One of the things that I noticed is how YC's opinion regarding patents has evolved since its founding.
>"If you're accepted, we'll deal with the paperwork for you. We'll incorporate you, get you a corporate bank account, supply simple, generic employment agreements for you to use, and so on. We can give some advice about patents, though you don't have to deal with that in the earliest stages; you have a year after making a discovery to file a US patent application for it." [http://ycombinator.com/old/sfp.html]
However, the best part of the story was the I'm-quitting-my-job smile.
As he wrote this, PG asked me if I remembered the chronology of certain things and it was very hard. So much is blurred together in my mind. But I remember the night we decided to start YC and this photo.
It wasn't just happiness that I was quitting my job. I was also so excited about this idea and the opportunity to work on something that could make a difference in the world.
It shows and I wasn't intending to trivialize what I know was a complex decision. [edit] There's nothing quite like the person one loves confirming that it truly is for better or worse.[/edit]
However, the claim that they have recently become an existential threat is dubious, in my opinion.
Yes, there are lots of stories in the techpress about industry titans battering each with patents and partisan ranting which often accompanies it. What there aren't is stories on HN about startups forced to shutter because of patent claims.
But more importantly, funding for startups is accelerating not slowing as would be expected if software patents were a serious threat on the scale your post implies.
The problem with software patents for an investor such as YC is that they are hard to quantify as a risk and thus create uncertainty. What I see is that YC's initial approach to software patents was naive from an investment standpoint, i.e. that the risks of uncertainty turned out to be significantly greater than the potential gains from patent licensing.
I don't think YC's change was do to wholesale adoption of a FOSS ideology or conversion to Stallmanism. The day patents become a true existential threat, YC will not be funding software startups.
I work at a startup whose founder was forced to shutter a previous startup with more promise (ever heard of Modista?) because they were sued by iLike for a patent that had clear prior art. The suit came in the midst of a funding round and basically killed the company as it was just gaining steam. I anticipate that there are numerous similar stories that you've never heard... People don't exactly like to talk about succumbing to bullying.
>"If you're accepted, we'll deal with the paperwork for you. We'll incorporate you, get you a corporate bank account, supply simple, generic employment agreements for you to use, and so on. We can give some advice about patents, though you don't have to deal with that in the earliest stages; you have a year after making a discovery to file a US patent application for it." [http://ycombinator.com/old/sfp.html]
However, the best part of the story was the I'm-quitting-my-job smile.