Comment by hbbio
1 year ago
The worst part is that instead of backing out and let's say kicking them out of the batch, YC doubled down praising the (pretty poor imho) justification that may also have been written by ChatGPT, like the license :)
1 year ago
The worst part is that instead of backing out and let's say kicking them out of the batch, YC doubled down praising the (pretty poor imho) justification that may also have been written by ChatGPT, like the license :)
I don’t thinks its the worst, but it did feel in bad taste. YC have put money and trust in them, so why would they kick them down? Would you? They haven’t committed any crime so why would they distance themselves (Note: I am not a YC founder or affiliated with YC in any way)
Is your standard for ethics really, "Well it's not a criminal violation of the law?"
There's a question in a (reasonably) dead reply that I want to resurrect:
> Are we to go out and memorize everyone’s personal framework/religion (cause I can tell I’m not going to) or do you have something else in mind except a dead end question that goes nowhere?
No, what I expect is for people to have thought about their own personal framework.
That said, it's worth at least understanding a bit about other people's frameworks, because a) people have been thinking and writing about these topics for thousands of years, and you just might learn something. And b) you are living in a world with other people, people who are not dummies. If your own moral code is, say, "grab the cash and run", there going to treat you differently.
That's part of why most professional organizations will have codes of ethics. E.g., IEEE has a good one for themselves [1] and another one specifically for software engineers. [2] It's true even in areas where making money is the primary goal, like business and finance.
Take the current article as an example. The PearAI founders have revealed something about their moral code. That will matter down the road. E.g., Whenever I'm hiring somebody I'll look at their resume and flag companies with known ethical problems. Maybe that gets them binned, maybe I ask them about it. And when I've founded something, the ethics of my cofounders has been among my highest criteria. That's true for a lot of founders and execs I know.
[1] https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html
[2] https://ethics.acm.org/code-of-ethics/software-engineering-c...
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They haven't built anything and didn't even bother to properly rename everything in the original repository.
It's clear they are not deserving of YC backing, nor are they trustworthy, as they seem to have misrepresented their involvement in building the software. They're not in crypto anymore :)
> They haven’t committed any crime so why would they distance themselves
There are bad, socially unacceptable things that are also not crimes (for instance: lying in a lot of contexts). Crimes (for the most part) are just the more extreme bad things someone can do.
If you think the bar for distancing from someone is "committing a crime," your bar is far too low. Unfortunately, that minimal bar is a meme that has been pushed with some success by people who want to get away with shady shit.
Not a crime != OK.
They relicensed the code to their own license[0], which violates the original license, so you could argue they committed copyright infringement.
[0] https://github.com/trypear/pearai-app/blob/e921c7ae272168577...
EDIT: Looks like they have since changed the license to Apache 2.0 but it's still in violation of the original MIT license and does not contain the required copyright notice.
It'd be unethical for YC to kick them out. PearAI signed an agreement with the startup incubator and presumably didn't misrepresent their product. The main criticism is that YC made a bad business decision by backing a non-innovative product. That's an issue that should be handled privately between YC and the founders, not through public humiliation.
If I get hired at a job I expect my boss to (publicly) back me if another team criticizes my work, then tell me the issues in a 1-on-1. If I have investors I expect them to (publicly) back my business strategy and privately tell me their concerns.
> They haven’t committed any crime
What about the license change? Not a crime?