Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by rvz on Friday March 12, 2021 @09:24AM (#26436114)

Just ask AstroPad and f.lux who both have been targets of being 'sherlocked'.

I can only see that these guys are at risk of being sherlocked by Calendar.app, Google Calendar and Calendar.exe.

Wonder what their answer to YC was when they were asked about that risk.

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by the-dude on Friday March 12, 2021 @09:33AM (#26436197)

For the curious : https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sherlocked

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by harperlee on Friday March 12, 2021 @10:22AM (#26436753)

Thanks a lot! Could you paste it here? Work firewall blocks that site.

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by no_wizard on Friday March 12, 2021 @10:46AM (#26436992)

sherlocked: to have developed a product and just started shipping it, only to have Apple come along and provide exactly the same functionality in a system update. It happened to Karelia Software twice. Once with Sherlock and again with iWeb.

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by cbsks on Friday March 12, 2021 @10:33AM (#26436864)

sherlocked

to have developed a product and just started shipping it, only to have Apple come along and provide exactly the same functionality in a system update. It happened to Karelia Software twice. Once with Sherlock and again with iWeb.

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by SAI_Peregrinus on Friday March 12, 2021 @10:45AM (#26436987)

sherlocked

To have developed a product and just started shipping it, only to have Apple come along and provide exactly the same functionality in a system update. It happened to Karelia Software twice. Once with Sherlock and again with iWeb.

I'll bet the Pro HDR folks groaned and got drunk after the Apple event yesterday where they showed the HDR functionality built in to the OS. They got Sherlocked!

by franketh September 02, 2010

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by ttul on Friday March 12, 2021 @10:45AM (#26436989)

I commented on this risk. The founder smartly replied that they have much broader plans than just calendars. Still, anything that lives in the menu bar and serves such a core purpose as notifications is at risk of being “Sherlocked”.

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by onion2k on Friday March 12, 2021 @09:46AM (#26436325)

Wonder what their answer to YC was when they were asked about that risk.

"Apple buy hundreds of companies every year. Being bought by Apple is a potentially a valid exit strategy."

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by mattnewton on Friday March 12, 2021 @10:17AM (#26436687)

Maybe, but Apple did not buy Sherlock.

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by FireBeyond on Friday March 12, 2021 @06:10PM (#26442080)

Most companies (the majority, I'd wager) who were Sherlocked were _not_ bought by Apple. Most companies basically got a "sucks to be you", that they found out along with everyone else at an Apple launch event where Apple had, sometimes shamelessly and brazenly, cloned their product. Sometimes, to add insult to injury, Apple would then remove that company's product from App Stores as "duplicating OS functionality".

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by onion2k on Saturday March 13, 2021 @04:02AM (#26445151)

Allegedly Apple's strategy is often to make an offer to buy the company and acquihire some devs who understand the problem and have experience solving it, and if the answer is a no they implement the feature themselves. I have no idea if that's actually true, or if it happens a lot, but it could be the case that being "sherlocked" is what happens if you turn down an offer. If true, that would make being "sherlocked" irrelevant if the plan is to exit by being bought by Apple.

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by notyourday on Friday March 12, 2021 @11:08AM (#26437223)

> Wonder what their answer to YC was when they were asked about that risk.

if (yolo(money)) { pivot_me(money) } else { shutdown() }

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Re:Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is ... by krapp on Friday March 12, 2021 @11:12AM (#26437283)

more like

    (if (yolo money) (pivot-me money) (shutdown))

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