YC rejects over 99% of applicants, most with zero feedback beyond a form email. Is that brutal but necessary at scale, or just bad for an ecosystem that claims to care about founders?

Options

• Necessary. At that volume, personalized feedback isn't realistic for anyone.
• Bad practice. If you're shaping an entire industry's narrative, you owe people more.
• The rejection isn't the problem, the mythologizing of acceptance is.
• Doesn't matter, the real filter happens after YC anyway.