Curious how the YC involvement in China has panned out. I know they had divested somehow a couple of years ago, or at least they had started using another legal entity to do their bidding over there (maybe I'm mistaken on this).
Also, it was my impression that people directly involved with YC at the time (such as Sam Altman) were pretty "blinded" by what was happening elsewhere in China and their were focusing instead only on the potential monetary gains. Granted, they weren't alone in this, as much bigger fish such as Apple, MS, FB and even Google wanted a piece of the tasty pie and as such were ready to make huge compromises to get to it. Even so, for me at least it was a little disappointing, YC could have afforded to act on principles alone, its owners/founders are already pretty rich, plus they're not listed so don't have to battle with the tyranny of the shareholders.
There’s no “using another legal entity to do their bidding over there”. It’s just closed.
That said, it’s not clear that it’s unequivocally morally superior to deny a service to all 1B+ Chinese people, many of whom could have been founders of great companies or customers/beneficiaries of those companies, just because of the actions of a government, particularly one that was not elected by those citizens.
As the announcement mentions, Qi Lu continues to be active in the VC space with a new company, MiraclePlus, which calls itself "formerly YC China" on their website: https://www.miracleplus.com/
Presumably he calls it that because he’s using the same business strategy/model he was building for YC. But it seems quite clear that it’s not YC. The new entity is a standalone VC fund [1], and YC is a recipient of LP funds, not an LP in other VC funds. And besides, it would be hard for YC to keep any involvement quiet after making this kind of announcement.
Also, it was my impression that people directly involved with YC at the time (such as Sam Altman) were pretty "blinded" by what was happening elsewhere in China and their were focusing instead only on the potential monetary gains. Granted, they weren't alone in this, as much bigger fish such as Apple, MS, FB and even Google wanted a piece of the tasty pie and as such were ready to make huge compromises to get to it. Even so, for me at least it was a little disappointing, YC could have afforded to act on principles alone, its owners/founders are already pretty rich, plus they're not listed so don't have to battle with the tyranny of the shareholders.