Yeah, they raise a massive round on traction from other YC companies then need to find the real Product Market Fit (enterprise and others) after that round. It's actually very inefficient
Even if you larp revenue, when you get acquired or go public auditors will figure stuff out. Or worse you go to prison. Its like cheating in college-youre just hurtung yourself and others
It's the YC playbook. I guess it works, Corgi for example a "AI" insurance company with like only 5 real engineers and a bunch of growth people. Their main customer is other startups mostly YC. Same with Delve.
Nvidia makes real things, grinds to push computing forward and are coincidentally wrapped up in the latest hype cycle in a big way
Software-only startups make nothing but hype and (these days) merely copy-paste existing frameworks and libraries into an AWS account, fill in predefined config parameters, generate zero net new knowledge
Studied applied physics and EE in college, been in high tech eng for almost 3 decades and lived through the evolution of software truth still being discovery into streamlined template filling.
People need jobs in this political system so whatever but I know a lot about engineering across contexts and where the bleeding edge is and know SaaS startups are rarely engaged in pushing the edge out further. It's a jobs program to validate political memes
The creator of this has a good note on how the Nvidia situation relates, under his diagram of their circular deal:
"To be clear: every deal here is legal, publicly announced, and defended by the people in it — Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called the structure "nothing inappropriate in principle." Critics compare the pattern to 1990s dot-com vendor financing and warn it can inflate the appearance of demand. As Bloomberg puts it, a circular deal is legally different from a fraudulent "round-trip" — regulators' term for sham trades with no economic substance designed to inflate results. LARP is a joke about the round-trip. This is the legal cousin it rhymes with."
What I wonder is what LARP stands for. something like “looped/linked annual revenue platform”? (Don’t answer with something about role playing, it’s definitely not that)
What people miss from these things is that there is economic value being created.
For example, if you gift someone a $100 Amazon gift card, but they also gift you a $100 Amazon gift card. Has any gift actually been exchanged? Yes, the sentiment of giving.
Or if someone pays you $100 to eat a pile of shit, and then you use the same $100 to pay them to eat a pile of shit, you both have eaten, but the money is in the same place it started.
In the end, if you paint a big enough picture, all money flow in an economy is circular anyway.
The moving of money across time is 100% central to money's value. Passing digital money around to cook the books is moving money... fraudulently. So yeah, they're not the same unless you're goaling on the semantic purity of the word "move".
I'm confused how circulating legal tender between 2 parties could be cooking books or fraud. Each party can absolutely claim they made money from the transaction. The fact they lost money in a different transaction is a separate concern.
If you go through the most recent YC batches, it's insane how much of their "customer list" is just other companies in the same or recent batches
Yeah, they raise a massive round on traction from other YC companies then need to find the real Product Market Fit (enterprise and others) after that round. It's actually very inefficient
The flywheel!
yc circular funding scam
One of Micheal and Dalton video does address this
Even if you larp revenue, when you get acquired or go public auditors will figure stuff out. Or worse you go to prison. Its like cheating in college-youre just hurtung yourself and others
It's the YC playbook. I guess it works, Corgi for example a "AI" insurance company with like only 5 real engineers and a bunch of growth people. Their main customer is other startups mostly YC. Same with Delve.
Corgi is even worse than just circular revenue, their entire insurance business is a house of cards: https://reticulating.substack.com/p/ycombinators-corgi-insur...
It says something about the state of the world that I was genuinely uncertain whether this was actually a joke right until the last paragraph.
Very well done.
I too was nervous until I clicked through and had a read.
I just valued my buddy at 1.2 Trillion
> … the fake version and the "strategic partnership" version are separated mostly by vibes, scale, and whether a bank structured it.
I have a new business idea …
Okay, that's genuinely funny. Sadly, it might be a little subtle for the folks who need to feel the mockery most.
I was able to close my first series A after just a few hours of using this. I wish the rate limits were higher though.
I was genuienly confused till the pricing and tipping section.
It worked for NVidia.
Nvidia makes real things, grinds to push computing forward and are coincidentally wrapped up in the latest hype cycle in a big way
Software-only startups make nothing but hype and (these days) merely copy-paste existing frameworks and libraries into an AWS account, fill in predefined config parameters, generate zero net new knowledge
Studied applied physics and EE in college, been in high tech eng for almost 3 decades and lived through the evolution of software truth still being discovery into streamlined template filling.
People need jobs in this political system so whatever but I know a lot about engineering across contexts and where the bleeding edge is and know SaaS startups are rarely engaged in pushing the edge out further. It's a jobs program to validate political memes
The creator of this has a good note on how the Nvidia situation relates, under his diagram of their circular deal:
"To be clear: every deal here is legal, publicly announced, and defended by the people in it — Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called the structure "nothing inappropriate in principle." Critics compare the pattern to 1990s dot-com vendor financing and warn it can inflate the appearance of demand. As Bloomberg puts it, a circular deal is legally different from a fraudulent "round-trip" — regulators' term for sham trades with no economic substance designed to inflate results. LARP is a joke about the round-trip. This is the legal cousin it rhymes with."
YC be like: hold my beer
What I wonder is what LARP stands for. something like “looped/linked annual revenue platform”? (Don’t answer with something about role playing, it’s definitely not that)
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=LARP
What people miss from these things is that there is economic value being created.
For example, if you gift someone a $100 Amazon gift card, but they also gift you a $100 Amazon gift card. Has any gift actually been exchanged? Yes, the sentiment of giving.
Or if someone pays you $100 to eat a pile of shit, and then you use the same $100 to pay them to eat a pile of shit, you both have eaten, but the money is in the same place it started.
In the end, if you paint a big enough picture, all money flow in an economy is circular anyway.
The moving of money across time is 100% central to money's value. Passing digital money around to cook the books is moving money... fraudulently. So yeah, they're not the same unless you're goaling on the semantic purity of the word "move".
I'm confused how circulating legal tender between 2 parties could be cooking books or fraud. Each party can absolutely claim they made money from the transaction. The fact they lost money in a different transaction is a separate concern.
Rather than claim that they passed money around to make money, a nice income statement demonstrates that they made money.
Cooking up fake transactions to make an investor think there is business happening is the definition of fraud.
Gross Revenue is sometimes passed off as Revenue in reports, until you examine the fine print.
you’re literally scamming VCs lol