I'm getting the impression that a lot of people in this thread think this is because they violated an open-source license and saying things to the effect of, "they're just the ones who got caught". I also thought that was the scandal initially. (And when it comes to license violations, yes, there's absolutely more where that came from.)

But that's just the cherry on top. I don't think they're being thrown out because they violated a license. There are really serious fraud allegations. Allegedly they were rubber-stamping noncompliant customers, leaving them exposed to potential criminal liability under regulations like HIPPA.

https://deepdelver.substack.com/p/delve-fake-compliance-as-a...

I've only skimmed this so I do not endorse these allegations, but I think it's context missing from this discussion.

Sure, most companies could add an About section and probably put this behind them pretty quickly. They could have even hired someone like Delve to assure this kind of thing wouldn’t happen again.

But Delve themselves can’t really do any of that. They’ve screwed up on a fundamental piece of their own business model. Their core offering *is* Compliance as a Service!

How could I trust their word that they’ll ensure my company is compliant? How could I trust their word that a company I’m doing business with is compliant? They can’t even handle their own Apache 2.0 licensed works, and that’s child’s play- relatively speaking. I’m supposed to trust that they can handle PCI and HIPPA and all the rest for other companies?

This is like having a dentist who doesn’t brush and floss their own teeth. Or a building inspector working out of a moldy office suite with exposed rebar. Or an editor with a personal website full of typos and grammatical errors. It’s a dealbreaker to anyone with common sense.

This other profile is still up:

https://www.forbes.com/profile/delve/

30U30 never ceases to amaze.

Someone leaked an internal Bookface chat from Garry Tan (YC CEO) saying:

  We have asked Delve to leave YC.

  YC is a community, not just an accelerator. The founders in our community have to trust each other, and we have to trust them. When that trust breaks down, there's really only one thing to do.

  We're not going to get into the details publicly. We wish them well.

I have no direct knowledge of the accuracy of any of this. This is not my account.

Related: Delve allegedly forked an open-source tool and sold it as its own (295 points, yesterday, 153 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47615434

Curious - in this situation, does delve return money to YC? Or YC simply writes off the investment

Its quite ironical and interesting at the same time, seems like there is a threshold size/impact beyond which everyone would come and save you, anything less and you will have to bear the consequences.

Interestingly, they show up in the company list. When you click the link it returns 404.

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?query=delve

Related from an hour earlier: Delve removed from YC website [archive.org] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47634405

404s for me

While I do think Delve and the leadership there should be held responsible, it's a bit weird to see YC and others take shots at them for breaking the law when so many of their prized unicorns achieved what they did by being willing to just ignore laws and deal with the consequences later.

"By combining the evidence I collected together with what the sim.ai team provided, I will show that Delve has stolen an open-source company’s tech by violating their license and then making a lot of money with it."

->

You mean like OpenAI, Anthropic and all these other 'unicorns'?

I'm happy we're all clear on how bad Delve is but in essence what they were doing is exactly the same as what these AI companies do.

Can they keep their CISO out of jail?

Bye-bye tweet from founder: https://x.com/kocalars/status/2040262537166618887

Notably YC hasn't wished them a farewell.

friday news dump tho

There is no saving Delve after this.

The only next product launch is an investigation.

can't believe I almost spent 10 grand on this company a week before they blew up.