[cookiecaper]

Would YC really be upfront about the success or failure of this experiment? Most people are shy enough about failures in professional contexts where impacts are isolated to the company itself. The outcome of this pilot has real potential political ramifications, further disincentivizing those who're committed to basic income (as YC obviously is) from revealing any serious flaws or difficulties experienced, beyond the typical already-pretty-strong impulse to keep failed experiments under wraps (and when they are discussed, to generalize and gloss over the more painful/sticky parts).

I know we all admire YC here, but let's be practical about it. They're not going to drum up any more bad press for themselves than necessary.

[evanwolf]

It's all about the feedback loop. Failure analysis (where necessary) is more than a bumpersticker obituary. And we also need to catch lessons learned along the way, both the microfailures we learn from and the assumptions we tested and proved correct/incorrect. Last, it's vital to turn periodic recaps into more organized and systematic bodies-of-knowledge so it's fast/easy to learn from the history we're writing together.

[labster]

I'd expect them to report accurately. You have to remember, the expected result of a startup is failure, so they're used to dealing with that. I don't see why this would be any different.