[ditonal]

Let’s not forget that Flexport is one of the darling representatives of YCs portfolio. YC has some verbiage about ethical behavior on their website, but when it’s come to actual tough ethical situations like DoorDash pocketing drivers tips, Flexport reneging on signed offers, or all sorts of insanely narcissistic behavior by other YC founders, it’s been shown their “ethics” are words and not actions.

This shouldn’t just reflect poorly on Flexport leadership but on their investors. Especially because the more time you spend in Silicon Valley you learn that your “scrappy startup” is really a product division of the VCs who really call the shots.

Pay close attention to what you hear from pg, Garry Tan, Michael Seibel, etc on this issue. Very very easy to talk ethics in the abstract. Real ethics and integrity are defined in exactly tough times like this. And if you see the cowardice that I expect like we saw with DoorDash, keep that in mind before you “Work at a Startup”

[benreesman]

It’s weird too because this doesn’t seem like the usual “fish rots from the head” scenario. Admittedly I’ve never done YC, but I’ve been in that orbit via HN and friends since the beginning, and pg seemed like a really ethical guy from day one.

I’m looking in from the outside, so who knows, but it seems like level of ambition early YC was filtering on brought this dark triad shit into the bloodstream and that in turn shifted pg’s worldview.

pg is obviously ambitious, but inherently “get to the top at any cost” people don’t spend a bunch of time writing books about Common Lisp and learning some painting and hanging out in art galleries a bunch. Part of what drew me to HN and the essays and the whole thing was a wholesome attitude that kind of said “work hard don’t try to game the system”, at least in the beginning.

[KingOfCoders]

Or the Airbnb debacle where PG defended sketchy behaviour here.

[TX81Z]

Ethics means sometimes you leave bad money on the table for good reasons.

That’s not how the VC mind is wired. A bad investment loses money, a good one makes money. That’s all.

[roflyear]

The YC portfolio is full of unethical behavior like you said, but HN is full of "temporarily embarrassed founders" so you won't get much sympathy here with these types of comments. Good on you for bringing this up!