Ask PG: Have you ever funded startups that eventually compete with each other?

[thomasd]

I'm sure you've seen almost every combination and permutation of startup ideas there is out there, and given the large number of YC funded companies, I wouldn't be surprise if some of those companies happen to pivot to similar ideas and markets.

Do you interfere in such cases? How do you deal with that?

[brackin]

Stripe, Balanced and WePay are all moving in the same direction. Also WePay and Crowdtilt were doing similar things at the start but WePay seems to be focused on their API.

[thomasd → brackin]

Interesting. How would communicating and offering advice to each competing portfolio companies be, with YC having privileged knowledge for all of them.

In a scenario where one company might book an office hour to talk about competition from another competing YC company, I wonder how PG manage what information to release, what advice to give.