StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Y Combinator

also referred to as: yc

includes Y Combinator Continuity, Y Combinator Continuity Fund, Y Combinator Research

237 statements across 123 episodes · 82 bullish · 53 bearish · 96 people on the record · first statement Mar 2, 2015 by Mike Seibel · said 1,437 times in 343 episodes since 2015 · across every show →

Mentions by year, the whole family

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (663), Jason Lemkin (97), Tom Blomfield (45), Jason Calacanis (33), Max Junestrand (29), Garry Tan (24), Sam Altman (18), Justin Kan (16)

tap a year for its mentions
001252525050201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions
02550201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
00425850201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 160 mentions in 43 episodes 4 per episode
2025 160 mentions in 35 episodes 5 per episode
2024 125 mentions in 22 episodes 6 per episode
2023 72 mentions in 25 episodes 3 per episode
2022 71 mentions in 25 episodes 3 per episode
2021 18 mentions in 9 episodes 2 per episode
2020 87 mentions in 27 episodes 3 per episode
2019 193 mentions in 48 episodes 4 per episode
2018 126 mentions in 30 episodes 4 per episode
2017 220 mentions in 39 episodes 6 per episode
2016 118 mentions in 29 episodes 4 per episode
2015 87 mentions in 11 episodes 8 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Y Combinator, oldest first

Mar 2, 2015 neutral
Insight
Mike Seibel believes a good startup will succeed with or without YC
“You know, we have a saying that like a good company is going to be a good company, regardless of whether it does YC.”
Mike Seibel Mar 2, 2015 ▶ 13:54 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel
Mar 2, 2015 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Y Combinator does not care at all about a founder's academic credentials
“Yeah, we don't care at all. Absolutely don't care at all.”
Mike Seibel Mar 2, 2015 ▶ 12:53 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel
Mar 2, 2015
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Every Y Combinator application is graded by at least three partners
“Involves each application being read and graded by at least three partners. And from that process, we create a stack ordering stack ranking of approximately 450 applications. At the top. And then we take those 450 best ranked applications and we offer them all…”
Mike Seibel Mar 2, 2015 ▶ 9:55 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel
Mar 2, 2015 neutral
Assertion Supported
Startups only need one YC partner's approval to be accepted
“One of the unique things about the YC interview process is that you only have to get one partner in the room to say yes to get in. Typically there are three to four partners in the room.”
Mike Seibel Mar 2, 2015 ▶ 13:33 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel
Mar 2, 2015 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mike Seibel outlines the primary red flags for Y Combinator applicants
“They usually center around either the lack of a technical co-founder, a very, very unequal equity split, teams that aren't working full time, teams that are relying on outsourced engineering to build their product.”
Mike Seibel Mar 2, 2015 ▶ 13:11 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel
Mar 2, 2015
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Y Combinator accepts approximately 25 percent of the startups it interviews
“And then of those interviews you know, approximately one in four companies will be offered a spot in YC.”
Mike Seibel Mar 2, 2015 ▶ 10:24 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel
Mar 2, 2015 negative
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Mike Seibel will never accept a startup that outsources its engineering
“I would never say yes to a company that's outsourcing engineering.”
Mike Seibel Mar 2, 2015 ▶ 13:45 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel
Apr 30, 2015 bullish
Assertion Supported
Y Combinator participation boosts startup valuations by 2x to 3x
“While we were going through, there was a number that was floating around, like it's like two to three X of the standard valuation. So it definitely, it has a huge impact on your valuation because also like everybody has been pre-vetted so rigorously.”
Nicolas Michaelsen Apr 30, 2015 ▶ 13:53 20 VC 032: Inside Y Combinator with Nicolas Michaelsen, Founder @ AirHelp
Apr 30, 2015 positive
Opinion
Y Combinator acceptance is a better seal of approval than Stanford MBA
“And it just, it gives you a seal of approval that you know, that will affect you for many years to come. We jokingly refer to it as better than a Stanford MBA.”
Nicolas Michaelsen Apr 30, 2015 ▶ 9:42 20 VC 032: Inside Y Combinator with Nicolas Michaelsen, Founder @ AirHelp
Apr 30, 2015
Assertion Supported
Michaelsen: Y Combinator interviews are 10-minute sessions with 3 to 4 partners
“They're structured that you have three to four of the partners that sit with you in a room, and then you have about 10 minutes where you talk about your idea, and they ask questions.”
Nicolas Michaelsen Apr 30, 2015 ▶ 6:58 20 VC 032: Inside Y Combinator with Nicolas Michaelsen, Founder @ AirHelp
Jun 1, 2015 neutral
Assertion Supported
Calacanis: Far more tech unicorns exist outside Y Combinator than inside
“There's many more unicorns outside of there's many more unicorns outside of Y Combinator than in it.”
Jason Calacanis Jun 1, 2015 ▶ 47:15 Jason Calacanis: The World's Greatest Angel Investor
Jun 1, 2015 negative
Opinion
Calacanis: Accelerator cohorts of 120 companies harm participating startups
“I do think that a 120 companies at Y Combinator and whatever Dave's doing is, it's just, it's not good for the startups.”
Jason Calacanis Jun 1, 2015 ▶ 49:16 Jason Calacanis: The World's Greatest Angel Investor
Jun 1, 2015 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Calacanis: Y Combinator triples startup valuations while Launch Incubator doubles them
“I would say that Y Combinator's program does triple your valuation, and mine probably only doubles it, you know.”
Jason Calacanis Jun 1, 2015 ▶ 50:24 Jason Calacanis: The World's Greatest Angel Investor
Jun 15, 2015
Insight
The Primary Purpose of a Startup Pitch Is Securing Follow-Up Discussions
“The purpose of a great pitch is to begin a discussion, right? So, even a Y Combinator Termsheets happen after the pitch, right? They happen in the discussion one-on-one, in the room when everybody's mingling, and more typically in markets outside of Silicon Va…”
Alan Jones Jun 15, 2015 ▶ 16:43 20 VC 045: From Idea to Pitch with Alan Jones, Founding Investor @ Startmate
Jul 20, 2015 neutral
Disclosure
Triest: Once a startup enters Y Combinator, we missed our premier opportunity
“In terms of investing, once a company's in an accelerator, it depends on which accelerator, but if you take like a YC, for example, it's generally too, you know, we've kind of missed our premier opportunity to invest in the company. Our goal is to find the com…”
Jonathan Triest Jul 20, 2015 ▶ 12:53 20 VC 055: VC Done Right with Jonathon Triest @ Ludlow Ventures
Sep 28, 2015
Insight
Nathoo: Founders must earn minimum wage to block employment lawsuits
“Everybody must be paid a minimum wage. Because again, we've seen issues in the past where founders are they break up, and it's not a happy you know, it's an acrimonious split, and the first thing that the departing founder does is go and talk to a lawyer, and …”
Kirsty Nathoo Sep 28, 2015 ▶ 19:39 20 VC 075: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Kirsty Nathoo, CFO @ Y Combinator
Sep 28, 2015 positive
Disclosure
YC Fellows program targets founders too early for the main YC batch
“Our new program, our YC Fellows program, where we're taking people in who are sort of slightly too early for YC itself.”
Kirsty Nathoo Sep 28, 2015 ▶ 7:36 20 VC 075: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Kirsty Nathoo, CFO @ Y Combinator
Sep 28, 2015 negative
Insight
Nathoo: YC's main threat is top founders opting out of accelerator programs
“I think the thing that we worry about the most is that the best companies won't want to come through YC, so I think the biggest challenge is that those companies decide they want to go somewhere else or do something on their own without having YC's help.”
Kirsty Nathoo Sep 28, 2015 ▶ 24:10 20 VC 075: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Kirsty Nathoo, CFO @ Y Combinator
Sep 28, 2015
Assertion Supported
Nathoo: Y Combinator conducts 10-minute founder interviews for startup selection
“We have a 10 minute interview, and it's amazing how much you can learn in that 10 minutes.”
Kirsty Nathoo Sep 28, 2015 ▶ 9:38 20 VC 075: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Kirsty Nathoo, CFO @ Y Combinator
Sep 28, 2015 neutral
Disclosure
Nathoo: YC evaluates expansion in China and India over Europe
“This is something we talk about a lot. Not necessarily YC Europe. We think about China, and we think about India a lot. It's something that, That we haven't figured out quite how it would work yet. I think YC is changing so much and has changed so much in the …”
Kirsty Nathoo Sep 28, 2015 ▶ 22:43 20 VC 075: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Kirsty Nathoo, CFO @ Y Combinator
Sep 28, 2015
Insight
Nathoo: The biggest founder fundraising mistake is not knowing when to stop
“The biggest mistake that we see founders making whilst they're fundraising is Well, actually, it's one of two things. The first thing is not knowing when to stop.”
Kirsty Nathoo Sep 28, 2015 ▶ 11:17 20 VC 075: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Kirsty Nathoo, CFO @ Y Combinator
Sep 28, 2015
Insight
Nathoo: Startup ideas and markets change, but founding teams cannot
“Ideas can change, markets can change, but teams can't.”
Kirsty Nathoo Sep 28, 2015 ▶ 8:50 20 VC 075: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Kirsty Nathoo, CFO @ Y Combinator
Sep 28, 2015
Insight
Nathoo: YC evaluates founders on whether they teach interviewers something new
“And one of the indicators that we look at the end of the interview is, have we learnt something new? Have, you know, have the founders thought about it enough that they've told us something that we didn't know before?”
Kirsty Nathoo Sep 28, 2015 ▶ 10:35 20 VC 075: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Kirsty Nathoo, CFO @ Y Combinator
Sep 28, 2015 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Nathoo: YC expanded batch size from 26 to 114 in five years
“The first batch that I was involved in was winter, 2010. And that had, I think, 26 companies in it. So, now, our last batch, we had 114 companies.”
Kirsty Nathoo Sep 28, 2015 ▶ 5:48 20 VC 075: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Kirsty Nathoo, CFO @ Y Combinator
Sep 30, 2015
Insight
One percent weekly growth is not venture startup scale
“If you think you have fit in your market, and it's just growing one percent a week, you might have a great business on your hands, but it's probably not startup scale.”
Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 15:01 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC
Sep 30, 2015 bullish
Prediction Held up
Y Combinator will expand funding into biotech, aerospace, and nuclear power
“Over the last year or two, we've expanded the kinds of companies we fund, you know, we're doing, we funded aerospace companies and nuclear power companies and biotech, and I think we'll continue to expand that universe as sort of the cycles of software continu…”
Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 18:43 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC
Sep 30, 2015
Insight
Consumer social product success cannot be predicted before viral growth
“And I've watched our attempts to invest in social products, and I've watched my friends try to build Social things and stuff that works, you never realize it's going to work until it really does.”
Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 13:31 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC
Sep 30, 2015
Insight
Growth is a byproduct of product-market fit, not the primary goal
“Growth isn't the goal. And I think this is something that people sometimes get a little backwards. Growth is the result of having the right product and the right market, right? It's because you did the other things right that you get growth. You can't invent g…”
Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 14:23 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC
Sep 30, 2015 neutral
Disclosure
Y Combinator does not plan to raise outside funding to grow
“You know, I don't think about steps for YC in terms of us raising funding again. It's just not really how we think about what YC becomes.”
Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 18:17 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC
Sep 30, 2015 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
YC does not try to control portfolio company valuations post-Demo Day
“I don't think we expressly think about, hey, we want to keep this valuation level or that valuation level. I think we just want to make sure that companies are setting the groundwork to build long-term businesses.”
Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 16:26 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC
Sep 30, 2015 neutral
Assertion Supported
YC Tuesday dinners are the only mandatory event for founders
“And so the way YC is structured is that during the course of the three month program, every Tuesday night we have a dinner where we have a guest speaker and people like Mark Zuckerberg or Brian Chesky Really inspirational founders who have done really cool thi…”
Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 5:36 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC
Sep 30, 2015 positive
Insight
YC acts as a forcing function for founders to focus entirely
“And then the three months of YC itself is such a great time for founders to be able to push off everything else, right? It's this great excuse to focus. Anyone who wants to talk to you that isn't a customer who you need to talk to or a user you need to talk to…”
Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 8:55 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC
Oct 2, 2015 positive
Insight
Glyman: Y Combinator seeks simple transaction models that expand into broader visions
“And that from going to a simple thread to weaving a larger story and picture of business Is really, I think, a lot of what YC looks for.”
Eric Glyman Oct 2, 2015 ▶ 15:21 FF 015: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Eric Glyman, Co-Founder & CEO @ Paribus
Oct 2, 2015 neutral
Disclosure
Glyman: Paribus was rejected by Y Combinator with only ten users
“We didn't. The first time we applied, we had 10 people. So we tried it right away. That was great. I mean, it was a good process applying. Didn't even get an interview.”
Eric Glyman Oct 2, 2015 ▶ 12:06 FF 015: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Eric Glyman, Co-Founder & CEO @ Paribus
Oct 21, 2015
Insight
Assuming past startup failures were just bad execution is arrogance
“And this was some feedback that I got that assuming that everyone else has just done something badly in the past is arrogance. You've got to understand why now is the right time, and some structural change in a market or technology is really the only thing tha…”
Weston Gaddy Oct 21, 2015 ▶ 6:17 20 VC 081: From YC to VC with Weston Gaddy @ Bain Capital Ventures
Oct 30, 2015 neutral
Opinion
Y Combinator seeks product engineers while 500 Startups prefers community hustlers
“I think it seems like YC tends to have more product focused engineers, you know, that they're looking for, and 500, you know, there's an interesting thing that I'd love for you to link up to, is there's a core question where Dave McClure really writes about th…”
Ashish Walia Oct 30, 2015 ▶ 16:48 20 VC FF 019: 500 Startups Week: Life As A 500 Startups Portfolio Company with Ashish Walia, Co-Founder @ LawTrades
Dec 11, 2015
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hoover: Product Hunt grew 50% month-over-month leading into YC
“Leading into, to the YC interview, we were growing 50% month over month”
Ryan Hoover Dec 11, 2015 ▶ 23:09 20 VC FF 026: Ryan Hoover, Founder @ ProductHunt on Relationship Building, Habit Forming and The Vision for ProductHunt
Feb 1, 2016 positive
Insight
Mignot: Modern French startups like Algolia target global expansion immediately
“Exalid was a really strong tech You know, take product, but stayed pretty much, you know, very French and academic. While Allegolia was kind of on the same space, you know, went straight away, you know, to YC and had, you know, set up an office in San Francisc…”
Martin Mignot Feb 1, 2016 ▶ 20:01 Index's Martin Mignot on Sourcing Rocketship Companies, Evaluating Founders and His Attitude Towards Risk At The Early Stage
Mar 7, 2016 bearish
Prediction Held up
Tunguz predicts average seed valuation caps will drop to $5M–$7M
“Seat valuations, from what I've seen, are falling. I remember maybe like a year ago, you know, the high watermark for like Y Combinator companies was something like a twenty million cap or an unlimited cap, and I think you'll see maybe one or two of those, but…”
Tomasz Tunguz Mar 7, 2016 ▶ 5:15 20VC: Tom Tunguz on Why Now Is The Best Time To Be Investing and The Effect of Late Stage Valuations on Startups
Mar 14, 2016 positive
Assertion Supported
Mazzeo: Y Combinator shares detailed background notes on investors with founders
“I think one of the fantastic things about YC and what Paul and Sam have built is that they, ah, they expose entrepreneurs to more information than ever before. That's not just the deal making terms. That's background on the investors that they're getting into …”
Matt Mazzeo Mar 14, 2016 ▶ 10:46 20VC: Lowercase's Matt Mazzeo on Being Chris Sacca's Partner and The 3 KPIs to Successful Investing
Mar 18, 2016 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mehta: Msg.ai achieved 100% month-over-month growth after joining Y Combinator
“After we started YC this year, we've been growing a hundred percent month over month.”
Puneet Mehta Mar 18, 2016 ▶ 4:00 Pre-YC Demo Day: Msg.ai's Puneet Mehta on The Rise of AI, The Potential For Messaging and Life As A Current YC Startup
Mar 18, 2016 positive
Disclosure
Msg.ai raised seed round backed by DeepMind and OpenAI founders
“We raised the seed round around October last year. We were fortunate to have you know, some of the best AI people be in that round. The founders of Google, DeepMind, Tamis and Mustafa the CTO of OpenAI, Greg Brockman, the chief scientist at the New York Times,…”
Puneet Mehta Mar 18, 2016 ▶ 3:29 Pre-YC Demo Day: Msg.ai's Puneet Mehta on The Rise of AI, The Potential For Messaging and Life As A Current YC Startup
Mar 18, 2016
Insight
Mehta: Startups should build products strong enough to sell themselves
“You have to build your startup enough where it does the selling and pitching for you, not the other way around.”
Puneet Mehta Mar 18, 2016 ▶ 10:05 Pre-YC Demo Day: Msg.ai's Puneet Mehta on The Rise of AI, The Potential For Messaging and Life As A Current YC Startup
Apr 11, 2016
Assertion Supported
Y Combinator classes were only 10 to 15 companies in 2006
“When I started 10 years ago, Google and Facebook were still buying a lot of small companies. YC classes were only 10, 15 companies.”
Aydin Senkut Apr 11, 2016 ▶ 11:56 20VC: Felicis' Aydin Senkut on Scaling Felicis From $4m to $120m, Doing Venture Differently and Why Being A VC Is Like A Jamaican Bobsled Team!
Apr 22, 2016 positive
Disclosure
Algolia Delayed Post-YC Series A to Take Small Investment From Jason Lemkin
“And so we finally decided not to raise any series A after weight combinator, but to take the risk to just raise a very small round to onboard new investors that we thought could provide a lot of value. That's when Jason Lemkin joined, joined us as an investor.”
Nicolas Dessaigne Apr 22, 2016 ▶ 13:34 20VC: Fundraising Is Also Business Development with Nicolas Dessaigne, Co-Founder & CEO @ Algolia
Aug 1, 2016
Assertion Supported
Y Combinator Shortened Founder Interviews From 40 Minutes to 10 Minutes
“So the interviews when they started off were 40 minutes long, which I'm sure to the interviewers felt exhausting. Now they're only 10 minutes long and they still feel exhausting.”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 7:58 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?
Aug 15, 2016 negative
Opinion
Sam Altman's advice to wait for YC is selfish and poor
“I think that's kind of laughable and actually probably really poor advice for entrepreneurs. Usually I think Sam and YC in general is an amazing program, and they offer lots of benefits and advice. In this particular case, I think they were being a little bit …”
Dave McClure Aug 15, 2016 ▶ 17:11 20VC: 500 Startups' Dave McClure on Whether Unicorns Are Necessary For Venture Returns & Why Ownership Is Not The Math To Think About When Investing
Aug 15, 2016 positive
Disclosure
500 Startups has invested in over 100 Y Combinator companies
“We've been investors through our seed investment program in a bunch of YC companies, over a hundred. I think we're actually one of the top three or four investors in YC companies over the years.”
Dave McClure Aug 15, 2016 ▶ 17:32 20VC: 500 Startups' Dave McClure on Whether Unicorns Are Necessary For Venture Returns & Why Ownership Is Not The Math To Think About When Investing
Aug 31, 2016 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
YC startup Squire grew revenue 40x within months of Middleton's investment
“One of my more recent investments And so it's a company called Squire, who is currently in Y Combinator about the demo in a couple of weeks. And these are just two incredible founders, Dave and Song, who have started from zero startup experience to now having …”
Jesse Middleton Aug 31, 2016 ▶ 27:40 20VC: Why Great Founders Are Both Visionary & Stubborn, The Investment Mindset Shift From Angel To VC & How To React When The 'S*** Hits The Fan?' with Jesse Middleton, General Partner @ Flybridge Capital Partners
Sep 2, 2016 positive
Insight
Minshew: Y Combinator's primary value is peer founders, not partners
“My biggest takeaway from YC was the power of a peer network. I learned a lot from the partners and the speakers and the things that people think of when they think of Y Combinator, but the number one advantage is being in a cohort with sixty-odd other companie…”
Kathryn Minshew Sep 2, 2016 ▶ 24:17 20VC: How To Win The Strategic Process Of Fundraising and Optimising Co-Founder Relationships and Break Ups with Kathryn Minshew, Founder & CEO @ The Muse
Oct 3, 2016 negative
Opinion
Hannah: Y Combinator gives bad advice by prioritizing traction over idea quality
“One element I don't like is this rejection of the notion that Ideas are valuable. You know, they, there's sort of this feeling that says, come in here and build some, build anything, build something you would use, build anything you can get traction on in your…”
Josh Hannah Oct 3, 2016 ▶ 22:32 20VC: Why The Best CEO's Are The Best Capital Allocators, How You Can Build A Business In A Space You Are Not Passionate About & When Is The Right Time To Put The Pedal To The Metal with Josh Hannah, General Partner @ Matrix Ventures
Oct 5, 2016 bullish
Disclosure
Matrix Partners Invested in YC's SketchDeck Because Meybaum Needed the Product
“I have two investments that I've done recently that are not public yet, but I will still mention this, the SketchTech deal. It's a YC company that I spoke to earlier, and I said yes because I would have used that product. I would love to have that product when…”
Hardi Meybaum Oct 5, 2016 ▶ 25:46 20VC: The Secret To Building Pattern Recognition, Why MBA Does Not Always Equal Great Founder & What Are The Right Reasons To Start A Company With Hardi Meybaum, General Partner @ Matrix Partners
Nov 2, 2016 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Y Combinator is disrupting venture capital by flipping founder supply and demand
“I think it will. We're starting to see that happen with Y Combinator. There was a great article I just read Profiling Sam Altman in the New Yorker, and I respect what Y Combinator has done, and I'm a big fan of what they've done over the last three to four yea…”
Clinton Foy Nov 2, 2016 ▶ 10:34 20VC: Why You Have To Be A Good Long Term Actor To Succeed in VC & How Owning An Esports Team Could Be A $Bn Outcome with Clinton Foy, General Partner @ Crosscut Ventures
Nov 16, 2016 positive
Insight
Targeting older incubator cohorts yields superior venture deal flow
“What if we said, let's go look at not what the cool kids are in YC's graduating class, but let's go look at those companies that have great metrics from three classes ago that nobody's paying attention to. You know, we sat down with some of the incubators, for…”
Paul Martino Nov 16, 2016 ▶ 20:23 20VC: Investing In Sectors That Were Cool 2 Years Ago, What Accel's Facebook Fund Taught a Generation of LPs & Why LPs Need A New Discovery Process with Paul Martino, Founding Partner @ Bullpen Capital
Dec 12, 2016 neutral
Assertion Supported
Ohanian: Gary Tan wrote almost all of Y Combinator's modern software
“Gary, in fact, wrote just about all of the modern code that powers Y Combinator.”
Alexis Ohanian Dec 12, 2016 ▶ 15:07 20VC: Reddit's Alexis Ohanian on How It All Started With Paul Graham @ YC, The Biggest Surprises About Making The Move Into VC & Why Alexis Believes All The Best Investors Have Operating Experience
Dec 14, 2016 negative
Insight
Tech networking events deliver no value due to founder posturing
“You go to your average meetup, or hangout, or dinner, or networking event, and it's basically people running around always with a happy face on, saying, how are you doing? We're doing great. We're killing it. How are you doing? And we're also killing it, and s…”
Garry Tan Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 6:50 20VC: Garry Tan on The Biggest Takeaways From Advising 700 Companies @ Y Combinator & Why Now Is The Golden Age For The Early Stage?
Dec 14, 2016 bullish
Opinion
Abundant late-stage capital creates a golden age for micro VCs
“I think that that's great because it's the golden age for the micro VC, the golden age for accelerators and for YC because there's more money at the later stage.”
Garry Tan Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 14:52 20VC: Garry Tan on The Biggest Takeaways From Advising 700 Companies @ Y Combinator & Why Now Is The Golden Age For The Early Stage?
Dec 14, 2016 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
In 2008, VCs questioned why Stanford grads joined Y Combinator
“I remember in oh eight going out and pitching VCs saying, yeah, we're recent graduates of YC. And they would say, why the heck did you do that? You're a Stanford grad. You have startup experience. You didn't have to.”
Garry Tan Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 8:00 20VC: Garry Tan on The Biggest Takeaways From Advising 700 Companies @ Y Combinator & Why Now Is The Golden Age For The Early Stage?
Dec 14, 2016
Insight
Early-stage founders often take 2-3 years to reach product-market fit
“There are companies that they take two or three years even to get to product market fit. And so that's something that you just have to be prepared for at the earliest stage.”
Garry Tan Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 15:54 20VC: Garry Tan on The Biggest Takeaways From Advising 700 Companies @ Y Combinator & Why Now Is The Golden Age For The Early Stage?
Jan 11, 2017 negative
Opinion
VCs rely on simplistic thinking by backing YC and Harvard dropouts
“This is where I do think people and in my industry can be simplistic in their thinking. And they, in some ways it's like being safe. No one's going to look at you funny for investing in a company. That's a young guy out of YC with a hoodie that dropped out of …”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 12:42 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Jan 20, 2017
Insight
Taggar: Venture Investors Need Operational Experience to Develop True Founder Empathy
“I'm a pretty strong believer that operational experience is pretty important to have in investors, and the reason is, and I think this is another thing that made sort of Paul and sort of Jessica great founders of YC or great investors of Y Cominature is that t…”
Harj Taggar Jan 20, 2017 ▶ 15:56 20VC: Biggest Takeaways From Working With Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston, Why You Should Put Off Hiring For As Long As Possible & Why Seed Stage Investing Is All About Optimising The Top Of The Funnel with Harj Taggar, Founder & CEO @ Triplebyte
Jan 20, 2017 positive
Insight
Paul Graham: Optimal Corporate Structure Resembles a Holding Company of Autonomous Units
“He genuinely believed that the optimal structure for a giant corporation is one that's more like a holding company that's, like, composed up of lots of more autonomous units are each doing well, and each of those units has operational control and is, you know,…”
Harj Taggar Jan 20, 2017 ▶ 13:21 20VC: Biggest Takeaways From Working With Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston, Why You Should Put Off Hiring For As Long As Possible & Why Seed Stage Investing Is All About Optimising The Top Of The Funnel with Harj Taggar, Founder & CEO @ Triplebyte
Jan 20, 2017
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Taggar: Y Combinator Scaled Batch Sizes to Fund All Promising Startups
“The growth of YC was Defined as of the, you know, of the applicants every cycle, we want to make sure that we're funding all the good ones. Like we never want to turn away a great company, a really promising company because we didn't have capacity to do it.”
Harj Taggar Jan 20, 2017 ▶ 14:52 20VC: Biggest Takeaways From Working With Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston, Why You Should Put Off Hiring For As Long As Possible & Why Seed Stage Investing Is All About Optimising The Top Of The Funnel with Harj Taggar, Founder & CEO @ Triplebyte
Jan 20, 2017
Insight
Taggar: Raising Venture Capital Does Not Make a Startup Real
“Funding is not a, like, a prerequisite of your startup feeling real. You can raise funding but still not really feel like I have a company. The only moment you feel like you have a real company is when you have a clear set of users, and that number of users is…”
Harj Taggar Jan 20, 2017 ▶ 10:55 20VC: Biggest Takeaways From Working With Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston, Why You Should Put Off Hiring For As Long As Possible & Why Seed Stage Investing Is All About Optimising The Top Of The Funnel with Harj Taggar, Founder & CEO @ Triplebyte
Jan 27, 2017
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Blosser: YC partner Paul Buchheit told 100 batch startups none had PMF
“I remember when we were leaving YC, Paul Buchite sat the entire batch down, so all hundred companies or so, and he told us on our last day, he said, look, none of you guys are at product market fit, and we were looking around the room, and it was, we had some …”
Ted Blosser Jan 27, 2017 ▶ 13:20 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp
Feb 15, 2017 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Idealab was the first startup accelerator, predating Y Combinator
“Ideal lab was the first accelerator pre YC pre, you know, all the, you know, the ones that we see today.”
Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 5:37 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective
Mar 6, 2017
Assertion Supported
Borthwick: Under 40% of YC and Techstars startups raise $750k within one year
“I believe the exact numbers are, is 36 for Techstars and 38 for YC.”
John Borthwick Mar 6, 2017 ▶ 32:29 20VC: Betaworks' John Borthwick on Why The VC Model Is So Inefficient, Why Venture Fund Cycles Are Too Short & Why Frontier Tech Could Only Have Been Disappointing Over The Last Year
Mar 29, 2017 neutral
Opinion
Friedman: Being a YC Partner Is Like Being a Founder
“So, the thing is that Y Combinator is not a typical investment firm, and we don't really think of ourselves as investors. Why Combinator is very much its own beast, and so the job is actually not that different from being a founder.”
Jared Friedman Mar 29, 2017 ▶ 4:23 20VC: How Investors Can Get Into The Best Y Combinator Startups & How YC Startups Should Choose The Right Investors with Jared Friedman, Partner @ YC
Mar 29, 2017 positive
Assertion Supported
Friedman: Investing Randomly at YC Demo Day Yields Positive Returns
“We have enough data now from Y Combinator over, over the last 11 years to know that if you simply invested randomly in Demo Day companies, You would actually make money over time.”
Jared Friedman Mar 29, 2017 ▶ 6:19 20VC: How Investors Can Get Into The Best Y Combinator Startups & How YC Startups Should Choose The Right Investors with Jared Friedman, Partner @ YC
Mar 29, 2017 negative
Insight
Friedman: Targeting Only Top-Tier VCs Is Suboptimal for YC Founders
“And we found that that is actually suboptimal for them because those firms have a low acceptance rate. And so if you spend all your time meeting with the top five firms and they all pass, then you're sort of stuck.”
Jared Friedman Mar 29, 2017 ▶ 16:27 20VC: How Investors Can Get Into The Best Y Combinator Startups & How YC Startups Should Choose The Right Investors with Jared Friedman, Partner @ YC
Mar 29, 2017 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Friedman: 98% of YC Startups Are Still Fundraising at Demo Day
“Today, a hundred companies will present at demo day, and probably only two or three of them will be done fundraising before. So, 98% of them are still fundraising at demo day and are open to investment for many qualified investors.”
Jared Friedman Mar 29, 2017 ▶ 7:02 20VC: How Investors Can Get Into The Best Y Combinator Startups & How YC Startups Should Choose The Right Investors with Jared Friedman, Partner @ YC
Mar 29, 2017
Insight
Friedman: Traditional Weeks-Long Due Diligence Fails at YC Demo Day
“There are many investors who are used to taking their time with due diligence, which might be fine in other circumstances, but it simply doesn't work at demo day because there's so much activity happening. So you just can't take a couple of weeks to think over…”
Jared Friedman Mar 29, 2017 ▶ 9:52 20VC: How Investors Can Get Into The Best Y Combinator Startups & How YC Startups Should Choose The Right Investors with Jared Friedman, Partner @ YC
Mar 29, 2017
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Friedman: YC Demo Day Has 500 Seats for 5,000 Interested Investors
“We only have about 500 physical seats in the auditorium, and we have demand for 10 times that many.”
Jared Friedman Mar 29, 2017 ▶ 8:27 20VC: How Investors Can Get Into The Best Y Combinator Startups & How YC Startups Should Choose The Right Investors with Jared Friedman, Partner @ YC
Mar 29, 2017 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Friedman: Startups Raising Before Demo Day Perform No Better on Average
“In fact, the two or three companies that might have... Finish fundraising before demo day are no better on average than the other companies. It's really quite random which ones choose to fundraise earlier.”
Jared Friedman Mar 29, 2017 ▶ 7:37 20VC: How Investors Can Get Into The Best Y Combinator Startups & How YC Startups Should Choose The Right Investors with Jared Friedman, Partner @ YC
Mar 29, 2017 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Friedman: Almost All YC Demo Day Presenters Raise Follow-On Funding
“In terms of the actual funding results, they're very positive. Almost all the companies you present at Demo Day do raise follow-on funding”
Jared Friedman Mar 29, 2017 ▶ 13:40 20VC: How Investors Can Get Into The Best Y Combinator Startups & How YC Startups Should Choose The Right Investors with Jared Friedman, Partner @ YC
Mar 29, 2017
Insight
Friedman: Monday Partner Meetings Cause VCs to Lose YC Deals
“That doesn't work great for demo day because demo day is traditionally on Monday and Tuesday, which means investors are making decisions Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So if you're a VC and you can't make a decision until the following Monday, there's a decent c…”
Jared Friedman Mar 29, 2017 ▶ 10:33 20VC: How Investors Can Get Into The Best Y Combinator Startups & How YC Startups Should Choose The Right Investors with Jared Friedman, Partner @ YC
Apr 7, 2017 positive
Disclosure
Shedletsky: Instrumental generated investor FOMO using a Y Combinator interview date
“A few months after taking angel funding, we applied to Y Combinator, fully intending to try to get in because we thought it would be a great network for our company, and our application was selected for an in-person interview, and I picked a date three weeks o…”
Anna Shedletsky Apr 7, 2017 ▶ 17:16 20VC: How To Create FOMO For Investors, How To Manage VC Conversations & A Repeatable Process For Learning New Things with Anna Shedletsky, Founder & CEO @ Instrumental.ai
Apr 10, 2017 bullish
Opinion
Naval Ravikant: Y Combinator is likely the most successful venture investor
“If you look at the, probably the single most successful venture investor in on the planet right now is Y Combinator, and they have an incredibly broad portfolio, thousands upon thousands of companies, but they're very, very early.”
Naval Ravikant Apr 10, 2017 ▶ 9:44 20VC: AngelList's Naval Ravikant on The Secrets To Success At Seed, Why Micro VC Is The Return of Traditional Series A & Why We Will See The Unbundling Of Traditional VC Brands
Jun 5, 2017
Assertion Partly supported
Y Combinator Demo Days Had Only 20 to 30 Attendees in 2007
“This is about when maybe 20 people would be at a Y Combinator demo day, maybe 30.”
Brian Singerman Jun 5, 2017 ▶ 3:14 20VC: Founders Fund's Brian Singerman on Why VC Is About Upside Maximisation Not Downside Minimisation, Why There Is No Right Way To Do Venture and Why They Do Not Have Monday Morning Partner Meetings At Founders Fund
Jul 26, 2017 neutral
Opinion
Y Combinator is the exact opposite of proprietary deal flow
“So, YC, in a lot of ways, exact opposite of proprietary deal flow. Everybody talks about proprietary deal flow like having something unique, and YC is a public demo day where everybody in the Valley is invited, and so, in a lot of ways, it's antithesis to a lo…”
Michael Ma Jul 26, 2017 ▶ 14:25 20VC: Why YC Is The Exact Opposite of Proprietary Deal Flow, Why Having No Follow On Dramatically Aligns Incentives & Why Founders Do Not Have To Be Passionate About Their Idea From The Start with Michael Ma, Founding Partner @ Liquid 2 Ventures
Jul 26, 2017 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
YC yields a constant number of good deals regardless of batch size
“I think what we have seen is there's a certain number of good deals per batch, regardless of batch size.”
Michael Ma Jul 26, 2017 ▶ 15:22 20VC: Why YC Is The Exact Opposite of Proprietary Deal Flow, Why Having No Follow On Dramatically Aligns Incentives & Why Founders Do Not Have To Be Passionate About Their Idea From The Start with Michael Ma, Founding Partner @ Liquid 2 Ventures
Jul 26, 2017 positive
Assertion Supported
TalkBin was the fastest exit in Y Combinator history
“At the time, TalkBend was the fastest exit YC had ever had.”
Michael Ma Jul 26, 2017 ▶ 4:20 20VC: Why YC Is The Exact Opposite of Proprietary Deal Flow, Why Having No Follow On Dramatically Aligns Incentives & Why Founders Do Not Have To Be Passionate About Their Idea From The Start with Michael Ma, Founding Partner @ Liquid 2 Ventures
Jul 26, 2017 positive
Insight
Perceived YC quality decline stems from international deals US VCs cannot fund
“What has gone up is YC has done more international deals. So from a lot of VC's perspective, those deals are just not doable. And so the batch size has, let's say, another 20 or 30 African Indian deals. I don't think those are bad companies, and some of them a…”
Michael Ma Jul 26, 2017 ▶ 15:28 20VC: Why YC Is The Exact Opposite of Proprietary Deal Flow, Why Having No Follow On Dramatically Aligns Incentives & Why Founders Do Not Have To Be Passionate About Their Idea From The Start with Michael Ma, Founding Partner @ Liquid 2 Ventures
Jul 28, 2017 negative
Assertion Supported
Y Combinator Is Not Just for 22-Year-Olds, Says 35-Year-Old Alum
“We went through, I was 35 at the time, and I was not the oldest. So I think the idea that YC is really just for twenty-two-year-olds is, is kind of a myth.”
Nathan Wenzel Jul 28, 2017 ▶ 18:33 20VC: Construct Your Fundraising Process To Get 3 Term Sheets in 36 Hours, Why Slow and Steady Can Be Best For Startups & Why All Startups Must Know Their Zero Cash Day with Nathan Wenzel, Founder & CEO @ SimpleLegal
Aug 4, 2017 positive
Insight
Armstrong: Y Combinator's core value to founders is confidence, not money
“Y Combinator, there's sort of this underappreciated aspect of it where they make young people who are not quite confident in their decision about what they want to build in the world a little bit more confident just by giving them the money. It's actually the …”
Brian Armstrong Aug 4, 2017 ▶ 4:52 20VC: Coinbase's Brian Armstrong on The Rise & Short Term Correction in ICOs, The Regulatory Framework Required For Blockchain To Succeed & How The Rise of Blockchain Disrupts The VC Industry
Aug 7, 2017 positive
Assertion Supported
Bannon: Y Combinator has heavily shifted focus to biotech since 2013
“Even if you look at something early stage like Y Combinator, right, they have invested way more attention and resources into attracting and helping synthetic biology and biotech companies than they did four years ago. Four years ago, they weren't doing it at a…”
Seth Bannon Aug 7, 2017 ▶ 18:53 20VC: Why We Will Continue To See An Explosion In Deep Tech Financing, Why Much of Silicon Valley's Talent Is Going To Waste & How Fund Cycles Need To Be Adjusted To Work With Deep Tech with Seth Bannon, Founding Partner @ Fifty Years
Aug 14, 2017 negative
Opinion
Calacanis: VCs Have Abandoned Early-Stage Investing to Angels and YC
“A lot of VCs have given up on doing early stage investing, and a lot of them just look to people like me or YC or other people, and they just outsource the whole goddamn thing.”
Jason Calacanis Aug 14, 2017 ▶ 33:03 20VC: Jason Calacanis on The 4 Questions Investors Must Ask Founders, Whether YC Have Scaled Their Process Successfully & Why Early Founder Liquidity Is Good Not Bad
Aug 14, 2017 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Calacanis: YC partners fully fund top 10 batch companies before Demo Day
“People who are part of their inner circle invest in the companies long before the schmucks who come to Demo Day get a chance to invest in them. So pretty much if you're in the audience at Demo Day, you're kind of the sucker at the table. The best 10 companies …”
Jason Calacanis Aug 14, 2017 ▶ 26:12 20VC: Jason Calacanis on The 4 Questions Investors Must Ask Founders, Whether YC Have Scaled Their Process Successfully & Why Early Founder Liquidity Is Good Not Bad
Aug 14, 2017 negative
Opinion
Calacanis: Y Combinator teaches startup founders to be 'bullshit artists'
“What's happened now is the YC companies have a reputation of kind of being bullshit artists and that the program kind of teaches them to be bullshit artists, right?”
Jason Calacanis Aug 14, 2017 ▶ 27:36 20VC: Jason Calacanis on The 4 Questions Investors Must Ask Founders, Whether YC Have Scaled Their Process Successfully & Why Early Founder Liquidity Is Good Not Bad
Aug 21, 2017 neutral
What-if
Gross: Airbnb likely would not exist without Michael Seibel and YC
“It is less likely that Airbnb would have been created had Michael Seibel not recruited the founders to Y Combinator, introduced them to Paul Graham, the program had been set up in place, the investment been available, demo day being available”
Daniel Gross Aug 21, 2017 ▶ 17:32 20VC: YC's Daniel Gross on How YC Can Democratise AI & Reduce Incumbency Advantages, Why ML Enabled Software Will Eat The Software That Ate The World & Whether AI Will Produce Independent Companies or Be Technology within Incumbents
Aug 21, 2017 bullish
Disclosure
Gross: Y Combinator launches YCAI as its first AI vertical
“We launched this thing called YCAI, which is an experiment, and it's a really, it's our first vertical of YC that's dedicated to AI”
Daniel Gross Aug 21, 2017 ▶ 15:11 20VC: YC's Daniel Gross on How YC Can Democratise AI & Reduce Incumbency Advantages, Why ML Enabled Software Will Eat The Software That Ate The World & Whether AI Will Produce Independent Companies or Be Technology within Incumbents
Nov 1, 2017
Assertion Supported
Buchheit: Y Combinator accepts less than two percent of applicant companies
“We fund at YC. It's less than two percent of the companies that apply.”
Paul Buchheit Nov 1, 2017 ▶ 24:17 20VC: Y Combinator's Paul Buchheit on Creating Gmail Version 1.0 & Leadership Lessons from Working With Zuckerberg and Larry Paige
Jan 17, 2018 negative
Opinion
Altman: Excess capital funding bad startups harms the overall tech ecosystem
“Like, I think one thing that is bad is very bad companies, not YC companies, of course, but other very bad companies are able to raise money. Are able to raise lots of money that shouldn't, and I think that's bad for everyone. It's bad for the founders of thos…”
Sam Altman Jan 17, 2018 ▶ 16:25 20VC: Sam Altman, Y Combinator President on What Makes Truly Great Leaders, Why We Will See A Compression of Seed Funding & The Future Scaling of YC
Jan 17, 2018 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Altman: Y Combinator culture relies on founders advising other portfolio companies
“One of the things about YC is that you pay it forward and help advise other companies.”
Sam Altman Jan 17, 2018 ▶ 3:27 20VC: Sam Altman, Y Combinator President on What Makes Truly Great Leaders, Why We Will See A Compression of Seed Funding & The Future Scaling of YC
Jan 17, 2018 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Altman: Y Combinator operates an unprecedented 17-partner venture model
“But I think one thing that is unusual about YC, and that there is no playbook for, no one's done this, that we can just kind of copy, is that we have, yeah, 17 super talented partners. That is what makes the organization so successful.”
Sam Altman Jan 17, 2018 ▶ 7:26 20VC: Sam Altman, Y Combinator President on What Makes Truly Great Leaders, Why We Will See A Compression of Seed Funding & The Future Scaling of YC
Jan 17, 2018 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Altman: Y Combinator Forced Seed Investors to Stop Exploiting Founders
“I think before YC came along, a lot of seed investors way overplayed their leverage over founders and would break term sheets, renegotiate deals, weak confidential information. And then YC was a powerful enough force to say, you can't do this or there will be …”
Sam Altman Jan 17, 2018 ▶ 18:24 20VC: Sam Altman, Y Combinator President on What Makes Truly Great Leaders, Why We Will See A Compression of Seed Funding & The Future Scaling of YC
Feb 23, 2018 negative
Insight
Hutchins: SAFEs and convertible notes create distracting fundraising loops for founders
“Safes, convertible debt, they're all kind of based on future guesses. You kind of figure out the dilution later. It allows for this continual raising process that, you know, I know YC's talked a lot about that I think can be a huge distraction.”
Chris Hutchins Feb 23, 2018 ▶ 13:25 20VC: The Fundamentals Of Optimising The Fundraising Process, SAFE's vs Priced Equity Rounds & Why Hiring Is Really A Big Data Problem with Chris Hutchins, Founder @ Grove & Former Partner @ Google Ventures
Jul 27, 2018
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Eddy Lu: Half of GOAT's Y Combinator cohort split over co-founder friction
“Half our white combinator batch broke up right after the batch because of co-founder issues”
Eddy Lu Jul 27, 2018 ▶ 12:09 20VC: GOAT's Eddy Lu on Pivoting From Failing Social Dining App To The World's Largest Sneaker Marketplace, How The Best Founders Pick Their Investors & Why It Is Better To Be Hated than Unknown
Jul 27, 2018
Insight
Eddy Lu: Co-founder breakups stem from ego and fighting over CEO titles
“One place where I see that it goes wrong is ego, to be honest. When we saw our Y Combinator batch, there was a lot of people who wanted to be CEO because that was the position to be, rather than saying who's the best person to be CEO.”
Eddy Lu Jul 27, 2018 ▶ 13:48 20VC: GOAT's Eddy Lu on Pivoting From Failing Social Dining App To The World's Largest Sneaker Marketplace, How The Best Founders Pick Their Investors & Why It Is Better To Be Hated than Unknown
Jan 15, 2019 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Destin: Y Combinator Can Function Without Traditional Investment Partners
“YC goes almost a step further, which is, YC can operate without investing partners, because they plug you into a network of alumni, and the network is the value.”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 18:08 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Feb 22, 2019 positive
Assertion Supported
Vohra grew Reportive to tens of thousands of users before hiring co-founders
“I single-handedly got That product to tens of thousands of users, and then use that traction to attract co-founders, to get into Y Combinator, to raise a seed round, and then we were off to the races.”
Rahul Vohra Feb 22, 2019 ▶ 6:03 20VC: Superhuman's Rahul Vohra on How To Measure Product Market Fit, How To Construct A Process To Increase It & How To Implement A Strong Feedback and Reporting Cycle To Sustain It
Apr 1, 2019
Assertion Supported
Tan: Yuri Milner offered $150K to all YC W11 companies
“That was the batch that Yuri Milner and SV Angel came along and said, we're going to give everyone 150,000 dollars to every single company in that batch. It was about 40 companies”
Garry Tan Apr 1, 2019 ▶ 5:26 20VC: Initialized's Garry Tan on The Most Important Thing A Seed Investor Can Do For Founders, How Ownership Requirements Change With Evolution of Funds & Why There Is Not Too Much Capital Chasing Too Few Deals
Apr 1, 2019 positive
Insight
Tan: Founders who ask investors if they are failing succeed more often
“That was actually one of the big secrets of Y Combinator that if a founder frequently comes to their investors and asks, am I failing? That's almost always correlated and found in the founders who succeed because, you know, at that point you're actually asking…”
Garry Tan Apr 1, 2019 ▶ 11:11 20VC: Initialized's Garry Tan on The Most Important Thing A Seed Investor Can Do For Founders, How Ownership Requirements Change With Evolution of Funds & Why There Is Not Too Much Capital Chasing Too Few Deals
May 17, 2019
Insight
Dishotsky: Averaging advice from mentors leads to mediocre startup decisions
“Really try to not optimize on the average of all that advice, but really take in sort of the good and the bad, but take it and do it your way. And I think that's really, really important. Otherwise you'll end up with some of a lot of mediocre advice.”
Jon Dishotsky May 17, 2019 ▶ 12:29 20VC: How To Build True Human Relationships with VC Pre-Investment, Why Valuation Is Not The Only Term and When To Take Lower Offers & How To Approach Mental Health As A Founder with Jon Dishotsky, Founder & CEO @ Starcity
May 27, 2019 positive
Opinion
Ralston: Y Combinator Weighs Founding Teams Far Above Ideas
“Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because my weighting is far more on the team at the stage in which I choose companies for angel investments, in which YC chooses companies to fund. I will always Pick a great team. Assume they'll figure it out, or…”
Geoff Ralston May 27, 2019 ▶ 10:12 20VC: Y Combinator's New President, Geoff Ralston on The Single Most Important Perspective An Investor Can Provide A Founder, The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside Paul Graham & Why You Will Lose As An Investor If You "Profile Invest"
May 27, 2019 neutral
Assertion Supported
Ralston: Y Combinator Has Never Accepted a Startup Without In-Person Interviews
“I don't know that we have ever accepted anyone to Y Combinator without an in-person interview.”
Geoff Ralston May 27, 2019 ▶ 14:16 20VC: Y Combinator's New President, Geoff Ralston on The Single Most Important Perspective An Investor Can Provide A Founder, The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside Paul Graham & Why You Will Lose As An Investor If You "Profile Invest"
May 27, 2019
Assertion Supported
Ralston: Carolyn Levy invented the SAFE at Y Combinator
“Carolyn Levy at Y Combinator invented the safe or simple agreement for future equity”
Geoff Ralston May 27, 2019 ▶ 25:57 20VC: Y Combinator's New President, Geoff Ralston on The Single Most Important Perspective An Investor Can Provide A Founder, The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside Paul Graham & Why You Will Lose As An Investor If You "Profile Invest"
May 27, 2019 positive
Assertion Supported
Ralston: Brex is one of YC's fastest startups to $1B
“The incredible founders of newer companies like Brex, which is one of our fastest to a billion dollars.”
Geoff Ralston May 27, 2019 ▶ 27:57 20VC: Y Combinator's New President, Geoff Ralston on The Single Most Important Perspective An Investor Can Provide A Founder, The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside Paul Graham & Why You Will Lose As An Investor If You "Profile Invest"
May 31, 2019 positive
Assertion Supported
Taggar: Gary Tan Saved Instacart and Wired Money to Coinbase
“I think it was he who accepted Instacart into Y Combinator after the deadline had passed for applications, and similarly with Coinbase early on, I think this is public, but there was a moment where they were having a bit of a liquidity crunch, and Gary just wi…”
Kulveer Taggar May 31, 2019 ▶ 11:20 20VC: Why You Must Have A Customer Acquisition Strategy From Day 1, How To Test and Validate Ideas At Speed & Why You Should Speak To Investors Before Starting Work On Your Idea with Kulveer Taggar, Founder @ CEO @ Zeus Living
Jun 21, 2019 positive
Opinion
Kan: Y Combinator is so stable you "can't fuck it up"
“And the time at YC was nice because YC is very stable as an organization. It's a brand. People want to go there. You know, you kind of like can't fuck it up really. And so the kind of mental burden was like way off by comparison to startups.”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 9:34 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Sep 9, 2019 positive
Opinion
Paul Graham's key innovation was backing young hackers rejected by others
“Paul Graham's fundamental innovation and how he changed our entire world is he bet on folks that others weren't willing to, the kind of young hacker who can build and learn everything else. And I really just believe in that.”
Ilya Sukhar Sep 9, 2019 ▶ 19:12 20VC: Matrix's Ilya Sukhar on How The Seed Ecosystem Could Be Optimised, Why The Bar For The Break-Out Series A Has Risen & The Art of Effective Referencing
Oct 25, 2019 positive
What-if
Reddit Needed Alexis Ohanian's Charisma to Get Into Y Combinator
“You know, Alexis then and now has always been a very, like, high charisma person, an easy conversation, kind of a charming, funny person, and so in the early days of Reddit, even in that story I just told you, those skills were really important to us because I…”
Steve Huffman Oct 25, 2019 ▶ 5:14 20VC: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on Scaling Teams; What Works and What Does Not, A CEO's Relationship with Stress and Managing It & How To Structure Internal Decision-Making Effectively
Oct 25, 2019 neutral
Assertion Supported
Paul Graham Accepted Reddit Founders Into YC Conditional on a Pivot
“We were not accepted into Y Combinator. And the way Reddit came about was basically Paul told us, hey, we really like you guys. We just don't like that idea. So if you're willing to work on something else, you can be in YC.”
Steve Huffman Oct 25, 2019 ▶ 4:33 20VC: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on Scaling Teams; What Works and What Does Not, A CEO's Relationship with Stress and Managing It & How To Structure Internal Decision-Making Effectively
Nov 1, 2019 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
YC advisors told Webflow founders to hide having kids from investors
“We went into VC meetings and even at YC, we sort of got the advice of like, just don't mention anything about kids or Because it signals that you're not into your startup or like not going to dedicate everything”
Vlad Magdalin Nov 1, 2019 ▶ 12:39 20VC: Webflow's Vlad Magdalin on The Journey To Breakeven and Raising A Monster $72m Series A, The Single Most Important Question To Ask When Determining Which Investor To Select & The Challenges of Founders Angel Investing
Nov 1, 2019
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Paul Graham advised Webflow to stop seed fundraising at $350K
“And we really just tempted to, I think we went back to PG all Graham and sort of said, we only raised, we're kind of targeting a million dollars, but we only raised 350 so far. And he sort of told us this perspective is like, Hey, look, if this is like stressi…”
Vlad Magdalin Nov 1, 2019 ▶ 17:15 20VC: Webflow's Vlad Magdalin on The Journey To Breakeven and Raising A Monster $72m Series A, The Single Most Important Question To Ask When Determining Which Investor To Select & The Challenges of Founders Angel Investing
Jan 27, 2020 negative
Disclosure
Stanton: Female-led YC startups valued under $15M, male-led up to $37M
“What I found was that the female-led companies at YC that I met with were valued less than fifteen million. The male-led companies were valued much higher, as high as thirty-seven million.”
Katie Stanton Jan 27, 2020 ▶ 25:57 20VC: Moxxie Ventures' Katie Stanton on What It Takes To Raise A First Time Fund As A Solo GP, The Entrance of Multi-Stage Funds Into Seed Rounds and The Inverse Relationship of Those That Fund Diverse Managers and Those That Say They Do
Feb 11, 2020
Assertion Supported
Half of Jude Gomila's Y Combinator Batch Died in 2008 Crash
“Half the companies in our batch completely died. They could not raise any money at all.”
Jude Gomila Feb 11, 2020 ▶ 7:34 20VC: Lessons from 150 Angel Investments into the likes of Carta, Gusto, Airtable and Superhuman, Creating Algorithms and Models For Investing At Seed & Why Younger Investors Have An Advantage When It Comes To Finding Deals Early with Jude Gomila, Angel I
Mar 9, 2020 negative
Assertion Partly supported
Y Combinator historically refused to accept enrolled Stanford students into its accelerator
“They were students, and YC wouldn't even accept them into their class.”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 5:20 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Apr 24, 2020 positive
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Vohra: Five YC Batch Companies Adopted Superhuman's Command K Pattern
“In just the Y Combinator batch, I saw five different companies that had incorporated this into their product, and we have companies like Linear that have just recently raised from Sequoia that have done the same.”
Rahul Vohra Apr 24, 2020 ▶ 26:15 20VC: Superhuman's Rahul Vohra on How 1-1 Customer Onboarding Can Scale Efficiently to $100M ARR, Why Gamification Does Not Work But Game Design Does & What Game Design Means For The Next Generation Of Product Managers
Jul 10, 2020
Assertion Supported
Alex Mather raised over $139M for The Athletic
“To date, Alex has raised over one hundred and thirty nine million dollars with The Athletic from some of the best in the business, including Founders Fund, Bedrock, Y Combinator and Emerson Collective, to name a few.”
Harry Stebbings Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 0:21 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Nov 12, 2020
Assertion Supported
Levine: Y Combinator provided $17,000 in summer batch funding for Chartio
“Back then, YC gave us 17,000 dollars for the summer, and I had no savings, so I was broke.”
Daniel Levine Nov 12, 2020 ▶ 3:56 20VC: Accel's Dan Levine on The Current State of Seed & Series A, The Rise of Pre-Emptive Rounds, Solo Capitalists and Multi-Stage Funds Entering Seed & Market, People and Product; What To Prioritise?
Nov 12, 2020 negative
Opinion
Levine: Y Combinator founders' skepticism toward VCs is often merited
“I think the default posture of YC companies and founders is a little bit of fun, fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the venture community, which I think is merited in some cases”
Daniel Levine Nov 12, 2020 ▶ 4:16 20VC: Accel's Dan Levine on The Current State of Seed & Series A, The Rise of Pre-Emptive Rounds, Solo Capitalists and Multi-Stage Funds Entering Seed & Market, People and Product; What To Prioritise?
Dec 17, 2020 negative
Disclosure
Hsu's pre-Retool payments startup lost money on every transaction
“But then it turns out it's actually a terrible business in the sense that every time someone sends money, we were losing money. And so the faster we grew, the more money we actually lost”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 4:57 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020 negative
Opinion
Hsu finds Silicon Valley insular compared to the UK tech scene
“Silicon Valley texting is quite insular. It's funny you ask this, because to some extent, I suppose the texting in the UK is definitely smaller, but it's actually, I think, much more positive and uplifting to some extent. I think, you know, the rest of British…”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 33:53 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020 negative
Opinion
Hsu claims 95% of Y Combinator advice is in Paul Graham essays
“Almost everything YC tells you is available online. If you just go read every PG essay, you know, you could probably become a YC partner, basically, if you read every essay, and just maybe that's being a little bit uncharitable, but, you know, I think you coul…”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 10:13 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020 negative
Opinion
Hsu argues Y Combinator adds no value after product-market fit
“Once you have product pocket fit, you don't really need to be talking to anybody who's just kind of heads down, just executing, just writing code, talking to customers, you know, for as many hours a day as you can, really. And so once that does happen, You kno…”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 10:56 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020
Disclosure
Hsu pivoted to Retool with $150K bankroll and 70 days of runway
“We had to raise what the one 20 K from YC. And then we had some money from previous tech internships or something that was like maybe 30 K or something. And so we have one 50 K in total. And I think we're burning something like one or two K a day, which meant …”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 5:11 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Apr 22, 2021 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Codecademy launched three days before YC Demo Day after 12 pivots
“They started and killed, like, 12 ideas over the course of Y Combinator, and then three days before Demo Day launched Codecademy, and got to 300 and something thousand signups in the 72 hours before they presented at Demo Day.”
Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 5:50 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making
Jul 8, 2021 bullish
Assertion Contradicted
Laela Sturdy claims most Y Combinator startups build websites on Webflow
“Like you look at most of the companies coming out of YC, lots of different places are built on top of Webflow because you can build amazing websites with great functionality, much quicker and much easier than you could in the past.”
Laela Sturdy Jul 8, 2021 ▶ 36:09 20VC: CapitalG's Laela Sturdy on The Current State of Growth with Crossover, PE and Hedge Funds All Entering, How To Think Through Upside and Downside Scenario Planning at Growth & The Biggest Challenges Startups Face Post Product-Market-Fit but Pre-Scale
Jan 14, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
OpenSea originally pitched Y Combinator on a decentralized Wi-Fi sharing network
“So the first idea that we had was building this decentralized marketplace for sharing internet bandwidth. And that was the idea that we got into Y Combinator with”
Devin Finzer Jan 14, 2022 ▶ 4:41 20VC: Opensea Founder, Devin Finzer on Scaling GMV from $150M to $3BN in 18 Months, How Brands and Celebrities Will Harness NFTs To Change Their Business, The Impact of NFTs on Gaming & What is in Devin's Metamask Wallet?!
May 6, 2022
Disclosure
Lemkin: Most of my top investments lacked blue-chip tech pedigree
“I would say most of my best investments did not, and those have not seen the same level of pre-seed inflation, but they have seen enough that can break the seed model.”
Jason Lemkin May 6, 2022 ▶ 28:02 20VC: Why the Traditional Seed Fund Model No Longer Works, Why Multi-Stage Funds Investing at Seed Bring Signaling Risk but also Less Pressure, The One Criteria All Potential Sales Hires Need to Have and The Clear Signs of 10x Sales Hires with Jason Lemki
Aug 10, 2022 negative
Opinion
Communities degrade as they scale, as seen with Y Combinator
“With scale, you have community denigration. We see this with Y Combinator, for example.”
Harry Stebbings Aug 10, 2022 ▶ 39:55 Kieran Flanagan: Hiring Tips for Growth; North Star Metrics; Hubspot's Mistake | 20VC #916 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 18, 2022
Assertion Supported
Paul Graham required Drew Houston to find a co-founder for YC
“I got an email from Paul saying, Hey, like your idea, but you need a co-founder. If you're going to get into YC.”
Drew Houston Oct 18, 2022 ▶ 3:54 Dropbox CEO Drew Houston: How to Pick a Co-Founder; Steve Jobs' Attempt to Buy Dropbox | 20VC #938 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 18, 2022
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Drew Houston's SAT prep startup was rejected from YC in 2005
“So I actually applied in 2005 to the first batch with that SAT prep company, Accolade and was rejected.”
Drew Houston Oct 18, 2022 ▶ 2:07 Dropbox CEO Drew Houston: How to Pick a Co-Founder; Steve Jobs' Attempt to Buy Dropbox | 20VC #938 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2022 bullish
Opinion
Stebbings: Y Combinator cutting batch sizes signals renewed long-term strength
“I think this is like the biggest sign of strength from YC, and I was worried about them for a while. Now I'm like, fucking buy YC long hold.”
Harry Stebbings Oct 21, 2022 ▶ 33:47 Kyle Harrison: Why 75% of Active Investors Will Disappear in the Next Few Years | 20VC #940 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bouaziz: Deel's initial YC hypothesis around freelancer trust was wrong
“If you look at what we got into Y Combinator in 2018 with the idea we started the concept was very similar, right? Like we wanted to help freelancers at the time get hired and paid by the best companies. And we thought the problem we were solving was around th…”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 2:27 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 19, 2023
Insight
Lebrun: Healthcare startups must identify who pays before defining the problem
“In healthcare, even starting with a problem is not enough. Start with who is paying, and then How you do frame the problem for this person to pay, and then what is the solution for this problem eventually?”
Alex Lebrun Jun 19, 2023 ▶ 55:47 Alex Lebrun: Why the EU's AI Regulation is a Disaster; How Zuck Prepares for Meetings | E1027 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2023 negative
Opinion
Mohnot: Y Combinator is too scaled to provide specialized fintech support
“YC is a totally different beast. YC is great. Like they've great, great companies, but it's really built for scale. And it, and some of our portfolio companies that went through YC said they didn't really get the support in FinTech that they needed. They have …”
Sheel Mohnot Jul 17, 2023 ▶ 38:14 Sheel Mohnot: How I Got Married in the Metaverse; Founder vs Product vs Market | E1035 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 31, 2023 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Nyatta: Rappi Is a Top Contributor of Alumni Founding YC Startups
“Rappi is one of the largest contributors to Y Combinator in terms of alumni. Rappi alumni becoming YC companies. One of the largest contributors within the YC universe.”
Shu Nyatta Jul 31, 2023 ▶ 44:16 Marcelo Claure & Shu Nyatta: LATAM's New $500M Growth Fund; Investing Billions at SoftBank | E1042 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 11, 2023 negative
Opinion
Rotman: YC encourages artificial growth for Demo Day, causing VCs to overpay
“A lot of the growth trajectory was in unscalable things in order to get the up and to the right, 45 degree chart so that you can package it for demo day. You know, so there are a lot of artificial things done in order to package it, like you know, to Sam's poi…”
Frank Rotman Aug 11, 2023 ▶ 39:17 DEBATE: State of Seed Investing w/ Jason Lemkin, Sam Lessin, Frank Rotman & Harry Stebbings | E1047 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 11, 2023 negative
Disclosure
Lessin: Slow Ventures avoids Y Combinator deals because they lack signal
“As an investor, you know, we've stayed away from it for a long time, partially because there's no signal in it because everything comes off the factory line looking exactly the same, packaged properly.”
Sam Lessin Aug 11, 2023 ▶ 37:42 DEBATE: State of Seed Investing w/ Jason Lemkin, Sam Lessin, Frank Rotman & Harry Stebbings | E1047 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 11, 2023 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: I am giving up on investing in Y Combinator startups
“I kind of have to give up on YC, not because I won't pay or don't love the signal, If there's 84 people in the round, there's no point in me putting a hundred grand in a 20 post.”
Jason Lemkin Aug 11, 2023 ▶ 41:13 DEBATE: State of Seed Investing w/ Jason Lemkin, Sam Lessin, Frank Rotman & Harry Stebbings | E1047 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 20, 2023 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Maples: Zenefits Was YC's Only Startup With PMF That Failed
“The only one he could name was Zenefits, and they broke the law.”
Mike Maples Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 19:33 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 23, 2023 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rouif: YC claimed PhotoRoom was among its fastest-growing low-capital startups
“Actually, I think YC say, like, we were one of the, they never saw a company growing that fast, like, with this much capital, so this low capital, so indeed it's quite uncommon.”
Matthieu Rouif Oct 23, 2023 ▶ 16:17 Matthieu Rouif: The Story of PhotoRoom, Is This YC’s Most Capital Efficient Company? | E1074 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 20, 2023 positive
Disclosure
Eight Sleep sold 6,000 to 8,000 pre-orders coming out of YC
“Because we already sold 6008 thousand units in pre-orders, we were one of the hottest YC startup at the time.”
Matteo Franceschetti Nov 20, 2023 ▶ 4:57 Matteo Franceschetti: The Ultimate Hiring Playbook: Five Questions to Ask Every New Hire | E1084 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 27, 2023 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shebat: Most Y Combinator startups fail because they get complacent post-graduation
“Why most Y Combinator startups that graduate Y Combinator end up not making it. And it's because they get complacent and they lose momentum.”
Mike Shebat Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 32:28 Keith Rabois & Mike Shebat: Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic| E1087 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 4, 2024 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: Y Combinator will have another incredible decade under Gary Tan
“I see another, at least a Another incredible decade for YC, and this was a genius move.”
Jason Lemkin Jan 4, 2024 ▶ 25:54 Jason Lemkin: Predictions for 2024 - What Does a Trump Administration do for Startups? | E1099 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 4, 2024 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2028
Lemkin: Half of YC founders staying will transform San Francisco by 2028
“Half are going to stay and Gary's going to do this for a decade. That alone will be transform transformational to SF by, I don't know, 20, 28.”
Jason Lemkin Jan 4, 2024 ▶ 1:04:41 Jason Lemkin: Predictions for 2024 - What Does a Trump Administration do for Startups? | E1099 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 29, 2024
Disclosure
Akkina: MITIMCo Passed on an Early Opportunity to Invest in OpenAI
“I mentioned we're investors in YC, and when Sam left YC, around then we also had an opportunity to invest in OpenAI, and we didn't do it. So that's definitely an error of omission that I think about a lot.”
Ryan Akkina Jan 29, 2024 ▶ 44:31 Ryan Akkina: How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio & How MIT Approach Direct Investing | E1109 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 29, 2024 positive
Disclosure
MITIMCo backs Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Green Oaks, Y Combinator, and Initialized Capital
“So we're lucky to be in a lot of the big names you would expect, you know, Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen, et cetera. And then, you know, there's some newer things as well that we've done in the past 10 or 15 years, like say, Green Oaks or Y Combinator i…”
Ryan Akkina Jan 29, 2024 ▶ 8:19 Ryan Akkina: How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio & How MIT Approach Direct Investing | E1109 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 12, 2024
Assertion Supported
Sam Blond: Brex Scaled Outbound from Personal Networks to Billboards
“At Brex, we started with personal networks, we moved to investor networks, we moved to YC companies, we moved to former YC companies, we then put billboards up all over San Francisco, and we targeted companies that were headquartered in downtown San Francisco …”
Sam Blond Apr 12, 2024 ▶ 50:25 Sam Blond: Why Startups are Doing Outbound Wrong and How to Fix It | E1139 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 negative
Opinion
Blomfield: Standard Oxford-to-McKinsey career paths are 'boring' for YC candidates
“That's the kind of exceptionalism that we're looking for in some area of their life. And it might come out through the application, it might be the interview video, or the interview itself, but we're looking for that spark that they are not average, like they'…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 24:31 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024
Disclosure
Blomfield: Reads thousands of YC applications per batch to fund 25 startups
“I'll read several thousand, pick a hundred to interview, fund 25.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 22:48 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 positive
Insight
Blomfield: AI B2B SaaS startups should target mid-market, not other startups
“Big companies are now more willing to spend money on this stuff than they ever were. So the previous advice of, like, go and sell to other startups, I think is actually not good for very, and maybe a dev tool startup, go and sell to other startups, but in gene…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 51:40 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Blomfield: 20% to 25% of startups in a Y Combinator batch pivot
“20, 25%.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 31:30 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 negative
What-if
Blomfield: Profitable $1M ARR YC startup accepted lower valuation due to fundraising anxiety
“And this happened to a couple of my companies, this batch, where a phenomenal, like, crazy all-star team, like, ridiculous, like, every sort of pedigree you'd want amazing product, profitable, like, more than a million in revenue, and that just, the founder wa…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 34:19 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 negative
Opinion
Blomfield: Complacency is the single biggest threat to Y Combinator
“Complacency, I think. We could coast on our laurel, rest on our laurels, I guess, not to mix metaphors, for quite a long time without realizing it. Yeah, and then we just recruit bad partners who give bad advice, but continue to recruit reasonable companies, a…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 1:04:23 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024
Disclosure
Blomfield: Top YC startups always raise pre-Demo Day, prompting new deadline rules
“The trope was always, oh, everyone raises before demo day, which is true, like the best companies absolutely always raise before demo day, and so now we've just set a deadline, like two weeks before demo day, and said, you may start fundraising on that day, tw…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 33:00 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 neutral
Assertion Supported
Blomfield: YC requires founders to relocate to San Francisco for batches
“Yes, they, we more or less require everyone to relocate now to San Francisco in the dog patch where we have our office, and spend three to four months there.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 25:15 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 positive
Opinion
Blomfield: Dalton Caldwell excels at extracting great startup ideas from founders
“My first batch was with Dalton, and the way he can help young founders find new ideas, really deeply technical young founders without a clue what they want to work on, Dalton can come in and sort of Unpick their background and history and find some thread to p…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 18:21 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 positive
What-if
Blomfield: I wouldn't have started Monzo without Y Combinator
“I mean, I wouldn't have started Monzo without it, for sure”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 3:20 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 negative
Opinion
Blomfield: All VC funds have terrible politics, except Y Combinator
“All of the funds I've seen have, like, pretty horrible politics, and I think YC has the least politics of all of them.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 1:09:07 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024
Assertion Partly supported
Blomfield: 70% of current Y Combinator startups are AI-focused
“70%.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 43:35 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 neutral
Disclosure
Blomfield: YC tracks partner fundraising data but deliberately ignores it
“Yeah, I, we have that data and we ignore it because it's just so easy to, like, it's not easy to gamify for sure. Yeah, who cares that you raise ten million from XYZ investor. It just, We don't want to incentivize people to raise, raising that.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 42:13 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 positive
Opinion
Blomfield: Y Combinator Improved Significantly Under Garry Tan
“I think YC has changed a lot in the last two years for the better, and I put it, a lot of it down to Gary.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 1:03:23 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 positive
Opinion
Blomfield: Brian Chesky gives phenomenal advice at Y Combinator events
“I mean, Brian Chesky, maybe as a second actor, he could come to YC. He speaks at every Bachelor event, and his advice is just phenomenal.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 1:05:12 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 neutral
Disclosure
Blomfield: YC partners share carry equally across all batch startups
“It's all shared.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 41:39 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 positive
Opinion
Blomfield: Michael Seibel balances brutally hard feedback with genuine warmth
“Michael Seibel I did a batch with just before I got partnership, and he has this incredible way of giving the most brutally hard feedback you can imagine. The founder absolutely needs to hear, and then finishing off with his This, like, heartwarming chortle, t…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 18:51 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Blomfield: 80% to 85% of YC startups successfully raise their target funding
“The vast, vast majority of YC companies end up raising their target anyway. Some might take a little longer than you expected, and some might go very fast. But something like 80 or 85% will raise their full, sort of, target amount, which might be two or three …”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 41:13 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024
Disclosure
Blomfield: YC interviews count for only 10% to 20% of admissions decisions
“I'd say the interview is like 10 or 20% of the entire process.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 23:50 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 neutral
Assertion Supported
Blomfield: YC maintains an internal database rating 10,000 venture investors
“So YC has an investor database, which has 10,000 people in. I'm sure you're in there. We can perhaps look it up. And it has reviews from all of the YC founders that have taken investment from them, both on their process and what they would like to work with af…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 38:23 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Blomfield: YC requires 18-month visiting partner role before full partnership
“YC has this interesting model where they make you do a, be a visiting partner for 18 months, which is The, like, the most brutal job interview I've ever done.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 17:37 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 neutral
Assertion Supported
Tom Blomfield: Y Combinator batches are sharded into four mini-groups
“YC spit into four groups, so it's not a whole YC, it's four separate mini YCs, it's sharded, and you'll get a very different experience in each one of them.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 27:19 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Blomfield: YC partners gather enough evaluation data in 3 to 4 minutes
“Get enough in three or four minutes, but it seems rude to finish the interview so quickly.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 23:23 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tom Blomfield: Most YC startups are pre-product-market fit at Demo Day
“Because most of our companies at Demo Day are pre-product market fit.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 37:35 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024
Assertion Supported
Blomfield: A single YC partner can unilaterally decide to fund a startup
“Each of the partners has access to the entire application pool, but if I read an application and I, I'm the first one to say, yes, that's mine, then I get to interview it. And if I interview it, and I'm the sole person who says, yes, we will invest, then it ge…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 22:09 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 negative
Insight
Blomfield: Weekly Zoom calls with founders feel transactional and empty
“But overall, the in-person experience is dramatically better. Having in-person office hours, group office hours, even cooking for people, like the act of cooking dinner for a group of people you've invested in, and then serving them with your own hands. It's j…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 26:25 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 neutral
Insight
Blomfield: YC visiting partners act as teaching assistants to professors
“Being a visiting partner is a great apprenticeship, but it feels like, a little bit like being a teaching assistant at a university versus being a professor at a university. You know, the professor sets the syllabus and the exam questions and admits the studen…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 17:54 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Blomfield: AI startups hit $1M revenue from Fortune 500s within YC batch
“I've seen companies go from zero to like half a million or a million of revenue within the YC batch. With really, really big companies, like Fortune, 500 companies, and turn them into recurring contracts.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 52:21 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024
Disclosure
Blomfield: YC tracks VC meeting conversion rates and expected meeting value
“This is what I'm doing right now with another of our partners, Brad, We have data on how many meetings each VC takes, how many investments they actually make, and what the checker size is, and so we can tell our founders what is the percentage chance of conver…”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 39:58 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 13, 2024 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Blomfield: Shutting down Continuity improved YC's relationships with multi-stage VCs
“Shutting down continuity, our growth fund, has enabled to have a, enabled WIC to have a much more collaborative relationship with multi-stage VCs.”
Tom Blomfield May 13, 2024 ▶ 32:42 Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 15, 2024 positive
Disclosure
Siroker: Why he regrets not doing Y Combinator for his second startup
“I probably should have. I kind of regret not doing it. I think I was maybe too much pride and ego that I didn't need it. But YC has a lot of gifts to keep on giving, even if you're a second time founder, like work at a startup like office hours. So I am very i…”
Dan Siroker May 15, 2024 ▶ 1:07:55 Dan Siroker: Second-Time Founders Are More Investable & Why Not To Hire People Out of College |E1153 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 27, 2024 negative
Opinion
Lemkin: YC's batch fundraising model only works for Y Combinator
“They have a very effective, it's just, it only works for them. It doesn't work for anybody else. It doesn't even work for EF or certainly anybody else. It only works for them.”
Jason Lemkin May 27, 2024 ▶ 1:06:49 Jason Lemkin: Why Pricing is Worse Than Ever and There is More Funding Than Ever | E1157 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2024
Disclosure
Y Combinator backed Brex founders despite hating their initial VR idea
“I think when we met the YC guys back in like, they were like, hey, we like you guys, but we hate your idea, because we were doing VR before. That was sort of funny, and they invested in us, but, thank God, but it was sort of funny, so like, I don't like what y…”
Pedro Franceschi Jul 17, 2024 ▶ 46:54 Pedro Franceschi: What Brex Needs to do to be a Public Company | E1178 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 22, 2024 positive
Opinion
Hartz: Y Combinator maintains an ideal venture model despite constant industry criticism
“Y Combinator continues to have this, like, ideal venture model. Like, as much as, you know, in every class that comes around, Like, the whole valley says, oh, now they've really jumped the shark, they're no good anymore, but like, year after year after year, t…”
Kevin Hartz Jul 22, 2024 ▶ 1:06:02 Kevin Hartz: "How I Lost Airbnb at Seed Because of an Exploding Term Sheet" | E1180 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 5, 2025 negative
Disclosure
Osika: Lovable rejected Y Combinator due to equity dilution and distraction
“We felt that at best YC would be a lot of dilution and some acceleration with a lot of dilution and some acceleration. And at worst it would be a distraction to go through SF and go through all of these, like, fun things that happen when you go to YC. And we j…”
Anton Osika Mar 5, 2025 ▶ 16:04 Anton Osika, Co-Founder and CEO @ Lovable: Hitting 85% Day 30 Retention - Better than ChatGPT · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 3, 2025 negative
Opinion
Lemkin: YC advising founders to run tight fundraising processes is terrible advice
“I think it's some of the worst advice founders get. And I love Y Combinator, but I think it's some of the worst advice Y Combinator gives their founders too, which is run a tight process.”
Jason Lemkin Apr 3, 2025 ▶ 19:24 20VC: The Daily Deal: Coreweave IPO | Scale Hits $25BN on $2BN EOY Revenue | Sequoia's 25x Return on Wiz | Tech Stocks Tank with Tariffs | Cursor: Defensible or Dangerous Example of Lost Moats in Tech
Apr 21, 2025 positive
Assertion Supported
Wilk: Y Combinator Acquired 6% of Stripe for $17,000
“The check size was only 17,000 dollars back then for six percent, not whatever it is today, I think it's a couple 100,000 dollars, so 17 grand bought them six percent of Stripe, which is pretty, pretty impressive.”
Jason Wilk Apr 21, 2025 ▶ 5:27 Dave CEO, Jason Wilk: The Best Performing Fund Would Only Back YC Founders on Their Second Time · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 21, 2025 bullish
Insight
Wilk: Backing Second-Time Exited YC Founders Yields Top VC Returns
“If you were to have a blank check VC fund, and you just wrote a check blank, not looking at the idea, uncapped convertible note into every successful exited YC founder for their second company, you'd have probably one of the best VC funds on the planet.”
Jason Wilk Apr 21, 2025 ▶ 1:45 Dave CEO, Jason Wilk: The Best Performing Fund Would Only Back YC Founders on Their Second Time · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 23, 2025
Assertion Partly supported
Harries: Wordware's $40M Round Is the Largest Y Combinator Raise Ever
“And also Philip, the guy who organized it, he founded Wordware, which is the largest raise from YC ever. I think it's about forty million dollars.”
Luke Harries May 23, 2025 ▶ 6:48 20VC: ElevenLabs Head of Growth on Why You Do Not Need PMs | The 7-Part Launch Playbook That Gets 700K+ Views Per Product | The Truth About CAC, Payback & Performance Marketing in AI with Luke Harries
May 29, 2025 bullish
Opinion
O'Driscoll: Y Combinator is one of the greatest equity businesses ever
“I think your absolute assumption has to be YC has won. Look, it's one of the greatest equity businesses ever.”
Rory O'Driscoll May 29, 2025 ▶ 0:21 OpenAI’s $6BN Jony Ive Deal & YC Is Both Chanel and Walmart, and Has Officially Won! · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 29, 2025 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Driscoll: Y Combinator has a 2x return advantage over seed funds
“How much better is the YC locked in return than a seed fund at the same stage? They basically have roughly a two X advantage. If you say to yourself, you know, if I look at the deals they do, if you, and then if you extrapolate based on the published hit rates…”
Rory O'Driscoll May 29, 2025 ▶ 27:21 OpenAI’s $6BN Jony Ive Deal & YC Is Both Chanel and Walmart, and Has Officially Won! · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 5, 2025 negative
Disclosure
Lemkin: Ownership in YC Companies Is Less Than Half Normal Target
“All I can tell you, my little analysis of YC is I've ended up owning about a little less than half of what I would have.”
Jason Lemkin Jun 5, 2025 ▶ 1:11:14 Is DPI The Only Thing That Matters? with Sam Lessin, Jason Lemkin & Rory O’Driscoll · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 5, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
Lemkin: AI startups represent 70% of the current Y Combinator batch
“They're trying to get everyone to 50 to 60 that are AI, that just have AI, which is 70% of the batch.”
Jason Lemkin Jun 5, 2025 ▶ 1:10:20 Is DPI The Only Thing That Matters? with Sam Lessin, Jason Lemkin & Rory O’Driscoll · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 24, 2025 negative
Opinion
O'Driscoll: Seed investing is 30-35% harder than ten years ago
“His point is the combination of those two players means at best the seed game is 30, 35% harder than it was 1008, 10 years ago. He's entirely correct.”
Rory O'Driscoll Jul 24, 2025 ▶ 50:00 How Do All Providers Deal with Anthropic Dependency Risk & Figma IPO Breakdown: Where Does it Price? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 7, 2025 negative
Assertion Supported
Jason Lemkin: Benchmark is no longer in top VC conversations on X
“If you look on social media, benchmark isn't listed the way Andreessen and Sequoia was like it was a generation ago. It's just not, does it matter? Harry, Harry's built a big brand. He's concerned. It matters. You could argue both sides, but when the industry …”
Jason Lemkin Aug 7, 2025 ▶ 1:23:44 Figma's 250% Pop - The Greatest IPO Mispricing Ever? Meta & Microsoft Blowout Quarters: Broken Down · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 15, 2025 positive
What-if
Junestrand: Legora would not have connected with Benchmark without YC
“And so by being in YC, we raised money from Benchmark, who we would have not been introduced to if we weren't in YC.”
Max Junestrand Aug 15, 2025 ▶ 28:43 20VC: 15 Term Sheets in 7 Days and Choosing Benchmark | Harvey vs Legora: Who Wins Legal and How to Play When You Have $600M Less Funding | Are AI Models Plateauing Today | Building a 9-9-6 Culture From Stockholm with Max Junestrand
Aug 15, 2025
Disclosure
Junestrand raised bridge loan against YC commitment to hire engineers early
“And that meant that instead of waiting the three months to kind of flip our Swedish company into a Delaware, I just went out and I raised a loan against the investment that was going to come in from Y Combinator. So we raised a loan against the collateral that…”
Max Junestrand Aug 15, 2025 ▶ 23:06 20VC: 15 Term Sheets in 7 Days and Choosing Benchmark | Harvey vs Legora: Who Wins Legal and How to Play When You Have $600M Less Funding | Are AI Models Plateauing Today | Building a 9-9-6 Culture From Stockholm with Max Junestrand
Oct 16, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
Lemkin: Early Y Combinator Staff Could Run Independent Side Funds
“It was like the old days when you could work at YC and have your own fund at the side. You didn't have to invest through YC.”
Jason Lemkin Oct 16, 2025 ▶ 54:30 Thinking Machines Co-Founder Joins Meta for $3.5BN, Industry Venture's $665M Acquisition · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bouaziz claims Deel holds high market share among Y Combinator startups
“But the truth is now we do everything. We do US payroll, we do HR we kind of like the full stack solution for early stage founders as well. So I think our market share there is pretty high.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 1:01:42 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 negative
Opinion
Stebbings claims Silicon Valley elites protect and anoint Rippling
“Rippling have the Silicon Valley Illuminati around them, and in the same way for me, like, there are some media companies, which I'm not going to name because they'll hate me for it, but, like, they just have the Silicon Valley, the Collison's, and the YC's ar…”
Harry Stebbings Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 4:43 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 24, 2025 bullish
Assertion Supported
Diao: Recent YC startups under 10 people are hiring founding growth roles
“This is actually a trend I see already reflected in some of YC's latest cohort batches, where if you look at some of the roles they're hiring for, so many teams that are less than five or 10 people are already want a founding growth marketer, or a founding hea…”
Sandy Diao Oct 24, 2025 ▶ 1:04:36 20Growth: How to Build a Paid Marketing Machine: ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) 101 | The Rise of User Generated Content and How to Use It | TikTok Ads: Expectations vs. Reality | Hiring for Growth: When and Who with Sandy Diao
Oct 30, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Driscoll: Y Combinator is the only firm with a mass-production seed model
“The only people on the planet who have a structural business where they can de-emphasize picking because they can write checks, option checks at scale is Y Combinator because they have a structured advantage in terms of their economics. They are the only peopl…”
Rory O'Driscoll Oct 30, 2025 ▶ 53:42 OpenAI Restructuring: Who Wins and Who Loses & Mercor Raises $350M at a $10BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 6, 2025
Assertion Partly supported
Lemkin: YC Advises Founders to Sell Max 10% Equity Around Demo Day
“Y Combinator's advice for most companies is to raise a maximum of 10% before, during, and after demo day.”
Jason Lemkin Nov 6, 2025 ▶ 32:31 Is a $4.5BN Exit Enough in VC? & Harvey Raises $150M & Why Google is a Buy and Amazon is a Sell · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 6, 2025 positive
Opinion
Jason Lemkin: Series A is experiencing its best-ever deal funnel
“This is a, the best of times to be a Series A investor because there is just an explosion of seed AI startups. There's so many and they can't all get funded. And I know it's stressful. I know it's hard, but it is a gift that thousands of founders are in San Fr…”
Jason Lemkin Nov 6, 2025 ▶ 1:10:17 Is a $4.5BN Exit Enough in VC? & Harvey Raises $150M & Why Google is a Buy and Amazon is a Sell · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 13, 2025 negative
Opinion
Lemkin: Current Startup Fundraising Market Is the Most Binary in Our Lifetimes
“It's the most binary fundraising environment in our lifetimes, isn't it? You're either, you know, you're either YC, Neo, South Park Commons, got something, get funded, or who the hell's gonna find you in your pre-seed round, right? You either got, you know, yo…”
Jason Lemkin Nov 13, 2025 ▶ 56:27 Michael Burry Shorts NVIDIA and Palantir & Has Defensibility Died in a World of AI? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 8, 2025 negative
Insight
Mansour: Founders must build product and marketing engines simultaneously
“Maybe it's the YC thing, which is build a great product and people will come. I, you know, I think build a great product, but build a great marketing engine and scramble to do both at the same time is now my best answer to this.”
Tarek Mansour Dec 8, 2025 ▶ 36:15 Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour on Raising $1BN, CNN and CNBC Deals & the Polymarket Feud · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 31, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fitzpatrick: Recent Y Combinator class generated double the revenue of prior batches
“If you look at Y Combinator's recent class, I think it's like the largest, it's two X the revenue of any prior class.”
Matt Fitzpatrick Dec 31, 2025 ▶ 1:20:21 Matt Fitzpatrick: Who Wins the Data Labelling Race & Why Al Needs Forward-Deployed Engineers · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 11, 2026 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Harries: Wordware raised $40M, the largest Y Combinator raise ever
“And also Philip, the guy who organized it, he founded Wordware, which is the largest raise from YC ever. I think it's about forty million dollars.”
Luke Harries Jan 11, 2026 ▶ 5:46 20Growth: The $6.6B Growth Engine Behind ElevenLabs | Why ElevenLabs Do Not Have PMs | The 7 Part Launch Playbook to Crush All Launches with Luke Harries, Head of Growth @ ElevenLabs
Jan 12, 2026 positive
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Rampell: AngelPad's early fund delivered a 120x DPI return
“This other one is this fund called AngelPad. Which was kind of like a third rate competitor. I don't want to call it third rate, but it was like, it was not, you know, there was Y Combinator and then it's like, there was AngelPad. It was just like this small l…”
Alex Rampell Jan 12, 2026 ▶ 5:29 Alex Rampell: The Best Founders Materialise Capital, Customers & Labour | The Future of Venture · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 15, 2026 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: Founders will stay in SF for YC but leave after Series B
“I worry that the, that it just makes sense to leave after the Series B. You should just leave. And I don't, I, and I think YC will get their seven percent, and the funds will still stay, but you'll just leave.”
Jason Lemkin Jan 15, 2026 ▶ 1:25:08 Anthropic’s $10B Raise | a16z’s $15B Fund: Is the Middle Dead in VC? | How OpenAI Could Go to Zero? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 15, 2026 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: California wealth tax will turn Silicon Valley into Detroit
“And so, I do think if this goes as far as the folks that have Backing at want, you could have a Detroit in the Silicon Valley. Like, when it becomes a meme to do YC, or to do South Park Common, but then build, you know, get your money, build your team, and the…”
Jason Lemkin Jan 15, 2026 ▶ 1:22:31 Anthropic’s $10B Raise | a16z’s $15B Fund: Is the Middle Dead in VC? | How OpenAI Could Go to Zero? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 26, 2026
Disclosure
Junestrand: Legora deleted its entire original codebase after Y Combinator acceptance
“The first version of the Lagora product back in summer of twenty-twenty-three, that was completely the wrong direction. We built it centered around a couple of core use cases, and we did not have an agent Or a chat that could operate over those tasks. It was l…”
Max Junestrand Jan 26, 2026 ▶ 39:39 Legora CEO, Max Junestrand: $7M ARR in a Day | Harvey vs Legora: Is a Legal AI Winner Takes All? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 26, 2026
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Junestrand: 10% of Legora's tech team are former YC founders
“We're 10% YC founders in our engineering product and design team.”
Max Junestrand Jan 26, 2026 ▶ 50:08 Legora CEO, Max Junestrand: $7M ARR in a Day | Harvey vs Legora: Is a Legal AI Winner Takes All? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 9, 2026 positive
Opinion
Acharya: YC community provides a distinct sales advantage to enterprise startups
“YC is an awesome place to start an enterprise startup that sells to other enterprise startups. And they've got these sort of like good vibes within the community that makes it easier to sell into even much bigger, more established YC companies.”
Anish Acharya Feb 9, 2026 ▶ 1:03:18 a16z, Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead? Do Margins Still Matter? Why We Are Not in an AI Bubble? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 12, 2026 positive
Insight
O'Driscoll: Legacy SaaS should acqui-hire YC teams to accelerate R&D
“The odd thing is this is precisely when you should be hiring young people who are coming in replete with the knowledge and unencumbered by priors. So maybe all those unemployed computer science, but maybe some of them, maybe in some of these SAS comes genuine …”
Rory O'Driscoll Mar 12, 2026 ▶ 1:05:56 Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins? | The Data Center Arms Race | The Ultimate Stock Picks · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 16, 2026 bullish
Disclosure
Rajaram: Faire seed investment generated a 100x to 200x return
“I, for example, I invested in the seed round affair at Back in the, this is about eight, nine years ago, twenty million, which is very expensive received on that. It was the highest price YC deal at that point. I think it's been a hundred or 200 X for me.”
Gokul Rajaram Mar 16, 2026 ▶ 48:31 Gokul Rajaram: How to Analyse for Durability and Defensibility in a World of AI · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 2, 2026 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: Y Combinator startup valuations jump 20% to 30% post-Demo Day
“It's been true of YC since I started investing. There was always a cheaper price before demo day. If you're reasonably hot, a higher price at demo day, and then a 20% or 30% after demo day.”
Jason Lemkin Apr 2, 2026 ▶ 41:20 OpenAI Kills Sora & Hits $100M ARR on Ads | Oura Going Public & Whoop Raises at $10BN · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 18, 2026 positive
Disclosure
Geoffrey Woo States Paribus Was His First Angel Investment
“No, so Paribus was my first angel investment ever... I gave them the recommendation from Parabas to Y Combinator.”
Jeffrey Wu Apr 18, 2026 ▶ 58:04 Jake Paul: Traditional VC is Toast & Attention is More Valuable than Cash · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 23, 2026 bearish
Opinion
Lemkin: Mid-cap tech buyers cannot afford $1B YC startup valuations
“Google can buy them, but HubSpot, what's HubSpot's valuation as we record this? In the teens of billions? They just can't afford a billion dollar for every YC startup. They don't have the money.”
Jason Lemkin Apr 23, 2026 ▶ 1:29:08 Cursor Acquired for $60BN | Anthropic Hits $1TRN in Secondary Markets & Figma, Adobe, Canva Dead? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 30, 2026 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Apr 2031
O'Driscoll: YC guidelines will become the seed revenue standard
“I predict if it sticks, the shorthand version of the seed stages will be, does this conform to the Y Combinator revenue guidelines, right?”
Rory O'Driscoll Apr 30, 2026 ▶ 1:09:35 Anthropic Raises $45B but Falls Short on Compute & Thoma Bravo Hand Back Medallia Keys to Creditors · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 30, 2026 neutral
Assertion Contradicted
O'Driscoll: Y Combinator holds 25% seed market share
“Y Combinator has a dominant market share in the seed market, right? 25%.”
Rory O'Driscoll Apr 30, 2026 ▶ 1:10:05 Anthropic Raises $45B but Falls Short on Compute & Thoma Bravo Hand Back Medallia Keys to Creditors · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 18, 2026 negative
Insight
Browder: Middling startups are disadvantaged inside startup accelerators
“The problem with any accelerator, not speaking specifically about YC, is you're competing for attention with all the other companies in the accelerator. If you're the top of the accelerator, Then that's incredible. You're the king made or queen made company. B…”
Josh Browder May 18, 2026 ▶ 38:14 Turning Peter Thiel's $100K into $10M Angel Portfolio & Why VCs Can Be Sharks | Josh Browder · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 21, 2026
Assertion Supported
Stebbings: Altman Offered $2M in OpenAI Tokens to Every YC Startup
“Sam Altman just offered two million dollars In open AI tokens to every YC startup in the current batch in exchange for equity.”
Harry Stebbings May 21, 2026 ▶ 1:02:36 Anthropic Raises $30BN at $900BN Price | SpaceX Files S1: How Does it Trade | Cerebras Smashes Day 1 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 30, 2026 positive
Opinion
Laqua: Blaming Y Combinator for portfolio startup fraud is directionally incorrect
“I think that people blaming like, you know, YC or whatever for some of their companies being frauds is probably not like directionally correct because like internally it's not like any venture fund really wants to like invest in a fraud and people that are lik…”
Nico Laqua May 30, 2026 ▶ 54:30 The Hardest Working Startup in America | Nico Laqua, Co-founder & CEO @ Corgi · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 30, 2026 positive
Disclosure
Jared Friedman was Corgi's first and sometimes only believer
“It was probably Jared Friedman from YC. Yeah. There's been times where he was our only believer, you know, everyone else is a doubter, is a naysayer. But Jared, Jared's always been there for us.”
Nico Laqua May 30, 2026 ▶ 55:10 The Hardest Working Startup in America | Nico Laqua, Co-founder & CEO @ Corgi · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 20, 2026
Insight
Petersen: Identifying terrible founders in YC is easier than picking winners
“It wasn't obvious who was great. It was obvious who was terrible, though, and I think if you can eliminate the bottom half, like, you're doing pretty well inside of a YC batch.”
Ryan Petersen Jun 20, 2026 ▶ 51:05 Flexport CEO: Two Questions Every Founder Needs to Ask · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 16, 2026 negative
Assertion Open · timeframe Jul 2027
Stebbings: Y Combinator charges unprecedented carried interest premiums up to 50%
“The carry premiums that they charge are incredible too. People don't know or discuss that enough. Unprecedented. 40, 50% in cases.”
Harry Stebbings Jul 16, 2026 ▶ 54:13 Zuckerberg Back on X Challenging Codex & Claude Code | SK Hynix’s $26BN IPO · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 18, 2026
Assertion Partly supported
a16z Seeded Fred Turner's Startup With $1.65M Without A TAM Calculation
“Their bio fund did our seed round right out of YC, and I don't think they did the TAM calculation. They were like, oh, this sounds interesting, and then they did the round. It was a small round, it was like, 1.65 million.”
Fred Turner Jul 18, 2026 ▶ 6:59 We Built Our Own Salesforce in Months. Here's Why We're Cancelling the $600K Contract | Curative CEO
Aug 12, 2026 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Scaleups acqui-hiring failing YC startups for AI talent is no longer viable
“When rippling is hoovered up 30, and owners hoovered up 20, and Revolut's hoovered up 10, you just, that strategy worked three years ago. Like, it's too late. Like, everyone is just sitting there hitting refresh, hoping these smart YC companies fail so they ca…”
Jason Lemkin Aug 12, 2026 ▶ 1:29:11 Canva Slashes Growth | Talent Exodus at Google | Revolut's $50B CEO Package | Musk's $55B Terrafab
Aug 27, 2026 negative
Assertion Contradicted
Lemkin: Mediocre Dogpatch apartments near Y Combinator rent for $10,000 a month
“Rents in the mediocre apartments just in dogpatch are 10,000 dollars a month now. Mediocre apartments down the street from YC, the Avalon.”
Jason Lemkin Aug 27, 2026 ▶ 52:07 Anthropic's $30T Assumption & OpenAI Confirms IPO | Why Customer Service & Robotics are Overinflated
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more