Posting this because I spent a lot of time reading other people’s EB-1A case histories on here, and the detailed ones were much more useful than just “approved in X days.”

I’m anonymizing employers, customers, recommenders, etc. where needed, but I’ll name Y Combinator and give funding stages because those were actually relevant to the case.

My background is software/AI/cybersecurity. I graduated from undergrad in 2024, worked at a few tech companies/startups, then cofounded an AI startup that went through Y Combinator, and later joined a Series C cybersecurity startup.

I was also already in O-1A status during most of this.

I’m not an academic profile at all — no PhD, no big citation count, no major publication record, etc.

Filing #1

First EB-1A filed in August 2025 with premium processing.

RFE: August 2025
RFE response: November 2025
Denied: December 2025

We claimed:

• awards
• membership
• published material
• judging
• original contributions of major significance
• authorship
• high remuneration

USCIS accepted judging.

The rest were either rejected or not enough to get the case over the line.

Awards

One major part of the first petition was my startup background.

I had cofounded an AI startup that was accepted into Y Combinator and received YC’s standard $500k investment.

We tried to argue YC selection/funding under the awards criterion.

The theory was basically that YC is extremely selective, applicants are evaluated by recognized startup experts, and acceptance is a meaningful form of recognition of the founders.

USCIS did not agree.

Their view was essentially:

YC invested money into the company in exchange for equity. That is an investment, not a prize or award given to me personally for excellence.

In the RFE response, we submitted more evidence around YC selectivity and letters from people in venture capital explaining why getting into YC is highly competitive and based heavily on founder quality.

Still rejected.

In hindsight, this was a good example of the difference between “very impressive in the real world” and “fits the wording of an EB-1A criterion.”

Membership

We also tried to use Y Combinator under membership.

The argument was that YC is extremely selective and that acceptance is based on the achievements and abilities of the founders, as evaluated by recognized experts.

USCIS did not accept that either.

The issue was basically that YC is not really an “association” with membership in the way the regulation contemplates, and the investment/company-selection structure made the analogy harder.

Published material

We submitted press and media coverage around my work/startups.

USCIS pushed on two things:

1. whether the publication counted as major media, and
2. whether the article was actually “about me” rather than mainly about the company.

That distinction came up a lot.

An article saying “Startup X raised money and founders A/B are building Y” is helpful background evidence, but USCIS does not necessarily treat that as published material about the beneficiary.

Judging

This was accepted in filing #1.

I had judged/evaluated the work of others in the field and we had documentation around the invitation, what I judged, and why I had been selected.

This was by far the cleanest criterion in the first petition.

Authorship

We submitted technical writing/publications and argued authorship.

USCIS did not accept that the material qualified as scholarly authorship.

This was another area where, in hindsight, we were probably trying to fit a non-academic tech profile into a criterion that was not especially natural for my background.

High remuneration

We also claimed high remuneration based on compensation, equity, and startup economics.

USCIS was skeptical of the equity valuation component and did not find the evidence sufficient to show that I was being paid significantly more than others in the field.

Original contributions

This was one of the biggest issues in the first case.

We had a lot of evidence showing that I had built meaningful systems at different companies.

USCIS’s response was basically:

Fine, you built something useful. Why does that make it a contribution of major significance to the field?That is a much harder thing to prove. Evidence that your employer liked your work is not enough. Evidence that customers used something is helpful, but it still has to be tied specifically to your individual contribution. And company success does not automatically mean your work caused that success.

Company A / Company B

Before founding the YC company, I had worked as an AI engineer at a venture-backed enterprise software company. I’ll call it Company A.

Company A later raised a Series C and was eventually acquired by a major public cloud/data company, which I’ll call Company B.

At Company A, I worked on an AI product for investigating production incidents and helped build evaluation infrastructure around a multi-agent system. There was also a major financial institution involved as an early/design customer.

In the first petition, we leaned pretty hard on that work.

The argument was roughly:

• I made important technical contributions to a core AI product at Company A
• that product was important to the company’s technical/commercial story
• Company A subsequently raised a major Series C
• Company A was later acquired by Company B

The more aggressive framing was basically that my work was critical to the product, critical to Company A’s Series C story, and ultimately relevant to the acquisition by Company B.

In retrospect, that was probably too aggressive.

We had recommendation letters saying my work was important and evidence showing what I had built, but obviously we did not have an investor saying, “we invested because of his work,” or the acquirer saying, “we bought the company because of this specific system he developed.”

That causal jump was weak. This became one of the biggest changes in how we framed evidence later.

Instead of using a financing round or acquisition to prove that my individual work caused a major company outcome, we used those events to show that the organization itself was distinguished and commercially significant.

Then we separately proved my role inside the organization.

That was much cleaner.

Filing #2

We refiled rather than appealing.

Second filing was in May 2026, again with premium processing.

This case also got an RFE.

But the RFE was completely different.

By the time of the second RFE, USCIS had accepted five criteria:

• awards
• membership
• published material
• judging
• authorship

So the case was no longer really about whether I could scrape together three criteria.

USCIS focused on:

• original contributions of major significance
• leading/critical role
• high remuneration
• prospective benefit to the United States
• final merits

That was a much better problem to have.

What changed between the two filings

The biggest change was that I had much stronger evidence from my current company.

I had joined a Series C cybersecurity startup and was working on social-engineering defense.

My work involved products around AI-driven phishing/vishing simulations and related security capabilities used by companies to test and improve how employees respond to real-world social-engineering attacks.

By the time of the second filing/RFE, we could show much more concretely:

• what I personally built
• what I personally led
• which products/features I had significant ownership over
• how customers were using them (proven via redacted customer contracts)
• why the products mattered commercially
• why my role was important internally
• why the underlying security problem mattered outside the company
• why independent cybersecurity experts viewed the work as significant

This made the original-contributions and critical-role arguments much stronger.

Company A was reframed too

We still used Company A in the second case, but much more carefully.

We said something closer to:

• Company A was a distinguished organization
• its Series C, customers, and later acquisition by Company B were evidence of that
• I had a documented technical role on an important AI product there
• separate evidence showed exactly what I contributed
• recommenders explained why those contributions mattered technically

This avoided trying to claim causation that we could not directly prove.

That distinction sounds obvious in hindsight, but I think a lot of startup/tech petitions make this mistake.

Company-level success is useful. It just does not automatically become evidence of individual acclaim.

Original contributions in filing #2

For original contributions, we went much harder on actual impact.

The structure was basically:

what I built → who used it → what changed because of it → why the problem itself is important

We submitted detailed evidence around specific capabilities I had developed or led.

We also used letters that actually explained the work instead of just saying I was “exceptional.”

The response tied the work to the broader cybersecurity problem using outside data around:

• social engineering
• phishing
• business email compromise
• sensitive-data exposure
• financial losses suffered by U.S. organizations

Critical role

The critical-role case was also much cleaner in the second filing.

We documented that I had substantial ownership over important product areas at the cybersecurity company.

The evidence included:

• internal responsibility/ownership
• specific products/features
• customer/commercial impact
• senior leadership letters
• evidence around the company’s funding, customers, growth, and reputation

Because the company was already Series C, proving that it was a distinguished organization was much easier.

And this time we kept the logic separate:

1. prove the company is distinguished
2. prove my role was critical to it

instead of trying to use company success as a shortcut for individual impact.

Independent letters

Another major improvement was the recommendation letters.

The strongest independent letter came from a senior cybersecurity executive.

It was useful because the person could basically say:

I understand this problem, I understand the industry, I understand what this technology does, and here is why this work matters.

That was much more helpful than another former manager saying I was one of the best engineers they had worked with.

The second RFE response used independent experts much more to explain significance, rather than just to praise me.

Prospective U.S. benefit

USCIS also explicitly questioned whether my continued work would prospectively benefit the United States.

So we addressed that directly.

The response argued that I was already working on cybersecurity products aimed at threats affecting U.S. companies and users, and that my future work was a continuation of that same area.

We tied this to external data on social-engineering losses and attacks in the U.S., and used an independent senior cybersecurity executive to explain why the work mattered from a U.S. security perspective.

Final merits

This was probably the biggest issue in the second RFE.

By that point USCIS had already accepted five criteria, so just proving them again was not really the task.

The final-merits argument tied together:

• Y Combinator
• startup founding
• external venture funding
• acquisition of startup technology/assets
• work at Company

A

• Company

A’s

• Series C and later acquisition by Company

B

• judging
• published material
• technical authorship
• work at a distinguished Series C cybersecurity company
• important technical/product ownership
• customer/commercial impact
• independent cybersecurity recognition
• prospective U.S. benefit

Outcome

Approved in August 2026.

Timeline:

August 2025 — first EB-1A filed
August 2025 — RFE
November 2025 — RFE response
December 2025 — denied

May 2026 — second EB-1A filed
RFE — five criteria accepted, fight moved to contributions / critical role / remuneration / prospective benefit / final merits
August 2026 — approved

So I went:

denial → refile → RFE → approval

in under a year.