Kicked out of YC. 493+ fabricated audit reports. Sold fraud to fellow YC companies.
Claimed to automate SOC 2 and ISO compliance auditing with AI. Whistleblower revealed the platform auto-generated identical passing audit reports with keyboard-mashed test data before clients even uploaded anything . CEO was caught on tape asking an auditor 'does your firm actually look at our platform?' Focused on selling to other YC companies who trusted the YC brand — the circular trust network weaponized. Insight Partners scrubbed their $32M investment blog post. YC officially expelled Delve in 2026. Investor Adam Cochran called it proof that YC has 'no technical acumen to evaluate claims' under Garry Tan's leadership.
Central
Signed up as a Warp customer, stole the playbook, launched a clone
Autopsy Report:
Central's CEO signed up as a customer of fellow YC company Warp in 2023 under 'Central Business Applications Inc.' Spent six months asking how tax compliance works, what registered agents are, how multi-state filings work — then churned and launched an identical payroll startup with Warp's exact marketing copy, down to the tagline 'designed for founders, not HR' . YC funded them anyway in S24, despite Warp already being in the portfolio. Central got acqui-hired by Mercury in April 2026. Warp CEO Ayush Sharma publicly called them out: 'gg no re.'
Parker
YC-backed e-commerce-finance fintech filed Chapter 7 three weeks after a $90M acquisition deal collapsed. Couldn't even land a compliant bankruptcy filing on the first try.
Autopsy Report:
Parker (parkerhq.com, W19) raised over $200M to build corporate cards and banking for e-commerce businesses, scaled to $1B+ in annualized processing volume, and quietly imploded in 2026. After leadership turnover, slowing growth, and a tougher venture market, the team spent months working a sale that ultimately did not close — and then filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on May 7 2026, three weeks after the founder had thought a ~$90M acquisition was about to land . The unwind was rough enough that reporters flagged the initial filing itself as non-compliant. Founder Yacine Sibous posted a long farewell on X (1,245 likes, 434K views) crediting the team and asking the network to hire the laid-off operators. Filed here not for fraud but as a textbook Tan-era flameout: huge headline funding, real volume, leadership churn, and a venture growth curve that couldn't survive the broader fintech reset.
Naive
Raised $2M+ selling "autonomous AI employees." The platform is a 41K-star MIT-licensed OSS framework with Stripe bolted on.
Autopsy Report:
Naive (YC S25) raised $2M+ marketing themselves as builders of "autonomous AI employees." Public investigation by @NotOnKetamine traced the entire underlying platform to Paperclip — a 41K-star MIT-licensed open source agent framework — with Naive having stripped attribution and rebranded the original code as proprietary . The additions on top of Paperclip were thin: Stripe billing wrappers ($0.50/credit), domain/email provisioning for agents, phone/SMS via standard providers, and a Composio integration layer. The OSS license required attribution and license preservation; Naive shipped neither. The investigation surfaced screenshots, curl-verifiable evidence, and side-by-side comparisons. As of April 2026, the company has not publicly responded to the receipts.
Wuri
AI-generated visual novel platform. Pivoted to enterprise AI, then died as foundation models commoditized the UI layer in twelve months.
Autopsy Report:
Wuri pitched converting 500M+ Wattpad-style text stories into Webtoon-style visual novels via generative AI. Founders ex-Flipkart, ex-Bain. the wrapper-thin differentiation collapsed when GPT-4 / Sora / image-gen foundation models shipped equivalent capability for free, eroding any pricing power Wuri had layered on top . Pivoted from consumer reader app to enterprise AI offerings in 2024. Quietly shut down in 2025. YC profile remains up but flagged Inactive in the directory. The Wuri arc is the median Tan-era Indian AI YC: thin GenAI wrapper, fast pivot, quiet death.
Double Finance
"0% expense ratio" robo-advisor. Hit $10M AUM in Dec 2024, shut down twelve months later. YC slug then recycled for the founder's next pivot — with Garry Tan as primary partner.
Autopsy Report:
Double pitched itself as a Wealthfront/Betterment killer offering direct indexing for $1/month. Founder JJ Maxwell (ex-Liftoff Influence) and growth lead Mark Wai (ex-Tesla, ex-Facebook). after crossing $10M AUM in December 2024, the company quietly shut down a year later — and the YC slug `double-2` was repurposed for Maxwell's next venture (an AI ad-generation startup called Polished) with Garry Tan named primary YC partner . Maxwell wrote a "Lessons from Building (and Closing) Double Finance" HN post (item 46213345). The slug-recycling-into-pivot pattern is itself a Tan-era artifact: the same YC company URL now points at a different product with different unit economics, while clients had to be wound down or transferred. Robo-advising joined the long list of consumer fintech categories that didn't pencil at venture scale.
PearAI
Forked an open-source code editor, slapped their name on it, called it a startup.
Autopsy Report:
On Day 1 of YC Demo Day, the internet noticed that PearAI had forked Continue.dev's open source code editor, mass-replaced all 'Continue' references with 'PearAI', and slapped on a fake license written by ChatGPT . The 'Pear Enterprise License' became a meme. YC had to publish a blog post 'correcting the record.' Founders apologized and pivoted. The license was generated by AI. The irony was not lost.
Pickle
Stole GPL code, then launched AR glasses that might be CGI.
Autopsy Report:
A YC W25 company with two separate controversies. First, co-founder Daniel Park released 'Glass,' a real-time conference AI assistant, under Apache 2.0. Developers discovered it was a near-verbatim copy of 'CheatingDaddy,' a GPLv3-licensed open source project — identical code, comments, and library versions relicensed without attribution . After 700+ upvotes on Hacker News, they changed the license back. Then Pickle launched $799 'Pickle 1' AR glasses marketed as a 'soul computer.' Tech analysts accused the demo of being CGI — impossible battery specs, a Korean restaurant in the demo that doesn't exist, and mismatched UI data. SF Standard asked: 'Is it vaporware?'
Optifye.ai
Built 'sweatshops-as-a-service.' YC deleted the evidence.
Autopsy Report:
YC W25 startup that built AI-powered surveillance cameras for garment factories. YC posted a demo video showing supervisors monitoring workers as colored rectangles — green for productive, red for not. A manager calls about a low-performing worker referred to as 'Number 17' — not by name, just a number — while the AI tracked their every movement on the factory floor . The internet dubbed it 'sweatshops-as-a-service' and 'computer vision sweatshop software.' YC deleted the demo video from all social accounts after massive backlash. The founders, two Duke CS students, saw their product become a symbol of AI surveillance dystopia.
Rezi
Paid landlords upfront to rent their apartments. Burned $200M in debt, left a $49M foreclosure.
Autopsy Report:
YC W17 rental platform that paid landlords upfront — sometimes $30K cash — then listed and rented the apartments themselves. Raised $200M in debt rounds during the proptech boom. When interest rates spiked, Rezi couldn't secure new financing and quietly shut down in early 2024, leaving landlord Leagem Properties to file a $49M foreclosure suit directly blaming Rezi's collapse . Proptech funding plummeted from $32B in 2021 to $11.4B in 2023, and Rezi was caught in the middle with a debt-heavy model that only works when money is cheap. Founder Sean Mitchell launched a new startup called Ryse. The $200M evaporated.
CapWay
YC-backed fintech for banking deserts. Killed when the Synapse collapse destroyed fintech trust.
Autopsy Report:
YC S20 fintech startup aimed at bringing banking to underserved 'banking desert' communities. Backed by Backstage Capital, Fearless Fund, and Khosla Ventures. When the Synapse collapse and Evolve Bank & Trust hack destroyed fintech credibility in 2023, banks started requiring fintechs to hold massive capital reserves that early-stage startups couldn't meet — and CapWay couldn't raise another round in the scorched-earth fintech landscape . A potential acquisition fell through. Founder Sheena Allen announced the closure in October 2024, citing the post-Synapse environment as the final blow. A startup trying to help underbanked communities, killed by the broader fintech industry's trust deficit.
Medobed
Expelled from YC S23 for faking credentials and growth metrics. Never made it to Demo Day.
Autopsy Report:
Indian 10-minute medicine delivery startup that joined YC S23. Founder Piyush Sharma claimed IIT Roorkee and Stanford credentials and reported $1M monthly GMV with EBITDA profitability. An anonymous investor tipped off YC, which discovered the founder had fabricated his educational history and inflated growth metrics — irregularities that broke YC's ethics policy . YC expelled Medobed from the batch before Demo Day — one of the rare instances of a company being kicked out mid-program. The company never raised through YC. Under Garry Tan's watch, the accelerator that prides itself on due diligence missed a founder lying about where he went to school.
Embark Trucks
SPAC'd at $5.2B with zero revenue. Stock dropped 99%. Sold for parts.
Autopsy Report:
YC W16 alum that went public via SPAC at a $5.2B valuation. The catch? the company had zero revenue, zero commercial deployments, and zero path to profitability — it was a 7-year-old pre-revenue company valued at $5.2 billion . Stock dropped over 99% from the offer price. Laid off 70% of staff. CEO Alex Rodrigues blamed 'capital markets turning their backs on pre-revenue companies.' Applied Intuition bought the remains in 2023. The self-driving truck never drove itself to revenue.
Convoy
'Uber for trucking' raised $1B+, hit $3.8B valuation. Sold for $16M — a 99.6% wipeout.
Autopsy Report:
Digital freight network backed by Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and YC's Continuity Fund. Raised over $1 billion and hit a $3.8B valuation after a $260M round in April 2022. Just 18 months later, the company abruptly shut down in October 2023, citing an 'unprecedented freight market collapse,' and sold its remaining assets to Flexport for just $16 million — a 99.6% loss from peak valuation . Drivers were left waiting for unpaid invoices. Employees found out via an all-hands call. YC's Continuity Fund, which Garry Tan later shut down entirely, had been a major backer. From billion-dollar unicorn to fire-sale asset in 18 months.
CodeParrot
AI code generator from India. Pivoted three times, peaked at $1.5K MRR, dead in 2.5 years.
Autopsy Report:
CodeParrot was accepted into YC's W23 batch — one of over 112 AI startups in that single cohort — promising to turn Figma designs into production-ready frontend code. They launched a VS Code extension, iterated furiously, and never got past $1,500 in monthly revenue despite 2.5 years of pivoting from API testing to UI generation to code assistants, all while competing against their own YC batchmates building the exact same thing . After Demo Day, they failed to raise any follow-on funding. By July 2025, they shut down. Founder Vedant Agarwala reflected publicly: 'Startups are brutally hard.' CodeParrot is the median outcome of Garry Tan's AI gold rush — accepted in a batch so oversaturated with AI that the companies cannibalized each other before reaching customers.
Artisan
Sells "autonomous AI employees." Plastered SF with "Stop Hiring Humans" billboards, then admitted on the record to TechCrunch the campaign was "mostly just for attention."
Autopsy Report:
Artisan (YC W24) is the AI-sales-rep startup behind the "Stop Hiring Humans. The era of AI employees is here." billboard campaign that papered SF in early 2025 and went viral as anti-labor ragebait. The receipt isn't critics' interpretation — it's the founder's own words. 23-year-old founder Jaspar Carmichael-Jack told TechCrunch (Apr 12 2025), when asked if he truly believes AI will replace people: "No, which is ironic, because we did the billboards that said 'stop hiring humans' but that was mostly just for attention" . The Tan-era pattern reads cleanly: provocative, on-the-nose anti-labor messaging used as paid distribution, founder publicly admitting the message is engagement bait, and YC's pulpit amplifying both via portfolio promotion. Filed under SCANDAL not because the product is fraudulent (the AI BDR "Ava" ships and has real ARR), but because the company explicitly chose narrative-grift as its top-of-funnel marketing strategy. Raised $35M+ on the back of that attention; the controversy was the moat.
Fast
Raised $120M for a checkout button. Made $600K in revenue. Math.
Autopsy Report:
Promised 'one-click checkout everywhere' and raised $120M from Stripe, Index Ventures, and Addition. The problem? they generated only $600K in total revenue in 2021 while burning $10M per month — a 200:1 burn-to-revenue ratio . Went from $500M valuation to shutdown in six days flat. 450 employees lost their jobs. CEO Domm Holland tweeted inspirational quotes the whole way down. Stripe lost its investment. The checkout button checked out. (YC-adjacent: Stripe (YC S09) was the lead investor; Fast competed with Stripe Checkout. Listed here as a Stripe-orbit failure rather than a direct YC alumnus.)
StableGains
Promised safe 15% yields. Put it all in one basket. Lost $42M of customer money.
Autopsy Report:
YC W22 startup that promised up to 15% annual yields on US dollar deposits, claiming to diversify across multiple stablecoins for safety. Instead, the company dumped nearly all $42M of customer funds into a single product — Anchor Protocol on Terra/Luna — without telling users, then lost everything when the $60B Terra ecosystem collapsed overnight . 4,878 customers lost their deposits. StableGains never disclosed the concentration risk. A class action lawsuit accused the founders of fraud and misrepresentation. The company had marketed itself as a safe alternative to traditional savings accounts — the pitch that worked perfectly on YC Demo Day.
LendUp
CFPB shut LendUp down for repeatedly deceiving sub-prime borrowers. Permanent loan ban. ~$361M wiped.
Autopsy Report:
Pitched as the ethical alternative to payday lenders, with a 'LendUp Ladder' that promised lower future interest rates for on-time payment. CFPB sued in September 2021, alleging LendUp violated a prior 2016 order, made false claims about the rate-reduction ladder, and broke the Military Lending Act protecting active-duty service members . Settled December 2021. Permanently barred from making new loans. 118,101 consumers misled. Backed by Google Ventures, PayPal, QED, and Alexis Ohanian.
Soham Parekh — The Multi-Employed Engineer
A single Indian engineer secretly worked at 10+ YC startups simultaneously since 2022. Exposed July 2025. The cleanest receipt of how thin Tan-era YC due-diligence has become.
Autopsy Report:
Soham Parekh ghosted work, faked chronic-illness excuses, and collected paychecks from at least ten YC-backed startups in parallel. Exposed July 2 2025 by Suhail Doshi (Playground AI) on X. confirmed YC affiliations include Leaping AI (W25), FuseAI (W25), Antimetal (Tan-era), Sync Labs — Parekh appeared in their team promo video while denying he worked there — plus several more that fired him on discovery of parallel employment . Parekh later admitted on the TBPN podcast that he'd been doing this since 2022. The pattern reveals: (a) reference checks aren't being done across YC's own batches, (b) hiring under demo-day-driven urgency overrides standard diligence, and (c) the same engineer can pass the YC interview process at a company-by-company level multiple times. Not a fraud against YC investors — a fraud against ten different YC-funded engineering teams.
Atrium
YC's golden boy burned $75M trying to disrupt lawyers
Autopsy Report:
Justin Kan, co-founder of Twitch and YC royalty, raised $75M to build an AI-powered law firm. Turns out law is hard and AI couldn't replace lawyers . Pivoted three times, laid off all attorneys, then shut down entirely. The legal industry remained undisrupted.
DreamWorld
Two-person YC W21 team raising on a Kickstarter 'infinite open-world MMO' exposed as cut-and-paste vaporware with a security-broken demo.
Autopsy Report:
Pitched a 'next-gen Minecraft with generative AI.' KiraTV and PC Gamer confirmed the trailer footage was stitched-together assets from other games, the team allegedly DM-bombed Fortnite/Minecraft players to recruit, paid community moderators in Uber Eats credit, and the demo server lacked basic auth — allowing remote code execution on player machines . A Hacker News thread titled 'DreamWorld (YC W21) – The Scam MMO that got funded' (item 26872830) became a load-bearing artifact in the case that YC stopped vetting under volume pressure. Two-person team. ~$65k Kickstarter on zero shipping history.
uBiome
FBI-raided microbiome startup. Founders indicted for $300M in fraudulent insurance claims, then fled.
Autopsy Report:
YC S14 microbiome testing startup that raised $105M. Built a consumer gut-testing kit, then pivoted to clinical diagnostics. The FBI raided their San Francisco office in April 2019 after discovering the company had been repeatedly billing insurers for tests patients never requested, 'upgrading' archived samples without consent and rebilling, and submitting over $300M in fraudulent reimbursement claims to health insurers . Co-founders Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte were indicted on federal securities and healthcare fraud charges. Both became FBI fugitives. The company filed for bankruptcy in September 2019 — five months after the raid. From YC Demo Day darling to federal fugitive in five years.
Bik (Bikayi)
Sequoia + YC-backed Indian e-commerce SaaS exposed for sales reps forging customer signatures on EMI contracts. Workforce cut 600 → 244 in five months.
Autopsy Report:
Indian SaaS for kirana stores and small merchants. Inc42 obtained CEO Slack messages corroborating employee accounts that Bikayi salespersons forged signatures of merchant owners on EMI subscription contracts and sometimes paid down-payments out of their own pockets to meet weekly quotas . CEO Nathani admitted 'discrepancies' but declined to specify revenue impact. The peak-of-600 workforce was cut to 244 employees within five months. Sequoia-led $10.8M Series A had been raised on the fabricated revenue base. Rebranded from Bikayi to Bik.
Standard AI
Raised $86M to kill Amazon Go. Ended up killing their own product.
Autopsy Report:
YC S17 company that raised $86M to build autonomous checkout for retail stores — the 'Amazon Go killer.' Acquired two competitors along the way. Then quietly abandoned the entire autonomous checkout product and pivoted to selling generic 'AI camera analytics,' making the core pitch that raised $86M completely irrelevant . Laid off staff, replaced the CEO, and pivoted to a product that has nothing to do with what investors funded. Still technically alive at a $1B valuation on paper. The cameras are watching, but nobody's checking out.
Momentus
SEC fraud charges over fabricated propulsion-test results and concealed CFIUS national-security block. $7M company penalty + $2M CEO penalty.
Autopsy Report:
In-space transport startup that took the Stable Road SPAC route to a $1.2B valuation. The SEC charged the company in July 2021, alleging Momentus told investors its water-plasma propulsion was 'successfully tested' in space when the only flight test failed its primary objectives, and concealed that CFIUS deemed CEO Kokorich a national-security risk that blocked essential operating licenses . Kokorich settled SEC fraud claims for a $2M civil penalty in 2022; Momentus paid $7M, sponsor Stable Road paid $1M, and Stable Road CEO Brian Kabot paid $40k. Market cap collapsed >90% post-SPAC.
Bloom Institute of Technology (Lambda School)
CFPB permanently banned founder Austen Allred from student lending in April 2024 for predatory ISAs and fabricated job-placement numbers.
Autopsy Report:
Marketed coding bootcamp via Income Share Agreements pitched as 'not loans.' CFPB found Lambda advertised 85.9% job placement publicly while internal docs showed actual placement was around 50% within six months, with one cohort placing only 1 in 3 — and operated illegally in California despite a 2019 BPPE $75k fine . The 2024 CFPB order rescinded ISAs for unemployed graduates, banned Allred from consumer-finance activities for 10 years, and required restitution. Years of class-action suits and CA DFPI actions preceded the federal ban.
Thrive Agric
Nigerian agritech crowdfunding startup that defaulted on investor returns en masse in late 2020. #WhereIsMyMoney trended for weeks.
Autopsy Report:
Crowdfunded farm-investment platform that promised retail investors 12-25% annual returns. Late 2020: hundreds of investors publicly reported overdue payments, with the company telling 2020-due investors to wait until 2021 — exactly the dynamic that took down FarmCrowdy, VunaPay, and Farmsponsor in the same year . CEO Eje blamed COVID and logistics. Nairametrics, BusinessDay, and TechCabal coverage detailed governance failures common to the broader Nigerian agritech-Ponzi crash. Thrive Agric exited the crowdfunding business after the scandal. The entire Nigerian retail-agritech-crowdfunding sector collapsed in domino fashion through 2021–2022.
Rippling
YC's HR darling caught in a spy thriller with Deel
Autopsy Report:
Parker Conrad's redemption arc after Zenefits hit a plot twist when Rippling sued competitor Deel for planting an undercover spy inside Rippling who was paid €5,000/month by Deel's CEO to steal trade secrets . The DOJ opened a criminal investigation. Deel allegedly ran the same playbook at crypto HR startup Toku. YC uses Rippling for their own HR — awkward.
Pebble
Rejected a $740M acquisition. Sold for $23M. Kickstarter backers got nothing.
Autopsy Report:
The smartwatch that started the smartwatch revolution. Raised $10.3M on Kickstarter — most-funded project in the platform's history at the time. Then founder Eric Migicovsky turned down a $740M acquisition from Citizen, then an Intel offer, betting that Pebble could compete with Apple — it couldn't . Apple Watch launched and sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Sales cratered. Pebble sold its IP to Fitbit for $23M — a 97% discount from the rejected Citizen deal. 75,000 Kickstarter backers who paid $20.3M for the Pebble Time never got refunds. Migicovsky became a YC partner. The Silicon Valley lifecycle continues.
Flutterwave
Africa's most-hyped fintech unicorn engulfed by sexual harassment allegations, phantom-cofounder identity fraud, and a $52M Kenya account freeze.
Autopsy Report:
Reached a $3B valuation in March 2022 as Africa's payment champion. April 2022 brought public accusations from former employee Clara Wanjiku Odero of bullying and harassment by CEO Agboola. David Hundeyin's investigation alleged Agboola fabricated a phantom co-founder identity ('Greg') to grant himself extra equity, plus ESOP fraud and a culture of harassment — corroborated by current and former employees on the record . Kenya's Asset Recovery Agency froze 56 accounts (~$52M / KES 6.7B) over money-laundering claims later dismissed in November 2023. The harassment and governance receipts are the durable ones; valuation has cratered through down rounds since.
Homejoy
Uber for house cleaning. Workers fought back.
Autopsy Report:
YC darling that raised $40M to be the 'Uber for home cleaning.' Growth looked great because they were subsidizing every cleaning at a loss to juice the metrics . Hit with worker misclassification lawsuits. Shut down in 2015. Adora went on to become a YC partner. Failing up, YC style.
Iron Ox (Inevitable Tech)
Robotic indoor-farming darling that raised $98M+ on a 'redesigning agriculture' pitch. Now flagged Inactive on YC's directory after two layoff rounds gutted the company.
Autopsy Report:
Pitched mixed human/robot greenhouses growing leafy greens and berries. Raised $53M Series C in September 2021 led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures. November 2022: Iron Ox laid off ~50 of 100 staff — half the company in a single round — citing macro headwinds. January 2025 brought a second round of layoffs to 'extend cash runway' . Rebranded to Inevitable Tech. YC directory currently lists status as Inactive. Indoor-farming robotics joined the list of well-funded categories that didn't outrun the unit economics.
Cruise
Robotaxis that dragged pedestrians and covered it up
Autopsy Report:
GM bought Cruise for $1B, then poured in $10B more. Their self-driving cars dragged a pedestrian 20 feet and executives initially withheld the footage from regulators . California pulled their license. GM wrote off the entire investment. The future of autonomous driving became a $10B bonfire.
Flexport
CEO fired, rehired, then fired everyone else
Autopsy Report:
Raised $2.3B to digitize freight forwarding. Then the governance circus began: the board replaced Ryan Petersen with a former Amazon exec, who lasted 6 months before Petersen staged a comeback coup . Post-coup, Petersen laid off 20% of the company and pivoted strategy. Valuation cratered from $8B. The boxes keep moving, but nobody knows where this ship is headed.
Zenefits
Built software to help employees cheat on insurance licensing exams
Autopsy Report:
The fastest-growing SaaS company in history, valued at $4.5B, until regulators discovered Zenefits had built an internal Chrome extension that let sales reps fake 52 hours of mandatory insurance training, then sign a certification under penalty of perjury . CEO Parker Conrad resigned. California fined them $7 million — one of the largest licensing penalties ever. David Sacks took over as CEO and laid off 45% of staff. Conrad went on to found Rippling, because in Silicon Valley, fraud is a resume builder.
Instacart
Lost 75% of its peak valuation. Gig workers still waiting.
Autopsy Report:
The poster child of pandemic-era hype. Peaked at $39B valuation during COVID lockdowns, then IPO'd at a $10B valuation — a 75% haircut from peak . Still relies on gig workers with no benefits. Mehta cashed out $1.1B. The groceries got delivered; the returns did not.
MixRank
Co-founder Ilya Lichtenstein pleaded guilty in 2023 to executing the 2016 Bitfinex hack — 119,754 BTC, ~$10B at recovery. Sentenced to 5 years.
Autopsy Report:
MixRank was a YC S11 ad-intelligence/data-crawling startup backed by Mark Cuban. Co-founder Ilya Lichtenstein left the company in late 2016. In February 2022, Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan (the rapper 'Razzlekhan') were arrested for laundering $4.5B in stolen Bitcoin — and in August 2023 he admitted under oath that he was the original Bitfinex hacker who stole 119,754 BTC in 2016 . Sentenced 2024 to 5 years; received early release January 2026. The hack was committed during his MixRank tenure but not as MixRank's founder. The case is documented as the largest US financial seizure in history. (Caveat: Lichtenstein's MixRank co-founder Scott Milliken is unconnected to the hack and continued running the company.)
Kiko
YC's first batch. Built a calendar. Google built a better one. Sold it on eBay.
Autopsy Report:
Part of Y Combinator's very first class in 2005. Built a web calendar that was genuinely ahead of its time. Then Google launched Google Calendar for free, instantly making Kiko irrelevant overnight . The founders sold the entire company on eBay for $258,100. But here's the real punchline: Justin Kan and Emmett Shear went on to create Justin.tv, which became Twitch, which sold to Amazon for $970M. Sometimes the best thing a startup can do is die quickly.
Took 20 years to IPO. Content moderation is a suggestion.
Autopsy Report:
YC's second-ever startup. Took 19 years to go public. Along the way, hosted jailbait subreddits for years, enabled election interference, and CEO Steve Huffman secretly edited user comments in the database . IPO'd in 2024 at $6.4B. The moderators who kept the site running? They work for free.
End of Directory. More exhibits added daily.
Satirical project. Not affiliated with Y Combinator. All information from public records.