LOL just got kicked out of @ycombinator

The person who the original tweet was referring to (it&#x27;s not private; they admitted it), just tweeted a GIF about &quot;witnessing karma&quot;.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Prafulfillment&#x2F;status&#x2F;1400934024680415235" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Prafulfillment&#x2F;status&#x2F;140093402468041523...</a><p>EDIT: Reply on HN by the author: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=27400221" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=27400221</a>

The submitted title was &quot;Y Combinator kicks out Paul Biggar over a tweet&quot;. That is inaccurate, so in keeping with the HN guidelines (&quot;<i>Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don&#x27;t editorialize.</i>&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>), I&#x27;ve replaced the title with the tweet text. That&#x27;s the standard thing we do with titles, when people post Twitter links.<p>Much as I&#x27;d love to, it&#x27;s not my place to say why the original title was inaccurate, so I&#x27;ll just remind you all that there are two or more sides to every story and not everything on Twitter is true.<p>In keeping with the rule that we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is involved (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=all&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=false&amp;query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20%22not%20more%22%20yc&amp;sort=byDate&amp;type=comment" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=all&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=false&amp;qu...</a>), I&#x27;m <i>not</i> doing anything else to the submission. Normally, of course, we&#x27;d downweight this sort of petty drama.

The behavior he&#x27;s calling out is obviously abhorrent. But isn&#x27;t this more due to him airing dirty laundry in public? If this is his last recourse after consulting internally to try and deal with this, then I get it. But there is definitely a trend (maybe not by him) of people running to social media with their complaints before discussing them with those involved. If that is the case i would understand his being sanctioned.

I’m confused. So YC kicked out the guy who complained about it on Twitter and not the people who advocated for lying to skip lines? Wtf?

What an excellent demonstration of what values&#x2F;norms a group really cares about.<p>Biggar violated the all time favourite in-group rule: Don&#x27;t talk out of school. Don&#x27;t talk about fight club. Don&#x27;t snitch.<p>The other founders violated a norm against pushing yourself ahead and taking advantage of others that doesn&#x27;t even seem to hold in many groups, especially upper class&#x2F;wealthy ones.

I&#x27;m in Oakland, I drove someone to a clinic. It was a day of pouring rain. We got there end of day. I didn&#x27;t meet whatever high priority groups were getting vaccinated (though I do have a breathing related health condition). They had extra shots, they said come get a shot, their form didn&#x27;t have a spot for leftover shots being used, so the women said I&#x27;ll put you down as X (which I wasn&#x27;t).<p>This whole thing of trying to criminalize and be outraged at folks in this space seems way out of whack.<p>So good on ycombinator!<p>Same thing with masks, no one allowed to wear N95&#x27;s but health care folks. I had masks from the fires and my breathing issue. I wore the same mask for a few weeks against the rules. Got flak from folks saying a) masks don&#x27;t work and b) I should have saved it for health care folks. Not only is that contradictory it&#x27;s dumb.

I’m also surprised how many people bragged about jumping ahead in line when elderly people with much higher mortality rates were still waiting for theirs. At least keep it to yourself.

I&#x27;m the person this original tweet was about.<p>None of you know any of the internal details but what I can state is that Paul has no idea what he&#x27;s talking about and later admits to the fact I wasn&#x27;t lying.<p>Here&#x27;s the order of events:<p>1. I went to a neighborhood clinic in Oakland, CA that&#x27;s literally next door to my house, I can see the church from my window. Paul lives in NYC which is on the opposite end of the country.<p>2. I asked them about eligibility and told them I don&#x27;t clear CA guidelines. They told me it&#x27;s first come, first served with an ID showing I am 18+.<p>3. I showed up the next day, waited in line for 4 hours then got jabbed.<p>4. Posted it in an internal forum for other founders.<p>5. A few people had issues so raised them which I addressed but YC still took down the post within the day.<p>6. I appealed but YC still held their decision as final.<p>Outcome: YC founder came with his aunt, uncle, and mom all over 65 to get jabbed who didn&#x27;t know about the vaccine site.<p>---<p>Paul ends up tweeting about it and making a huge deal around something he has no idea about. He gets a bunch of people on Twitter upset about something they don&#x27;t know about.<p>Outcome: Internet rage.

That tweet is three months old. No way YC bans someone over a three month old tweet (unless they only discovered the tweet recently, which I doubt).<p>I&#x27;m betting there&#x27;s more to this story.

I have worked for YC founders that have shared far more disturbing things from the YC forum to non-members. If the banning is for violating privacy or public mocking (no matter how small of a “public” it might be), the YC moderation here is pretty biased. The internal forum is pretty huge now, I guess they’re Doing Things That Don’t Scale (TM).

Looks like this prompted another founder to post that they were kicked out 2 weeks ago for a different incident:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ekadamer&#x2F;status&#x2F;1400956227501318146" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ekadamer&#x2F;status&#x2F;1400956227501318146</a>

This is really distressing, especially considering the ongoing public behavior of the original founder. Kicking out Paul seems like the opposite reaction for YC to have. It would be helpful to hear a public comment from them about this situation.

As a total outsider, I don&#x27;t know<p>1) whether he was really kicked out over that tweet<p>2) whether what he said in that tweet was true

It&#x27;s a bit distressing how organizations try so hard to keep a good reputation all the time. I mean, is it really that bad to publically admit that you are composed of people with questionable morals? For example, in the first company I used to work, I was always bitching about how things could improve. I got fired because I was &quot;bringing the moral down&quot; and was &quot;working against the company&quot;. I could see why they would think that, but in my mind this kind of loyalty that is required is very immature: very good things arise from conflict, why would you keep that from coming? Or maybe I am being naive and a good reputation is much more important than everything else. I don&#x27;t know.

I really hate what I&#x27;ve learned about my friends and acquaintances over this pandemic. I hate that I&#x27;ve learned who&#x27;s willing to ignore public health guidelines, who&#x27;s okay with cheating to skip the line, who&#x27;s okay with pressuring family to do the same. It&#x27;s just so...grubby.<p>Especially since my social bubble is so very privileged. Let&#x27;s face it. The majority of us are in good health with cushy jobs. We can afford to stay home. We can afford to wear high quality medical masks. We could afford to wait the extra month for a vaccine. Besides, a month or two is nothing compared to how long many countries are going to be waiting.<p>I can somewhat understand why people act this way, especially if they&#x27;re pushing their loved ones to skip the line. But I can&#x27;t help but feel it&#x27;s this view of &quot;I get mine&quot; that is so ugly. And for what? A little more freedom a couple weeks early? What&#x27;s the point?

Good for YC. I don&#x27;t understand why someone would assume that publicly causing drama for the company that is supporting them would be tolerated.<p>People think that because some opinion of theirs is justified, all consequences related to any public behavior based of that opinion should be nullified. Well, reality seems to frequently think otherwise.

I can understand the apparent moral disparity but from a &quot;rule-administering&quot; POV it may just be case of<p>* Action A occurs which is widely agreed to be misguided and reprehensible by YC and other forum members. However, Action A was not explicitly against any existing rule at the time, it was just super-dickish. Action A was probably immediately widely (if not universally) condemned by community members and YC. YC tells the person, don&#x27;t do that ever again because now it&#x27;s against the rules. Maybe they spanked that person in other ways, I don&#x27;t know. I&#x27;m confident the idiot was the recipient of overwhelmingly negative social consequences from members of the private community.<p>* Another person is very angry about Action A and commits Action B by taking private forum events onto public social media. Action B is clearly, explicitly against an existing, very simple rule. Perhaps others have already been banned for violating this rule.<p>Despite our intuitions to the contrary, the stupidity and gross awfulness of Action A doesn&#x27;t somehow offset the fact Action B is against an existing rule and Action A wasn&#x27;t at the time it was committed. It&#x27;s not wrong that YC enforced the clear rule against Action B. YC may even have had very mixed feelings about it.<p>To me, in the absence of further factual context, it seems uncharitable to reflexively pillory YC - even though I admit I feel tempted to do exactly that.

They are so thin-skinned and cancellation happy when it comes to their own reputation.

On a similar note: This does not give me confidence in startups and &quot;accelerators&quot;. Some (many?) startups will do questionable things for growth. They will upvote one another. They will give fake five-star reviews for one another. And they will call it growth hacking. I remember Reddit&#x27;s &quot;fake user&quot; growth hacking.<p>The depressing thing is: Founders who want to play by ethical rules, will ask. &quot;May be I too should engage in this behaviour, just to level the playing field&quot;.

I got kicked out of YC too. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ekadamer&#x2F;status&#x2F;1400956227501318146?s=21" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ekadamer&#x2F;status&#x2F;1400956227501318146?s=21</a>

Seems like he lost his access to the internal forum and wasn&#x27;t &quot;kicked out&quot; of ycombinator. The actual ycombinator program lasts for months and involves funding. Access to a website is different and involves following terms of service, whatever they might be.<p>Bit of a sensationalist post title

We&#x27;re about to see the Streisand Effect in action.

I also got thrown out of yc. It was after demo day. My co-founders blamed me for our initial anemic raise and threw me out. Because this was in-between demo day and official yc graduation, I&#x27;m no longer part of the yc network. I&#x27;ve done pretty well since then, but still it sucks to be divorced from an organization I once respected, and then loved.

Kicked out today for a tweet from March? Why such a long delay?

Don&#x27;t leak internal forum discussions on Twitter.<p>If you want to criticize someone, use their name rather than &quot;YC founder&quot; multiple times.<p>If your Tweet contains misleading info, delete it rather than post a different threaded Tweet (which no one will see) with a clarification.<p>If the rest of your YC class now has doubts about whether what they discuss is really confidential, it&#x27;s pretty clear that you have to go.

Does speak to a sense of entitlement some people have.

Guess what? It can happen to you, too, if you dare criticize a celebrity CEO. I got flagged &amp; chastised for “breaking the guidelines” over a comment that stated facts about a certain CEO whose initials are TK.<p>Remember when y’all kept saying there’s no free speech on Facebook or Twitter? Well, it’s worse here, because if you don’t toe that line and bend the knee, you might get your user privileges limited.<p>Edit: here it is. +3 points and flagged. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26914977" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26914977</a><p>Edit 2: and here&#x27;s the dressing down I got:<p>&gt; Regardless of how wrong or badly-behaved other people (be they HN users, celebrity CEOs, or imperialist bullies) are or you feel they are, you owe this community better if you&#x27;re participating in it. Other people doing bad things is a poor non-excuse for setting this place on fire.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26938019" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26938019</a><p>See? Don&#x27;t criticize &quot;celebrity CEOs,&quot; folks. You&#x27;re breaking the code, and the insiders will circle the wagons if you do.<p>BTW, &quot;Boober&quot; is a direct quote said directly to a GQ reporter: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gq.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;uber-cab-confessions" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gq.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;uber-cab-confessions</a>

All of the energy going into this should instead be directed toward &quot;how do we vaccinate most efficiently in future?&quot;<p>I think it makes a lot of sense to vary eligibility criteria by vaccination site, and allow for anyone to be vaccinated at some of the sites. That way, anyone who meets special criteria can go to a site where the wait will be shorter, and anyone who doesn&#x27;t meet any particular criteria still have a place where they can go to get it provided they are willing to endure the potentially long wait. As the rollout progresses, if some of the &quot;special criteria&quot; sites are not too busy, they can change to become &quot;anyone&quot; sites.<p>Overall, the problem of &quot;too many people want the vaccine ASAP&quot; is a great problem to have.

Can we not read so much into a literal tweet? It&#x27;s what, 240 characters max? We&#x27;ve written more words speculating on what happened than was originally said. It&#x27;s a <i>tweet</i>.<p>Also would like to point out: I&#x27;m not defending anyone - my initial reactions largely agree with the sentiment here, but it&#x27;s 240 or 180 characters at <i>most</i>. It&#x27;s not a news story or a comprehensive view. Let&#x27;s take a moment to step back and acknowledge that before we devolve into the wars we seem to be criticizing so strongly.

Sounds like he violated a confidentiality agreement.<p>If you read something on a private discussion forum and then blast it out publicly on twitter, don&#x27;t be shocked when you get kicked out of that forum.<p>It sorta doesn&#x27;t matter how righteous your cause was, it is just going to be automatic.<p>I know people that have been fired from the company they work for over a similar kind of offense. If you&#x27;ve signed a confidentiality agreement then you do not have the right of freedom to tweet without repercussions.

As a NYC resident, I&#x27;m surprised to hear that it&#x27;s not easy for healthy people to get a COVID vaccine in the Bay Area. I thought that the entire US was at the stage where they&#x27;ve got more than enough vaccines, at least that&#x27;s the impression I got from the news.<p>EDIT: Nevermind, I guess this was all something that happened back in March. Interesting that this controversy arose now.

Hmmm.... personally I never saw any ambiguity in who qualified when and where for that vaccine so it&#x27;s pretty hard for me to buy into anyone using that for an excuse to jump in a line they didn&#x27;t belong in.<p>This is a moral character issue. I try to avoid those who don&#x27;t have it and doing that is more than proof enough for me they don&#x27;t.

None of the rules around vaccination make sense to me -- nor do I have faith in the politicians who came up with them -- so I find it difficult to judge the person accused of skipping the line. But I do find it easy to judge the person who shamed him. And that judgment is that he&#x27;s annoying and should mind his own business.

lol. i don&#x27;t get why people think y combinator is some high moral&#x2F;honest company. they are just like any VC.

Sounds like it is in Australia, there are some sites that are vaccinating only those based on an eligbility criteria, and there are mass vaccination sites for anyone who wants the vaccination.<p>Some people are getting upset about people skipping the elegibility criteria.<p>Its a story about poor Governement communication to the masses.

Another person tweeting on being kicked out for criticizing a founder, though for a different topic. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ekadamer&#x2F;status&#x2F;1400956227501318146" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ekadamer&#x2F;status&#x2F;1400956227501318146</a>

It could be worse: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oregonlive.com&#x2F;portland&#x2F;2012&#x2F;04&#x2F;startup_weekend_entrepreneuria.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oregonlive.com&#x2F;portland&#x2F;2012&#x2F;04&#x2F;startup_weekend_...</a>

Personalities and personas and misdeeds of participants (real or imagined) and feuds and every other human-interest story have always been a part of the technology world.<p>But those things do seem to be growing rapidly as a fraction of overall mind share.

What are the rules for YC&#x27;s private forum? Is it more restrictive than Chatham House rules? Is it permitted to leak internal conversations and denounce other YC members on Twitter?

Though it makes YC look very weak and thin-skinned, I bet the same thing would have happened at a lot of companies if an employee tweeted critical comments about the CEO, owner, etc.

The “cover your ass” culture in the US is getting out of hand. Since when did we expect church lady behavior from everyone? I object.

I don&#x27;t get it.. the vaccine is available to everyone 12 and up now. You can make an appointment or find a walk in clinic.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;myturn.ca.gov" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;myturn.ca.gov</a><p>The governor opened up vaccines for everyone on April 15.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.ca.gov&#x2F;2021&#x2F;04&#x2F;15&#x2F;all-californians-16-now-eligible-for-covid-19-vaccines&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.ca.gov&#x2F;2021&#x2F;04&#x2F;15&#x2F;all-californians-16-now-el...</a>

So you got accepted. Then tell everybody in YC that they&#x27;re shitty. Then you get kicked and wonder why.

I wonder how many jobs have been lost and reputations sullied by posting thoughtless comments on Twitter. 20 years ago, you really needed to make an effort to get a thought out to the world: create a website, write an op-ed in the NY Times, get interviewed on CNN. Now, it takes 5 seconds to ruin your life. There&#x27;s a lesson in here somewhere.

They should have asked him to take it down, or re-phrase it to be more polite about it. Booting someone over that seems kafkaesque, like there&#x27;s a lot to hide.<p>Especially if he was being factual, there&#x27;s an element of legit whistle-blowing there, it&#x27;s a bad look, YC.

I think it&#x27;s telling that Atherton and Piedmont were above 80% vaccinated well before vaccinations were open to the general public. &quot;Wait your turn&quot; is not how they became members of their respective clubs.

&quot;First do no harm&quot; is what the doctor would say.

I hope Paul Graham takes a principled stand and tweets his support for Biggar.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;search?q=from%3Apaulg%20%22cancel%20culture%22&amp;f=live" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;search?q=from%3Apaulg%20%22cancel%20cult...</a>

“This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

“Oh no no, not the Y Combinator Founderinos.”<p>These things happen when you don’t practice what you preach, inconsistencies create drama.

This is one of those cases where it seems like everyone made bad choices.

Good. LOL.

et tu ycombinator?

ycombinator is useless - always has been, avoid it at all costs.

Title is not substantiate by any content.

Steve Jobs used his means to game the system to make a liver transplant available for himself; his wait time for an organ was much shorter than less wealthy and connected people. I recall no moral outrage over that[1].<p>A CEO who&#x27;s smart enough to get their vaccine early should be acknowledged for their cleverness -- wouldn&#x27;t you want that kind of smarts running a company??<p>I guess he would have been safer by refusing the vaccine -- oh, wait -- there&#x27;s a different scarlet letter for that, right?<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2009&#x2F;HEALTH&#x2F;06&#x2F;24&#x2F;liver.transplant.priority.lists&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2009&#x2F;HEALTH&#x2F;06&#x2F;24&#x2F;liver.transplant.priori...</a>

well, lol

it&#x27;s not skipping the line, it&#x27;s hacking the line

Aaaaaaaaaand it&#x27;s gone! (from the front page)

So Paul Graham is now the new DHH for the next couple of weeks

No doubt YC will be furious about this out-of-control cancel culture!

Bookface posts are confidential by design.

If there is <i>ever</i> a place that I will listen to unsubstantiated rumors without evidence from, it won&#x27;t be Twitter.

I didn’t skip the line, but I don’t fault anyone who did (in the US) after the vaccination criteria was expanded beyond the elderly and a the immunocompromised.<p>The vaccine hesitancy rates in some communities were absurdly high. The justifications given for not vaccinating were equally ridiculous and uninformed. In that environment it’s completely morally justified to jump ahead.

Not sure what the deal is in the US, but in Melbourne, Australia (a week prior to our current lockdown) I managed to get my Pfizer jab as a walk in, even though I do not meet the eligibility criteria. At that point, some vaccination centres were allowing all walk ins due to the lack of (eligible) people wanting the vaccine here. Obviously lockdown 4.0 has changed that, and now everyone wants a jab.v

TL;DR guy gets asked to leave exclusive party.<p>Kind of dumb to be raising a stink over the issue anyhow. Just get shots in arms. After front-line medical workers it doesn&#x27;t matter whose. Prioritizing the elderly was baloney. Hell, <i>smokers</i> were a priority group. How much more obvious does an intentional backdoor have to be? This guy probably shames people who bluff in Poker.

People have been kicked out of other important things for less. I wish they put a warning label on social media... don&#x27;t post unless you want your words used against you in a future you haven&#x27;t envisioned.<p>It may be too late but I would advise anyone to delete anything you wrote under your real name now. In 10 years you are going to get buried for what is normal today. They are coming for you.<p>What he did was wrong but in the 80s the info would have passed on to a small group at a pool party.

I waited until I was eligible, which was about a month ago. Anyone could have lied about their eligibility and gotten shots early, and although I wasn&#x27;t comfortable doing so, I also don&#x27;t begrudge people who did. Frankly, the vaccine should have been distributed more widely from the beginning. It was disheartening to watch the politics play out where only the &quot;most deserving&quot; people were granted vaccine, which quickly turned into &quot;hospital executives, their families, &amp; high ranking admin&quot; before they got around to the most deserving.<p>I certainly wouldn&#x27;t have encouraged a group of wealthy or soon-to-be wealthy tech founders to lie for vaccine. &quot;Hacking the system&quot; has always implied a sort of robinhood ethos, at least to me, not just greed purely for its own sake. I guess it&#x27;s easy to be confused when you were raised inside the bubble and everything is monopoly money.

His defense was:<p>&gt; 1. I went to a neighborhood clinic in Oakland, CA that&#x27;s literally next door to my house, I can see the church from my window. Paul lives in NYC which is on the opposite end of the country.<p>&gt; 2. I asked them about eligibility and told them I don&#x27;t clear CA guidelines. They told me it&#x27;s first come, first served with an ID showing I am 18+.<p>I am not buying this. Why would they even go and ask for eligibility when they know very well they are not eligible?<p>The only reason would be to hope to find a loophole.<p>The whole vaccine situation in CA was an excellent test of character. They failed it.<p>Not surprised that a YC founder thinks that rules apply only to others and not themselves. The antisocial gene is strong in this one.

I view most of the outrage over skipping the vaccine line as misplaced. The (American) system was very clearly made easy to game in the first place. The government criteria was unnecessarily complicated and had many vague carveouts that were easily gamed. For example, smokers were eligible early on as having a pre-existing condition - this is trivial to game without technically lying!<p>Indeed, many people early on advocated doing the criteria strictly by age (after healthcare workers), but the government decided to create carveouts largely for social equity reasons (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cdc.gov&#x2F;vaccines&#x2F;acip&#x2F;meetings&#x2F;downloads&#x2F;slides-2020-11&#x2F;COVID-04-Dooling.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cdc.gov&#x2F;vaccines&#x2F;acip&#x2F;meetings&#x2F;downloads&#x2F;slides-...</a>).<p>It got to the point where, in February&#x2F;March, the only people I knew were vaccinated were a bunch of young people who got vaccinated because they were in med school (or other medical affiliated school), even though they were studying remotely. And in many cases you didn&#x27;t even need to &quot;lie&quot; to skip the line because nobody even checked for proof you were eligible.