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Epstein: Poor demo design signals a YC applicant didn't try

Aaron Epstein · Common Mistakes With Vibe Coded Websites · Y Combinator · Mar 6, 2026 · at 8:59

Aaron Epstein, partner at Y Combinator, explains how AI design tools have raised the baseline standard expected for YC applicant product demos.

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“Especially as we're reviewing YC applications, if you look at a demo and that demo does not have a base level of quality design, it seems like the person just didn't even try because it's so easy to do it now.”

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