After Soham Parekh, YC rejects X user for an ‘extremely disappointing' reason: ‘This world is doomed'

Indian Express

19 hours ago

The Internet is still buzzing over Soham Parekh – the man who managed to work multiple startup jobs at once and allegedly duped several YC-backed founders. But just as that story continues to unravel, another viral post tied to Y Combinator has caught everyone's attention – and it's all because of… lowercase letters.
A user named Maze (@mazeincoding), who warns followers not to take '99% of what I say seriously,' recently shared a screenshot of a rejection email from Y Combinator. His caption read: 'Just got rejected from yc for using all lowercase in our application.'
The email he posted offers more detail. It reads: 'One recurring piece of internal feedback: the decision to format the entire application in lowercase made it difficult to evaluate. While unconventional formatting isn't disqualifying on its own, it signals a lack of attention to detail and clarity – both of which matter to us.'
It goes on to explain: 'We understand stylistic choices, but in a high-signal, high-noise environment, presentation is part of communication. Yours detracted from the content.'
Indianexpress.com couldn't independently verify the email.
just got rejected from yc for using all lowercase in our application pic.twitter.com/5jA7V1nDxD
— Maze (@mazeincoding) July 4, 2025
Unsurprisingly, the post blew up, racking up over a million views and sparking a wave of commentary. Maze later posted a screenshot showing that Y Combinator had liked the tweet, asking, 'uh should i be concerned?'
Reactions poured in. One user argued, 'Given the ubiquitous autocorrection features, it actually takes extra effort to write in all lowercase. So no, it doesn't signal a lack of attention to detail — on the contrary, it shows huge dedication to details and contrarian thinking.'
Another user said, 'God forbid you try not to look like ChatGPT wrote the whole thing.'
A third user wrote, 'yUo shOldVe MAde IT lOoK lIkE tHiS.'
While didn't work at Y Combinator, many of the companies he allegedly misled were part of its network. Founders, including Playground AI's Suhail Doshi, have accused Parekh of holding multiple jobs at once across YC-backed startups, without disclosing it to any of them.
Doshi and others claim Parekh took advantage of remote work setups to juggle roles, access sensitive information, and in some cases, allegedly funnel projects to his own ventures.
So while the lowercase controversy might be funny, the backdrop of YC's recent headlines is far from light – making Maze's viral post both oddly timed and perfectly in sync with what's buzzing on the Internet.