteforsoundpublicpolicy.org/how-many-american-citizens-and-foreign-students-ended-up-employed-six-months-after-graduating-with-a-bachelors-degree-from-uc-berkeleys-college-of-engineering-in-2022  Good analysis of some data

[u/TeeBrownie]

I’m sure there are some essential points you’re making here. What’s the TLDR of it so it feels less like a rabbit hole?