Y Combinator, every mention
85 scenes (2026), the whole family · ← back to Y Combinator
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every year 2026 anyone Harry Stebbings 663Jason Lemkin 97Tom Blomfield 45Jason Calacanis 33Max Junestrand 29Garry Tan 24Sam Altman 18Justin Kan 16Rory O'Driscoll 14Fred Turner 12
Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where Y Combinator comes up
Labour, Engineering, Social Media, GrokBots, Cybercabs: 7 Predictions for How AI Changes the World
- ▶ 51:56 Matteo Franceschetti So it was after the YC demo day, right?
Jensen Huang Declares AGI Has Arrived | Tesla Launches Cybercabs | Index Pulls Out of Town
- ▶ 7:37 Jason Lemkin And Meta will have them and on a hundred startups and there'll be 20 in the next batch of YC.
How to Build Your Own Data Center & Why Every Startup Should Do It
- ▶ 31:40 Harry Stebbings That the best talent just wants to go there, and talent follows talent, and you're seeing the fucking founder of Monzo, a multi-billion dollar bank in the UK go there from YC as a partner, Matt Clifford, you know, the founder of EF, which…
Anthropic's $30T Assumption & OpenAI Confirms IPO | Why Customer Service & Robotics are Overinflated
- ▶ 52:13 Jason Lemkin Mediocre apartments down the street from, from YC, the Avalon. 2 times in the scene
Canva Slashes Growth | Talent Exodus at Google | Revolut's $50B CEO Package | Musk's $55B Terrafab
- ▶ 1:28:16 Rory O'Driscoll If I was, if I owned one of these companies as a PE owner, if I was, I would just be at every Y Combinator demo day. 3 times in the scene
The AI Boom Will Create Enormous Roadkill: Who Wins & Loses? | David Frankel
- ▶ 10:22 Harry Stebbings We see YC
Arena CEO: There Will be a $100BN US Open-Source Model & Data is a Trillion Dollar Market
- ▶ 37:43 Anastasios Angelopoulos And so imagine that you're a company that's not an arena, that's like, you know, a YC company that raised a ten million dollar seed.
Jensen's Open-Weights Letter | Google Cloud Grows 82% But The Market Tanks
- ▶ 1:05:06 Jason Lemkin At ten billion, I can get into YC and raise it a hundred, a hundred posts.
Will Open-Source Threaten Anthropic's Business & Do Margins Matter in a World of AI | Matt Murphy
- ▶ 47:10 Matt Murphy So there's kind of more grit to be a great entrepreneur in Europe than let's say in the Bay area where, you know, it's, uh, it's not that it's not incredibly hard to get into YC and just be a founder.
We Built Our Own Salesforce in Months. Here's Why We're Cancelling the $600K Contract | Curative CEO
- ▶ 5:22 Fred Turner I met a bunch of VCs, didn't raise any money, but I did meet a guy who had just finished doing Y Combinator. 5 times in the scene
- ▶ 6:52 Fred Turner So, so we did this, went through YC, and we raised a seed round from Andreessen. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 20:59 Fred Turner Um, and there's actually a guy who, uh, was in the same YC batch as me, 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 1:26:44 Fred Turner Like some of the earliest investors, um, the guy, uh, Josh Buckley, who, you know, was one of the first guys who invested in us during the YC batch. 3 times in the scene
Zuckerberg Back on X Challenging Codex & Claude Code | SK Hynix’s $26BN IPO · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 42:46 Jason Lemkin This is the, this is the other than YC dumping early stage, that would be a real sign, right? 7 times in the scene
- ▶ 1:04:21 Jason Lemkin And this has been true, like, since I started investing, off, that's, even that happens, like, all the top YC companies, like, ok, sell, only sell six percent, only sell eight percent. 2 times in the scene
Enterprises Fear Frontier Models | Sam Altman Offers Trump 5% of OpenAI | DeepSeek Builds Own Chips · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Coinbase Cuts AI Spend by 50% | Kalshi's $40B Valuation & Impending IPO | The Year for SaaS Roll-Ups · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 51:00 Rory O'Driscoll A business-oriented executive who maybe picks up a YC, you know, failed SWE kind of software, incident automation software product, and put it together and just, you know, as Jason says, if you're not re-accelerating, you're dying.
- ▶ 1:01:37 Jason Lemkin Whether you're, whether you launch into YC and raise it 30 pre when you started three weeks ago, it's not easy, but it's too easy.
How We Got Fred Wilson, Benchmark and Index to Invest $94M | Why Robinhood's Strategy is Wrong · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 3:33 Paul Erlang He is XYC.
- ▶ 4:07 Harry Stebbings He was a YC partner at the time.
- ▶ 24:57 Harry Stebbings So funny, Paul Graham said last night, the new question that he asks all YC batch members is, how do we, like, AI protectify your product?
DeepSeek Raises at $50B | The Rise of Open Source vs OpenAI & Anthropic | OpenAI Builds Own Chip · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 48:39 Harry Stebbings I saw this brilliant tweet that I did actually want to discuss with you guys, and it was from Nicholas Desain at Y Combinator, formerly, well, founder of Algo. 2 times in the scene
Flexport CEO: Two Questions Every Founder Needs to Ask · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 50:52 Ryan Petersen So I actually started as an angel investor while I was in Y Combinator, uh, because I realized I, I had inside access. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 1:04:50 Harry Stebbings Um, front, French founder, YC partner, now I believe, uh, awesome woman, um, and, uh, she always told me that you want to raise when you're really confident, just because, like, confidence emanates.
- ▶ 1:13:36 Ryan Petersen So, like, actually my, the most nervous I ever was was the Y Combinator pitch, because I only had two minutes.
Perplexity CEO: Micron Will Be More Valuable Than Meta & How Export Controls Helped Not Hurt China · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 1:00:13 Harry Stebbings What did you think of Sam Altman giving two million dollars of tokens to YC companies?
OpenAI vs Anthropic vs Open-Source | Token Maxing, AI Hangovers & The Coming ROI Reckoning · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 52:26 Matan Grinberg And then, you know, I was watching these videos, a lot of them like Y Combinator, you know, videos and all this stuff.
SpaceX Launches Largest Ever IPO | OpenAI Files to Go Public | Uber Cuts 23% of HR · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 57:57 unnamed speaker Uh, you want to be doing five to eight by the time you get out of YC.
Mercor CEO: Why Application Layer Companies Have No Moat & The Cost of Hiring AI Researchers · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 5:01 Harry Stebbings Who will absolutely trounce you and be very negative because they are aligned to a competitor, or, you know, we're in a YC company that's been through a lot of shit in the last few days, and their competitor has a lot of people behind them…
The Hardest Working Startup in America | Nico Laqua, Co-founder & CEO @ Corgi · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 6:29 Nico Laqua But, but now, you know, it's, it's not unusual to, uh, to, to when describing a company, say it's a, it's a tier one company or it's a YC company or it's a, this company or that company with the descriptor being their investors.
- ▶ 20:32 Nico Laqua I, I can't tell you, it's probably like over 20 people have told me like, oh, like I submitted my YC app and like the Corgi cafe
- ▶ 49:30 Nico Laqua Um, but I think that like spiritually, like open AI is, um, is, is I, I guess a little more pure, um, because they kind of created, you know, this idea of like a AI lab as a company, um, dating all the way back to YC research.
- ▶ 54:30 Nico Laqua Um, but you know, and I think in those cases, probably venture investors bear more responsibility, but like, I think that people blaming like, you know, YC or whatever for, for, for, uh, some of their companies being frauds, um, is…
- ▶ 55:10 Nico Laqua Uh, it was probably Jared Friedman from YC. 3 times in the scene
OpenAI & SpaceX S1 Drops | Layoffs at Cloudflare & ClickUp | OpenRouter & Polsia Raise Mega Rounds · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 13:01 unnamed speaker We can't spend that way, but it also means there's a, there's a backwards looking bias in here.
- ▶ 1:04:44 unnamed speaker And this is going back to the, the Y combator, two million of tokens, invest five dollars in me or a dollar of tokens in me or two dollars to earn 49 bucks a month, which is the entry points for the, for the product.
Anthropic Raises $30BN at $900BN Price | SpaceX Files S1: How Does it Trade | Cerebras Smashes Day 1 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 1:02:31 Harry Stebbings Uh, news last night, mic drop moment with Y Combinator. 8 times in the scene
- ▶ 1:14:52 Rory O'Driscoll He hasn't taken any equity in OpenAI, and he's been asked about that, and he said he's had no economic interest in OpenAI, and we probably all talked to him that he doesn't own any equity, but what's going to happen now is a whole bunch of… 2 times in the scene
Turning Peter Thiel's $100K into $10M Angel Portfolio & Why VCs Can Be Sharks | Josh Browder · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 6:05 Josh Browder It's easier for a Stanford student to get into YC than it is for them to get a job now.
- ▶ 12:03 Josh Browder Uh, like everything the YC would say, I say to them.
- ▶ 37:43 Harry Stebbings I am interested because often, I don't know how to put it, but like the Teal Fellowship and say like a YC are compared in the same bucket. 4 times in the scene
Anthropic Buys Compute From Elon & Commits $200BN to Google | Cerebras IPO | Ramp Raises at $40BN · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 27:46 Harry Stebbings Probably there is, and then also Anthropic released 10 financial agent templates, killing a load of YC companies in the process doing them. 3 times in the scene
- ▶ 54:38 Jason Lemkin Not only was it not obvious, this isn't even after it gets the kudos and why commentator or foundation socializes the deal.
- ▶ 1:13:10 Jason Lemkin You're not going to be that happy go lucky person where you got into YC
Cliff Weitzman: What I Learned from 100 of the World’s Top CEOs & Why Tokens Will Outspend Salaries · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 45:19 Cliff Weitzman Um, there's a great question from YC, which is, what is a non-computer science system you've hacked to your advantage?
- ▶ 1:32:24 Cliff Weitzman It's like the normal YC model of just talk to users.
Anthropic Raises $45B but Falls Short on Compute & Thoma Bravo Hand Back Medallia Keys to Creditors · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 1:07:56 Jason Lemkin And rather than say no big deal, who cares at the seed level, like YC, who cares at the YC so early? 6 times in the scene
Cursor Acquired for $60BN | Anthropic Hits $1TRN in Secondary Markets & Figma, Adobe, Canva Dead? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 1:22:52 Jason Lemkin This is only going to compound, and as Mythos comes out and finds every security breach in nanoseconds, I need an agent fabric I could trust, not someone that came out of YC and claims they have an orchestration platform.
- ▶ 1:29:13 Jason Lemkin They just can't afford a billion dollar for every YC startup.
Jake Paul: Traditional VC is Toast & Attention is More Valuable than Cash · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 58:21 Jeffrey Wu I gave them the recommendation from Parabas to Y Combinator.
OpenAI Buys TBPN & Their Management Team Reboot | Mercor Hack & Why Now is the Time for Cyber · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 42:10 unnamed speaker You telling me the kids at YC have heard of Doug Leoni or even know how to spell his last name? 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 43:19 Harry Stebbings Jason, you mentioned, uh, the youngest founders from YC. 10 times in the scene
- ▶ 1:03:04 unnamed speaker I mean, who the hell, I mean, I know it was, it was a hot YC company, which kind of, uh,
OpenAI Kills Sora & Hits $100M ARR on Ads | Oura Going Public & Whoop Raises at $10BN · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 41:20 unnamed speaker It's been true of YC since I started investing.
NVIDIA Predicts $1TRN in Revenue: Everything You Need to Know From GTC & Anduril Lands $20B Contract · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 38:08 Jason Lemkin The thing is now that like YC is product ties to a sixty million dollar post, right?
Gokul Rajaram: How to Analyse for Durability and Defensibility in a World of AI · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 48:39 Gokul Rajaram It was the highest price YC deal at that point.
- ▶ 1:07:15 Gokul Rajaram I think that's what YC does, right? 2 times in the scene
Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins? | The Data Center Arms Race | The Ultimate Stock Picks · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 1:06:10 Rory O'Driscoll You do need some young talent to see what you can do and, you know, get, do some Y Combinator aqua hires of failed teams and say, how do you turn around your R&D development, which takes, as Jason says, three, six, nine months to deliver…
Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins? | OpenAI's $110BN Mega Round | Cursor Hits $2BN in ARR · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 1:19:28 unnamed speaker I could show up to YC and say, we built this AI VP of marketing.
OpenAI's Codex Lead: Why Coding as We Know It is Over · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 22:29 Harry Stebbings I remember Tom Blomfield, who's a YC partner, tweeted months and months ago, but it stuck with me, the weird brain, um, about the ease of transition between different
a16z, Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead? Do Margins Still Matter? Why We Are Not in an AI Bubble? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 1:03:09 Anish Acharya One, I think an example of where there is a very positive, uh, sort of catalyst in their investor base for enterprise companies is YC, right? 3 times in the scene
Anthropic Inference Costs Skyrocket |TikTok Deal Closes |The IPO Market:Wealthfront & EquipmentShare · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 48:54 Jason Lemkin Like clockwork and YC is doing it at the low end.
- ▶ 49:40 Rory O'Driscoll Actually, at the Gary level, I agree, right, to be clear, because at the, I mean, now we're going to jump in a lot, but let's, let's digress off on the Y Combinator. 3 times in the scene
- ▶ 59:12 Rory O'Driscoll It was a Y Combinator company from my team in 2015. 2 times in the scene
Legora CEO, Max Junestrand: $7M ARR in a Day | Harvey vs Legora: Is a Legal AI Winner Takes All? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 24:27 Max Junestrand So our first board meeting after we, so to give you some context, um, we were YC, we raised ten million dollars from Benchmark,
- ▶ 40:03 Max Junestrand So after we got accepted into Y Combinator, we deleted all of that code.
- ▶ 50:08 Max Junestrand We're 10% YC founders in our engineering product and design team. 4 times in the scene
- ▶ 59:13 Max Junestrand Adrian, who was our VP product, um, his YC company did AI timekeeping.
- ▶ 1:00:05 Max Junestrand The advice that I got in YC was build a good business and it's very easy to fundraise. 5 times in the scene
Elon Musk vs Sam Altman | The Implosion of Thinking Machines | Can VC Survive Public Pricing? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 11:43 Jason Lemkin Those kids at YC built an agent for your space.
- ▶ 14:56 Rory O'Driscoll This is a seed, and I know why Combinator do this thing is that the number one cause of failure at the seed stage is, you know, founder incompatibility, and this is just seed rounds with extra commas, and they discover after a year they…
- ▶ 34:08 Jason Lemkin He's raised hundreds of millions at his own venture fund to invest in YC startups.
- ▶ 1:12:54 Jason Lemkin I built a startup simulator that simulates everything from going through YC to IPO in to
Anthropic’s $10B Raise | a16z’s $15B Fund: Is the Middle Dead in VC? | How OpenAI Could Go to Zero? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 35:01 unnamed speaker I think even YC can't like, that's a different question, right?
- ▶ 51:14 unnamed speaker Obviously, uh, Andreessen down to YC will squeeze out a lot of players. 9 times in the scene
- ▶ 1:01:57 unnamed speaker You can join YC.
- ▶ 1:22:40 unnamed speaker 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 then leave, that could be the meme. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 1:25:14 unnamed speaker And I, I don't, I, and I think YC will get their seven percent, and, and, and the, the funds will still stay, but you'll just leave.
Alex Rampell: The Best Founders Materialise Capital, Customers & Labour | The Future of Venture · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ▶ 5:34 Alex Rampell 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.
- ▶ 22:19 Alex Rampell They're not going to go be able to sell GE and say, oh, wow, I love you two YC kids. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 44:58 Alex Rampell This is kind of the YC offshoot.
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
- ▶ 5:46 Luke Harries And also Philip, the guy who organized it, he founded Wordware, which is the largest raise from YC ever.
- ▶ 6:43 Luke Harries So we applied to YC, we got into YC actually with an AI developer tool, and we quickly realized we were trying to do, like, browser-based automation, where you automate tasks on people's behalf. 3 times in the scene
- ▶ 45:10 Luke Harries The YC one approach, which often works really well, is basically just kind of ignore them, put on your blinkers, speak to your customers, make an incredible product.