<story><title>YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/30/y-combinator-is-being-criticized-after-it-backed-an-ai-startup-that-admits-it-basically-cloned-another-ai-startup/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kibwen</author><text>The problem here is not that they stole the idea, it&amp;#x27;s that they literally just took an open-source codebase and filed off the serial numbers to claim it as their own proprietary work, and they did so in the most comically inept way possible.&lt;p&gt;From the OP:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;PearAI offers an AI coding editor. The startup’s founder Duke Pan has openly said that it’s a cloned copy of another AI editor called Continue, which was covered under the Apache open source license. But PearAI made a major misstep: PearAI originally slapped its own made-up closed license on it, called the Pear Enterprise License, which Pan admitted was written by ChatGPT.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item><item><author>CharlieDigital</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been in the VC-backed startup space as a lead&amp;#x2F;principal engineer or technical advisor for the last 4 years.&lt;p&gt;In that time, I&amp;#x27;ve worked at 1 startup that closed a $100m C, one that closed a multi-million B, one that recently closed a $30m C, and one that started with a $8m seed.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve started my own startup and worked with founders of other startups on the side advising on the technical side (and once in a while building the initial PoCs).&lt;p&gt;Some have failed, some have succeeded wildly, some have hit their limits of growth, some have a great product that solves an obvious problem yet get &lt;i&gt;zero&lt;/i&gt; traction.&lt;p&gt;Here is a lesson-learned as far as &amp;quot;copying&amp;quot; goes: &lt;i&gt;it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter&lt;/i&gt;.  It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter if there are 3 companies in the same domain doing the same thing; then it simply comes down to insider connections, sales, marketing, and pricing.&lt;p&gt;In the end, the team that wins isn&amp;#x27;t always the one with the best product; there is a fair bit of luck and timing, marketing is super important, and having the right leadership team in place makes all the difference.  The non-product aspects of a successful business are supremely underappreciated, especially by the technical folks.  Bad products can become good products eventually; bad teams can rarely survive turbulence and it is so hard to tell if a team has the right &amp;quot;vibes&amp;quot; or not.&lt;p&gt;So it makes sense for YC or any VC to bet broadly because the reasons why a team succeeds and another fails is so intangible with so much luck and timing involved as well that making broad bets -- even if two YC-batch companies are  very similar in terms of domain and product -- is just sound business.&lt;p&gt;Edit: to be clear, these are not my principles (no need to attack me personally); these are simply my observations about teams that have succeeded and teams that have floundered.  I left 1 company because because in principle, I disagreed with their loose operational style in a regulated space.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;PearAI made a major misstep: PearAI originally slapped its own made-up closed license on it&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is comical but not the core fuck-up: PearAI failed to attribute, thereby violating Community’s license.&lt;p&gt;It &lt;i&gt;might&lt;/i&gt; be salvageable if they can convince customers they aren’t dragging everyone who uses them into a legal morass. But that will likely take more funding, and “help me pay lawyers” isn’t a great pitch.&lt;p&gt;Good artist copy, great artists steal. PearAI tried and failed to copy. Y Combinator&amp;#x27;s value-adding play is in striking a licensing and indemnification deal between PearAI and Community. (If Community is smart, they&amp;#x27;ll demand an arm and a leg. They&amp;#x27;re owed it.)</text></comment>
<story><title>YC criticized for backing AI startup that simply cloned another AI startup</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/30/y-combinator-is-being-criticized-after-it-backed-an-ai-startup-that-admits-it-basically-cloned-another-ai-startup/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kibwen</author><text>The problem here is not that they stole the idea, it&amp;#x27;s that they literally just took an open-source codebase and filed off the serial numbers to claim it as their own proprietary work, and they did so in the most comically inept way possible.&lt;p&gt;From the OP:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;PearAI offers an AI coding editor. The startup’s founder Duke Pan has openly said that it’s a cloned copy of another AI editor called Continue, which was covered under the Apache open source license. But PearAI made a major misstep: PearAI originally slapped its own made-up closed license on it, called the Pear Enterprise License, which Pan admitted was written by ChatGPT.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item><item><author>CharlieDigital</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been in the VC-backed startup space as a lead&amp;#x2F;principal engineer or technical advisor for the last 4 years.&lt;p&gt;In that time, I&amp;#x27;ve worked at 1 startup that closed a $100m C, one that closed a multi-million B, one that recently closed a $30m C, and one that started with a $8m seed.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve started my own startup and worked with founders of other startups on the side advising on the technical side (and once in a while building the initial PoCs).&lt;p&gt;Some have failed, some have succeeded wildly, some have hit their limits of growth, some have a great product that solves an obvious problem yet get &lt;i&gt;zero&lt;/i&gt; traction.&lt;p&gt;Here is a lesson-learned as far as &amp;quot;copying&amp;quot; goes: &lt;i&gt;it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter&lt;/i&gt;.  It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter if there are 3 companies in the same domain doing the same thing; then it simply comes down to insider connections, sales, marketing, and pricing.&lt;p&gt;In the end, the team that wins isn&amp;#x27;t always the one with the best product; there is a fair bit of luck and timing, marketing is super important, and having the right leadership team in place makes all the difference.  The non-product aspects of a successful business are supremely underappreciated, especially by the technical folks.  Bad products can become good products eventually; bad teams can rarely survive turbulence and it is so hard to tell if a team has the right &amp;quot;vibes&amp;quot; or not.&lt;p&gt;So it makes sense for YC or any VC to bet broadly because the reasons why a team succeeds and another fails is so intangible with so much luck and timing involved as well that making broad bets -- even if two YC-batch companies are  very similar in terms of domain and product -- is just sound business.&lt;p&gt;Edit: to be clear, these are not my principles (no need to attack me personally); these are simply my observations about teams that have succeeded and teams that have floundered.  I left 1 company because because in principle, I disagreed with their loose operational style in a regulated space.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CharlieDigital</author><text>It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter so long as they didn&amp;#x27;t violate any licenses.&lt;p&gt;Where the product starts and where it ends will be two totally different endpoints that are sure to diverge once they find their domain and business model.</text></comment>