The point of this question is just to alert us to go back and check the application for problems. Before we added it, we often used to miss these things.
Here's how the question is used in practice. We vote on applications without necessarily checking it. Then at the end when we have a ranked list, we go back and check to see whether any of the top ranked ones have any signs of breakage. (That's when we check the answer to this question.) If they do we dig deeper, maybe asking the founders questions. What we decide depends on that digging.
So it's not as if we have some kind of rule that if a startup answers this question yes, 30% gets subtracted from their score, or anything like that. This question acts more as a warning light.
Well, yes. I more or less understood all of that based on comments you've made in the past and what happened last time I submitted a "I can't move to the bay area" application -- my point was that it might be a useful thing to explain in your essay.
Here's how the question is used in practice. We vote on applications without necessarily checking it. Then at the end when we have a ranked list, we go back and check to see whether any of the top ranked ones have any signs of breakage. (That's when we check the answer to this question.) If they do we dig deeper, maybe asking the founders questions. What we decide depends on that digging.
So it's not as if we have some kind of rule that if a startup answers this question yes, 30% gets subtracted from their score, or anything like that. This question acts more as a warning light.