[thejohnhenry]

I'm extremely interested in this, as the current funding model for startups restricts new technology to companies that are fiduciarily compelled to monopolize their market, siphoning user data and (potentially) damaging civic society in the process. Startups are still a very good vehicle for most problems, but for certain classes of problems, sometimes make things worse, and I'm curious if YCombinator is interested in helping out with those types of initiatives.

[jessriedel]

To be clear: YC accepts non-profits each round.

www.ycombinator.com/nonprofits/

The question of whether open-source producing non-profits fit into YC is still a good one. I couldn't find an info on whether they have already accepted such non-profits, but the incubator Fast Forward has:

> Intelehealth built an open-source intelligence engine for assessing primary care conditions

https://qz.com/792685/silicon-valley-wants-to-save-the-world...

[thejohnhenry]

Sure, and I'm aware of the non-profit initiatives. I don't think many people have considered producing actual software under a not-for-profit (except for Khan Academy?), probably because it's insanely expensive. Would YCombinator help facilitate funding a fully open Facebook or Twitter clone, for instance? It sounds outlandish to consider, but it seems equally outlandish to consider the 2020 election happening over essentially the same social stack & people will just be okay with that.

(Obviously, a clone itself wouldn't suffice, you'd need to start with federated identity, and....)

[nostrademons]

FWIW, YCombinator has funded a fully open, federated Facebook clone:

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/diaspora#/entity

It didn't work out so well, mostly because a.) actually cloning Facebook is pretty hard and b.) users don't seem to want to switch to fully-open Facebook or Twitter clones.

[thejohnhenry]

Haha, interesting, I didn't know they went through YC at some point.

I'm making a strong bet that people do want to switch to fully-open social clones, because it's hard for me to imagine citizens of 2024 or 2028 conducting an effective political system using today's monolithic social technology. But the current ecosystem sucks for it.

[neodude]

A lot of YC non-profits produce "actual software". I know Watsi does, because I run the product and engineering team there.

[thejohnhenry]

Oh, certainly, I didn't meant to say that non-profits didn't create software, just that they're not primarily software companies, or working in domains that compete with traditional big vendors. Love the work you do at Watsi!