\n<\/p>\n
Y Combinator (YC), a well-known startup accelerator that helped launch companies like Reddit, DoorDash and Airbnb, has invested in more than 5,000 startups<\/a> since 2005. Now YC leaders note that founders seem to be outsourcing writing their applications to AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n The YC application requires founders to explain how they selected their idea, identify competitors in the space and outline their plans to generate revenue. Some tell-tale signs reveal that many tech-focused founders have recently decided to use AI to write answers to these questions.<\/p>\n One giveaway is the longer responses that AI produces. According to YC partner Tyler Bosmeny<\/a>, YC applications have increased in length by 60% over the past three years. \u201cI wonder what could explain that\u2026\u201d he wrote on X<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n Another YC partner, Pete Koomen<\/a>, spent a week reading applications. He wrote in an X post<\/a> this week that \u201cback in my day (one year ago) founders didn\u2019t talk like this.\u201d He shared a chart<\/a> showing that the percentage of applications containing the word \u201cwedge\u201d went from less than 1% in spring 2025 to greater than 20% in summer 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, em dashes, another AI giveaway, started growing in use in 2023 and \u201creally hit their stride in 24,\u201d Koomen said. According to the data he shared<\/a>, by summer 2025, more than 50% of YC applications used em dashes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Koomen emphasized that the spacing of those em dashes was important. Em dashes with spaces around them spiked in use in summer 2025, around the same time that the word \u201cwedge\u201d became more popular. These signs of AI use coincided with the launch of Anthropic\u2019s Opus 4 AI model, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n YC co-founder Paul Graham wrote in an X post<\/a> in April 2024 that someone sent him a cold email suggesting \u201ca novel project.\u201d Then he noticed that the email used the word \u201cdelve.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy point here is not that I dislike \u2018delve,\u2019 though I do, but that it\u2019s a sign that text was written by ChatGPT,\u201d Graham wrote in the post, which has been viewed 2.6 million times.\u00a0<\/p>\n He added a chart created by researcher Philip Shapira, which illustrated that the word \u201cdelve\u201d has jumped from nearly zero to nearly 18,000 instances in published papers and articles from 1990 to 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNo one uses it [delve] in spoken English,\u201d Graham wrote<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those words like \u2018burgeoning\u2019 that people only use when they\u2019re writing and want to sound clever.\u201d<\/p>\n Founders using AI to write applications have recently stayed away from \u201cdelve.\u201d Koomen found that the word only spiked in 1.25% of applications<\/a> in the winter of 2024, before Graham\u2019s post.\u00a0<\/p>\n Graham said more recently, in an X post<\/a> in May, that \u201ca lot\u201d of emails from founders now adopt \u201ca hard-hitting journalistic style.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know they\u2019re written by AI, because no founder ever wrote this way before,\u201d he wrote, adding<\/a>, \u201cIt feels like being lied to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Y Combinator (YC), a well-known startup accelerator that helped launch companies like Reddit, DoorDash and Airbnb, has invested in more than 5,000 startups<\/a> since 2005. Now YC leaders note that founders seem to be outsourcing writing their applications to AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n The YC application requires founders to explain how they selected their idea, identify competitors in the space and outline their plans to generate revenue. Some tell-tale signs reveal that many tech-focused founders have recently decided to use AI to write answers to these questions.<\/p>\n One giveaway is the longer responses that AI produces. According to YC partner Tyler Bosmeny<\/a>, YC applications have increased in length by 60% over the past three years. \u201cI wonder what could explain that\u2026\u201d he wrote on X<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nOne word decreased in popularity<\/h2>\n
Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n
\n