My personal story on the unethical behaviors of the TechCode accelerator (medium.com)

FYI two days after writing this article he shut down his startup https://medium.com/@OmidAminfar/the-end-of-my-rewarding-star... so while I am not disputing the accuracy of his statements there may be other factors as work as well.

I think you should only call a program an accelerator if they invest at the start in all participants. Otherwise a word like incubator or competition probably makes more sense.

A bit of Occam's Razor might be called for before suggesting hidden agendas and IP theft by foreign governments.

It sounds like a new program that overpromised, didn't plan well, and struggled to deliver would have been a similar experience.

I read this earlier today, and I don't remember the author calling out the accelerator by name. Was this a later edit?

There's no barrier-to-entry for a shop to call themselves an "accelerator."

Reputation*3.

YC, 500 and some others. Doing due-diligence, building rapport with key people and managing expectations can help. Also, big names have a lot more to lose (rep) and so tend to be safer bets.