Judge J-Cal’s Ruling on the YC Copycat Drama

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]To me, it's sounds like some behavior that I wouldn't do myself, but I'm curious what your take is on both YC, the startup, and its competitor.

[00:00:08]Oh, yeah, I'm prepared to give my judgment as the judge and Jeremy and and chairman of the internet intrawebs and startups. As the official judge, jury, Judge Dredd of these kind of issues, I will give my ruling.

[00:00:20]First, I'll give my ruling on Y Combinator.

[00:00:23]Y Combinator encourages this hacking behavior uh because they know if you were to make a four-quadrant chart, people who break the rules and who are competent, people who don't break the rules and who are competent, people who are incompetent, break the rules, don't break the rules. If you were to make those four boxes, rule-breakers, rebels, who are competent or incompetent, tend to win over people who are not rule-breakers.

[00:00:54]Now, rule people who are somewhere in the middle, they'll bend rules, they tend to do really well if they're competent. But, there is a special place in the world for people who are willing to bend and break rules, and the problem with that is, once you establish that culture of rule-bending, breaking, reinterpretation, say Airbnb reinterpreting how things work.

[00:01:16]Obviously, Uber I was famously an investor in. Like, they reinterpreted some laws, ride-sharing laws, renting your couch laws. Hey, we're not a hotel, we're just renting a room.

[00:01:26]Um okay, distinction without a difference. You you know, I'll leave it up to you. But, uh the problem with this is, you have to explain to those rule-breakers, when you invite the rule-breakers in, some of them will do criminal things. Some of them will do things that are morally uh you know, unethical. And that's why you see YC has to do cleanup. Uh they I think with that company that was Yeah, did they Yeah, they did remove them from the batch, basically. But, that was only all the allegations. They they were well aware of all of this, probably, and just didn't do anything cuz they didn't And they initially supported them after it broke, too, if you recall. Yeah. So, the default stance is always to support your founders. That's what they should do.

[00:02:08]That's what I do. And then, if they did truly do something wrong, you know, selling your shares back, breaking up, and cleaning up the relationship is also the right thing to do. So, I understand YC's position, YC should be a little bit more clear on the margins about this specific type of behavior, which is blatant rip-offs.

[00:02:29]They've now become known for being the blatant rip-off shop. Because when you have 200 companies that have 500k each, they don't get product market fit. I know these founders. I know what they go through. They go through massive panic of, "Oh my god, I'm going to fail." And you get the shame of failing. So, with your last, let's say you did your first idea, you spent 300 of the 500k, you got 200k left. You throw a Hail Mary. You stand up a website really quick.

[00:02:55]You copy somebody else's idea. You try to raise money. Sometimes it works out.

[00:03:01]So, now I'll move on to So, they should just be a little clear that that's lame, don't do it. I'm pretty clear with that.

[00:03:06]If somebody comes and applies, um and Y Combinator or any accelerator can't say we're going to just bet on one person in a vertical, they There's all the companies pivot, like literally the majority of the companies pivot from their original idea within the first two or three ideas when you're at the accelerator stage. So, people pivot into each other. That's all good. But they should just say, on a moral ethical basis, ripping off and stealing and photocopying is just lame and unethical, please don't do it. And that's what I say. Like it looks lame. Okay, now I will move on to this company.

[00:03:41]This company uh looks lame, unethical, and immoral based on stealing uh the website pixel by pixel.

[00:03:52]Is that illegal? No.

[00:03:55]Can you trademark design and stuff like that? Yes, on the margins, but you can't really, you know, obviously can't stop his business and spend All right. $10 million on a lawsuit over a website. It's just not possible.

[00:04:08]So, when somebody does that kind of behavior, if you're an investor, if you're Y Combinator, if you're GC, whoever's investing, that is a glaring glaring alarm signal.

[00:04:21]If somebody is willing to do something that's unethical, immoral, then that means you need to investigate if they are doing other things that are immoral, unethical, or illegal.

[00:04:33]So, as a founder, you should never do anything with the appearance of impropriety because it's a glaring alarm signal to double-click on everything else you're doing. Your equity, your pay, your contracts, who your customers are, your metrics. You're a founder and you're moving fast and you want to close a big deal. A traditional bank can kill your momentum. Long approval processes, clunky outdated systems, not intuitive.

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