Comment by ryandrake
6 hours ago
Y Combinator's application still asks: "Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage." They don't actually use the word "cheat" but that's what they're asking for: Are you willing to cheat if it gives you an advantage?
Eh everyone I know in YC answered this in an ethical way. In fact, I suspect YC keeps this wording to catch people admitting to something unethical while rewarding people who see something in a system that could be different.
My answer that got me accepted was that there was a lip syncing competition at my college that was dwindling because everyone had to submit a CD and sign up in advance. It also was held in an auditorium.
When I took over, I moved it to Spotify and moved the venue to the lawn, and we went from ~20 people the previous year to 1.2k the year I ran it.
Is that really a surprising trait to expect from a venture capitalist persona? As we go on, especially as most of the simple problems get solved, the system everyone blindly trusted has turned to uphold generally positive trends has turned to lies, manipulation, exploitative practices, loophole engineering and abuse. What I would expect from a successful VC applicant today isn't savvy business sense and actual good ideas, but an unrelenting willingness to do anything short of putting your life on the line for profit. There's no such thing as going low for these people, they are rewarded for using every trick in the book to earn an extra cent.
> anything short of putting your life on the line for profit
Why should they put their own life on the line when there are so many others whose lives could be used instead?
Is it really cheating if the system is vulnerable? What about things like a filibuster or slow walking an order?
By your logic, hacking is legal due to vulnerabilities