[treis]

>why Y Combinator doesn't look for exploitative people so therefore this must not be true.

I have a dim recollection of an article many years ago that Y Combinator asked applicants a time when they gamed the system and the answer to that was on of the most correlated to success. Like saying you knew some technology that you didn't on a resume or selling some product that you hadn't built yet. They framed it as a positive. Finding opportunities and using them to your advantage. But a negative framing would be that they were looking for people that exploited whatever advantage they oculd find.

[ac2u]

>Like saying you knew some technology that you didn't on a resume or selling some product that you hadn't built yet.

Are you sure you didn't just come up with that example yourself to suit the narrative? Until you know what all selected companies chose as an answer for that, aren't we just guessing as to what quality they were looking for?

To be clear, I'm not accusing you of making it up, as my memory of it is dim too, I just can't remember examples being given like lying on a resume.

[treis]

What examples can you remember?

[ac2u]

I think this was the thread I remember reading at the time where people came up with examples that don't have to be deceptive.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1197674

There was also a quote from someone in yc saying that the question wasn't really that important (probably why it got removed).

[jelliclesfarm]

That’s an interesting thread ..altho not enough comments to make it super interesting..

I guess ‘hacks’ are what we call as ‘loopholes’ in tax audits. This is how I understand hacking. Every system has its strength/weaknesses and boundaries. As long as we can rearrange the system from within the boundaries by exploiting the available strengths/weaknesses to create an entirely different model/system/agenda qualifies as a ‘hack’.

[treis]

I'm glad you found it, but I don't really see those as really changing my point. They looked for people that beat the system. They're amusing anecdotes when it's a plucky college kid hustling for a job. But when it's a head of a billion+ company beating the system (i.e. laws protecting workers and/or the general populace) it's a different story.

[jelliclesfarm]

I remember that(I applied twice. Won’t likely do it again because YC isn’t a good fit for me) and I wrote something to fill the blank..while thinking why on earth would I put that in writing here for the off chance that I might be get into an accelerator program.

I don’t expect anyone to answer that truthfully, but the ability to come up with a convincing and impressive response would score major points for creativity.