[alsetmusic]

And yet YC still makes bets on pretty easily detected BS like Pickle VR[0]. That's a startup I sure wouldn't trust.

Pickle is one of the most egregious examples, but I've noticed a trend of these fly-by-night operations with YC backing getting found out as frauds over the last handful of years. I don't know if it's happening more or if I just wasn't aware of them or if the rate was the same but people started talking about them more.

0. https://x.com/thedowd/status/2007337800430198913

[Traster]

It is the nature of YC that you're going to get instances like Pickle. YC invests at a very early stage in lots of companies. 40% are literally just an idea. It isn't a scam that one of the companies pivot, it's expected. They're meant to work on their idea, and if it doesn't work or they have a better idea they pivot.

What Pickle is doing is essentially they're falling on the wrong line of "fake it to you make it", it would be totally fine to do what they're doing (allowing pre-orders with a $200 deposit for a Q4 '26 product) if they just weren't lying about the specs. It's pretty clear they aren't going to deliver anything like what they've promised, but that is just ambition. The whole point of YC is that 1 out of 1000 of these companies are going to deliver something revolutionary and you don't get that without 1000 of them trying to do something revolutionary.

Having said that, you only need to watch the launch video to realise the CEO is total moron ("If everyone wore the same pair of glasses, what would they look like?"). But the way YC works, they don't actually have the power to tell Pickle what to do. YC are going to lose their investment on that company.

[philipwhiuk]

> It is the nature of YC that you're going to get instances like Pickle. YC invests at a very early stage in lots of companies. 40% are literally just an idea

But the whole supposed point of YC is investing in people not founders. If that's the pitch and you invest in a moron, that makes you look bad too. YC should be good at telling if people are morons - that's kind of their entire job.

> But the way YC works, they don't actually have the power to tell Pickle what to do.

They get 7% of your company. They do actually have some power.