frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

Open in hackernews

Has any YC founder ever gone to jail for startup-related crimes?

8•TeslaK20•22h ago
Forbes 30 under 30 has become infamous for it's press-to-prison pipeline.

But YC has selected literally thousands of founders, maybe tens of thousands, and I haven't heard of any of them getting arrested for fraud.

Are there any exceptions? And why is YC so good at screening out impressive-seeming but fraudulent founders?

Comments

m0zzie•22h ago
IIRC there have been a few but the only one I specifically remember is uBiome: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBiome

YC has yet to back a Theranos-scale fraud.. unless there is one that simply hasn't been discovered yet.

TeslaK20•22h ago
Oh I remember hearing about that one now! I didn't realize it was YC. That one's interesting since the founders are still fugitives.
anovikov•20h ago
I worked for a YC founder (won't name it ofc) on a project that went through its pipeline with a big success around 10 years ago, although for me it was evident that the idea was unworkable and i wondered how could they raise funding. As it turned out, one or both of cofounders had criminal convictions before, one of them actually came up with the idea of that product while in prison, they completely faked all their user and traction numbers and siphoned money out of investors, and almost everything that was ever actually done, was done by a single developer i have supplied them. Then they were uncovered and went into hiding again (probably always used fake names so idk if it even matters - maybe they are still around us).

Ironically, the idea that was unworkable back then, appears to be still unworkable, and is still actively tried by one team i talk with! And they recently raised money from Google.

Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2025)

142•whoishiring•10h ago•191 comments

Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2025)

65•whoishiring•10h ago•167 comments

Ask HN: How do you avoid job hunting burnout?

6•b8•3h ago•6 comments

Ask HN: Is "messaging systems specialist" a real job title or niche?

5•pella_may•2h ago•1 comments

I launched 17 side projects. Result? I'm rich in expired domains

352•cesargstn•2d ago•249 comments

Ask HN: Who Is Looking for a Cofounder?

21•dontoni•7h ago•11 comments

Ask HN: Best AI Automation Platform

2•franze•4h ago•1 comments

Ask HN: AI Chat Agent vs. Traditional Personal Website?

4•JaiRathore•6h ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Anyone know how to reach Cloudflare support?

6•OhMeadhbh•7h ago•5 comments

Nova: A New Web Framework for Erlang

64•taure•1d ago•26 comments

Ask HN: Which software companies hire people in Africa for remote work?

6•DanieleProcida•12h ago•2 comments

Ask HN: Startups, 0 Stability – Is It Time to Move on from Tech?

6•OulaX•13h ago•6 comments

Claude Code weekly rate limits

598•thebestmoshe•4d ago•702 comments

Comparison Between Sync Engines

2•belchiorb•17h ago•1 comments

Ask HN: What are you working on? (July 2025)

258•david927•5d ago•845 comments

Has any YC founder ever gone to jail for startup-related crimes?

8•TeslaK20•22h ago•3 comments

Has AI coding gone too far? I feel like I'm losing control of my own projects

13•Shaun0•1d ago•11 comments

Ask HN: Are developers sad about AI writing more of their code?

13•JFerreol_J•1d ago•21 comments

Ask HN: Anyone using llms.txt on blogs? Worth it for AI search?

6•logic_node•7h ago•5 comments

New budget financial API, based on EDGAR data

7•jgfriedman1999•1d ago•5 comments

Tell HN: Add "NSFW" words in your Google query to avoid AI summary

22•behnamoh•3d ago•19 comments

Ask HN: How will the OSA affect small Mastodon instances?

29•Digit-Al•3d ago•15 comments

Ask HN: Is there a way to see HN without all the posts about AI?

4•dotcoma•13h ago•8 comments

Ask HN: Small Utility App Monetization

5•mywacaday•1d ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Local LLM agents on Jetson/RPi without a heavy runtime

3•takuya_h•1d ago•3 comments

Ask HN: Advise for technical solo founders trying to secure venture capital?

5•siva7•1d ago•4 comments

Warp.dev Terminal – Overpriced, Buggy, and AI-Sabotaged My Code

56•MistermanX•5d ago•39 comments

Ask HN: Catching Up with Current Datacenters

3•Damogran6•1d ago•7 comments

Ask HN: State of the art with local LLMs and agents

4•prmph•1d ago•2 comments

Google Maps Reviews in Germany Are Basically Dead

32•tahaygun•2d ago•18 comments