17/01/2025
Y Combinator is being criticized after it backed an AI startup that admits it basically cloned another AI startup
A Y Combinator startup named PearAI launched with an X post thread and YouTube video on Saturday and created immediate controversy. And some of that is splashing onto YC itself.
PearAI offers an AI coding editor. The startup’s founder Duke Pan has openly said that it’s a cloned copy of another project, VSCode, and 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 its project, called the Pear Enterprise License, which Pan admitted was written by ChatGPT.
Changing a license like this is a big deal