Key Takeaways
- Y Combinator leaders say that founders are more and more submitting AI-generated responses to utility prompts.
- The acclaimed startup accelerator has seen extra purposes that use the phrase “wedge” and sprinkle in em dashes, each indicators of AI writing.
- YC purposes have additionally elevated in size by 60% over the previous three years, a sign that founders are utilizing AI to put in writing lengthier responses.
Y Combinator (YC), a well known startup accelerator that helped launch corporations like Reddit, DoorDash and Airbnb, has invested in additional than 5,000 startups since 2005. Now YC leaders observe that founders appear to be outsourcing writing their purposes to AI.
The YC utility requires founders to elucidate how they chose their thought, determine rivals within the area and description their plans to generate income. Some tell-tale indicators reveal that many tech-focused founders have not too long ago determined to make use of AI to put in writing solutions to those questions.
One giveaway is the longer responses that AI produces. In response to YC companion Tyler Bosmeny, YC purposes have elevated in size by 60% over the previous three years. “I’m wondering what may clarify that…” he wrote on X earlier this week.
One other YC companion, Pete Koomen, spent every week studying purposes. He wrote in an X publish this week that “again in my day (one 12 months in the past) founders didn’t speak like this.” He shared a chart exhibiting that the share of purposes containing the phrase “wedge” went from lower than 1% in spring 2025 to higher than 20% in summer time 2026.
In the meantime, em dashes, one other AI giveaway, began rising in use in 2023 and “actually hit their stride in 24,” Koomen mentioned. In response to the info he shared, by summer time 2025, greater than 50% of YC purposes used em dashes.
Koomen emphasised that the spacing of these em dashes was vital. Em dashes with areas round them spiked in use in summer time 2025, across the identical time that the phrase “wedge” grew to become extra in style. These indicators of AI use coincided with the launch of Anthropic’s Opus 4 AI mannequin, he mentioned.
One phrase decreased in recognition
YC co-founder Paul Graham wrote in an X publish in April 2024 that somebody despatched him a chilly e-mail suggesting “a novel venture.” Then he seen that the e-mail used the phrase “delve.”
“My level right here will not be that I dislike ‘delve,’ although I do, however that it’s an indication that textual content was written by ChatGPT,” Graham wrote within the publish, which has been seen 2.6 million instances.
He added a chart created by researcher Philip Shapira, which illustrated that the phrase “delve” has jumped from practically zero to practically 18,000 cases in printed papers and articles from 1990 to 2024.
“Nobody makes use of it [delve] in spoken English,” Graham wrote. “It’s a kind of phrases like ‘burgeoning’ that folks solely use once they’re writing and need to sound intelligent.”
Founders utilizing AI to put in writing purposes have not too long ago stayed away from “delve.” Koomen discovered that the phrase solely spiked in 1.25% of purposes within the winter of 2024, earlier than Graham’s publish.
Graham mentioned extra not too long ago, in an X publish in Might, that “lots” of emails from founders now undertake “a hard-hitting journalistic model.”
“I do know they’re written by AI, as a result of no founder ever wrote this manner earlier than,” he wrote, including, “It appears like being lied to.”
Key Takeaways
- Y Combinator leaders say that founders are more and more submitting AI-generated responses to utility prompts.
- The acclaimed startup accelerator has seen extra purposes that use the phrase “wedge” and sprinkle in em dashes, each indicators of AI writing.
- YC purposes have additionally elevated in size by 60% over the previous three years, a sign that founders are utilizing AI to put in writing lengthier responses.
Y Combinator (YC), a well known startup accelerator that helped launch corporations like Reddit, DoorDash and Airbnb, has invested in additional than 5,000 startups since 2005. Now YC leaders observe that founders appear to be outsourcing writing their purposes to AI.
The YC utility requires founders to elucidate how they chose their thought, determine rivals within the area and description their plans to generate income. Some tell-tale indicators reveal that many tech-focused founders have not too long ago determined to make use of AI to put in writing solutions to those questions.
One giveaway is the longer responses that AI produces. In response to YC companion Tyler Bosmeny, YC purposes have elevated in size by 60% over the previous three years. “I’m wondering what may clarify that…” he wrote on X earlier this week.
