The Exchanges

Q Now, can you kick us off today by telling us how you made your move from PwC in Cambridge, England, to being CFO at the world's most successful accelerator?

A Uh, well, I guess when I moved, the move was not to move to be the CFO at the world's most successful accelerator. It was to move to be, um, to take up a role kind of doing everything at an accelerator that not a great deal of people had heard of, which is very interesting. Um, I worked in PwC Cambridge with a lot of tech clients, so I was working with a lot of VC-backed technology companies that were spinning out of the university and that were, were based sort of around the southeast of England, so I was Always involved in startups and understood technology and, and the things that they were, um, you know, the, the problems they were having. Um, but the way that I actually got involved with YC and made the move over here to San Francisco is actually through my husband, who is a YC founder himself. He was funded, uh, back in 2008, his company by Y Combinator. So he knew them. Um, and he'd spent three months over in, in Mountain View for the batch in winter, 2008, and came back and said, we must move to, to San Francisco. It's the center of the world. We just have to go. Um, and, and it's actually took a while to, to figure all that stuff out. Um, it was terrible timing in terms of the, the economic collapse. Um, so it was actually really hard to, to figure it all out, but luckily, Amir, my husband, was, was talking to the original YC founders, who were, who were just starting …

AI assessment note: “the way that I actually got involved with YC and made the move over here”

Q And do you think it is fundamentally easier for YC alum to, to raise money off the back of leaving YC, and how do you guys manage the potentially inflated valuations that come from being a YC alum?

A Um, I think, I don't think it's necessarily easier to raise money. You know, investors know what they're looking for, and they know, um, you know, they know when a company looks like it's going to be doing something interesting. I think what YC does give these companies is it gives them a seal of approval. You know, somebody has already looked at them once. We've worked through with them to, to figure out some of their questions, some of their problems, and the investors know that, that we are always there in the background. We always have the founders back. So it's, it's, it's more of a badge of approval. Um, but then the investors go in and they talk to the founders and they, they do their own diligence and, and it's up to them to make their, their, Minds up themselves. And so, you know, we don't, we don't get involved in any of that side of it. Um, what we do do is, is, you know, we hear investors saying that YC, uh, valuations are high. And, and, you know, we work hard with the founders to try to make them understand how valuations actually impact their, their cap table. Um, one of the things I've done in this latest batch is I've, I've built a, a modeling spreadsheet for, for our founders to use so that they can, they can see and they can plug in. You know, if I raise a million dollars at a six million dollar valuation cap on a safe, how does that impact when it converts a…

AI assessment note: “I don't think it's necessarily easier to raise money.”

Q Now, can you kick us off today by telling us how you made your move from PwC in Cambridge, England, to being CFO at the world's most successful accelerator?

A Uh, well, I guess when I moved, the move was not to move to be the CFO at the world's most successful accelerator. It was to move to be, um, to take up a role kind of doing everything at an accelerator that not a great deal of people had heard of, which is very interesting. Um, I worked in PwC Cambridge with a lot of tech clients, so I was working with a lot of VC-backed technology companies that were spinning out of the university and that were, were based sort of around the southeast of England, so I was Always involved in startups and understood technology and, and the things that they were, um, you know, the, the problems they were having. Um, but the way that I actually got involved with YC and made the move over here to San Francisco is actually through my husband, who is a YC founder himself. He was funded, uh, back in 2008, his company by Y Combinator. So he knew them. Um, and he'd spent three months over in, in Mountain View for the batch in winter, 2008, and came back and said, we must move to, to San Francisco. It's the center of the world. We just have to go. Um, and, and it's actually took a while to, to figure all that stuff out. Um, it was terrible timing in terms of the, the economic collapse. Um, so it was actually really hard to, to figure it all out, but luckily, Amir, my husband, was, was talking to the original YC founders, who were, who were just starting …

AI assessment note: “the way that I actually got involved with YC and made the move over here”

Q And you said when you joined there that it was an accelerator that not many people knew about. So how have you seen YC develop in the time that you've been there? And what do you think have been the key drivers to the success you've seen?

A Uh, well, the first batch that I was involved in was winter, 2010. And that had, I think, 26 companies in it. Um, so, now, our last batch, we had 114 companies. So, it's, it's grown beyond recognition. Um, I think, I think if somebody had said to us in winter 2010 that we would be doing this in five years time, we would all have just laughed them out of the room and said, not a chance. Um, so, you know, it's, it's kind of, it's grown unexpectedly, I suppose. Um, And, you know, a lot of that is because startups have become much more acceptable for people to take the risk to do them. Um, and, and, you know, I mean, a lot of this is, is, you know, are we the cause or are we the effect? It's, it's a bit of both. Um, and, and also, you know, we've, we, as we've grown, we've taken on more partners, we've got more bandwidth to be able to help more companies. Um, when I started, it was, it was kind of a family business, really. You know, it was, it, Paul Graham and Jessica, and then Trevor and Robert, it, it felt like a small family business, and because they'd started it from this mindset of, oh, we want to learn about startups ourselves, so we'll invest in, in, in a batch to, to kind of figure out what all the problems are, and, and see how we can help. It was, it was a slightly different mindset. So then as we started to grow and take more partners in, it, it became a different, the…

AI assessment note: “first batch that I was involved in was winter, 2010. And that had, I think, 26 companies”

Q What's comprised in that interview? Is it very formulaic and generic, or does it change massively with each candidate?

A Yeah, I mean, it, it changes fairly, um, significantly with each, with each candidate, just because, You know, what we're talking about is very different. You know, the kind of questions you're going to ask a company who is working on trying to discover a cure for cancer is very different to the kind of questions that you're going to ask a company who is, who is doing the latest social network. Um, but having said that, the things that we're interested in are all around, you know, how big does this get? How do you get your first customers? How do we know that what you're building is something that people actually want or need? Um, so, so there's, there's a framework there, but then the conversations go off in, in very different directions. And one of the indicators that we look at 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? Um, which is always very interesting.

AI assessment note: “it changes fairly, um, significantly with each, with each candidate”

Q As a previous guest on the show, and we're wondering, considering you've seen the development and progression of many startups, what are the common problems you've seen them face in the fundraising cycle?

A Um, you know, I think the biggest, the biggest mistake that we see founders making whilst they're fundraising is, um, Well, actually, it's one of two things. The first thing is not knowing when to stop. Um, you know, there comes a point where the interest dries up, and at that point, the founders should just say, okay, we've raised X amount of money, we're now going to go heads back, heads down, back into our product, and we're going to take that money, and we're going to build something that just has the most, you know, all this amazing stuff in there that people really love, and then as people really love it, the growth will come, and then as the growth comes, It will be easier to raise more money down the road. And we say that so often to the founders, but what the founders do and hear or, you know, don't hear maybe is, you know, they see it fun. They see fundraising as a sign of success and they say, oh, I've only raised 250,000 dollars. I'm a failure. This is, I need to go and find more money to, to fundraise. And that's actually Totally not the case. You know, back in, again, back in 2010, 250,000 dollars was a successful raise. Um, and so, you know, people spend all their time and effort trying to raise more money, and forget about the product, and then forget about, you know, working on growing the product, and so their growth flat, flat lines, and then investors are ev…

AI assessment note: “The first thing is not knowing when to stop.”

Q What's comprised in that interview? Is it very formulaic and generic, or does it change massively with each candidate?

A Yeah, I mean, it, it changes fairly, um, significantly with each, with each candidate, just because, You know, what we're talking about is very different. You know, the kind of questions you're going to ask a company who is working on trying to discover a cure for cancer is very different to the kind of questions that you're going to ask a company who is, who is doing the latest social network. Um, but having said that, the things that we're interested in are all around, you know, how big does this get? How do you get your first customers? How do we know that what you're building is something that people actually want or need? Um, so, so there's, there's a framework there, but then the conversations go off in, in very different directions. And one of the indicators that we look at 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? Um, which is always very interesting.

AI assessment note: “it changes fairly, um, significantly with each, with each candidate”

Q And how can founders determine how much is the right amount to raise then? You said stop when, when you know it's enough. How should founders know how much? Is it in terms of run rate or product development? What would you say?

A Um, yeah, I mean, there's some elements of looking at run rate. Uh, we always say to, to our founders, you know, have sort of a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C. Um, and you know, if you raise a small amount of money, this is what you'll do with it. This is, you know, you maybe you'll, you'll only hire one new engineer. Maybe you'll work to get to this specific place in the product roadmap, but if you hire a little, if you raise a little bit more, then maybe you can hire a couple of more, a couple more engineers, and you can, you can accelerate that growth. So it's always a case of, you know, figuring out where you are in that spectrum of money being raised. Um, it's, it's, I think the hardest thing is that people see fundraising as a competitive thing, which it totally isn't. You know, some companies can take 250,000 dollars and get to profitability, and you know, that's great for them, because then they're in this amazing situation where they don't need any more money, and then that's exactly when the investors start to get interested in them. Um, other companies might need Three, four, five more million dollars to, to get to that stage. So it, it very much depends on what kind of company you're actually making. Um, but the founders definitely compare themselves to each other and, and see it as They're failing if they haven't raised much money.

AI assessment note: “have sort of a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C”

Q And would you say that's the core financial cornerstone to setting up a company, the payroll itself?

A Um, I think, I think there's two things. I mean, the, the, the two main things are setting up payroll and making sure that you get tax returns filed. Um, there's a huge amount more that can be done. That's, those two are the kind of almost external reporting things. Obviously, there's a lot of internal reporting. You know, the founders should be able to tell off the top of their head at any one time how much money they have in the bank, what their runway is, what their growth rate is, what their burn is, you know, and so their burn being the net of how much money they've got in compared to how much money is being spent out. Um, so they, you know, there should be tools for them to reporting that and know that just they, every day they should know that they should be looking at that. Um, so that's, you know, and that's more internal because it, it, it depends on the company and, and, you know, the metrics they're looking at depends very much on the company. So that's, that's less, uh, Of the sort of financial side of things, but because it's part of the financial health of the company, it still, it still needs to be known.

AI assessment note: “the two main things are setting up payroll and making sure that you get tax returns filed”

Q Was it quite overwhelming being placed with all this responsibility at very short notice?

A It was, it was incredible how much trust was placed in me straight away. Um, you know, I, I had control over all the bank accounts. I, I had access to absolutely everything. And I think, I think in, in that respect, you know, when you give somebody so much trust, it, it makes them more trustworthy. So I took the responsibility very, very seriously. Um, and you know, I was, I was very keen to, to make sure that things were right and things were good. And you know, it became a real You know, personal sort of role that, that, you know, I wanted to do things properly because they'd put so much trust in me. Um, and then as, as things grew with Y Combinator, I gradually shed different, different responsibilities onto new teams. Um, and so we created an events team and we created an operations team and things like that. So then I could just focus on the finance side of things.

AI assessment note: “It was, it was incredible how much trust was placed in me straight away.”

Q As a previous guest on the show, and we're wondering, considering you've seen the development and progression of many startups, what are the common problems you've seen them face in the fundraising cycle?

A Um, you know, I think the biggest, the biggest mistake that we see founders making whilst they're fundraising is, um, Well, actually, it's one of two things. The first thing is not knowing when to stop. Um, you know, there comes a point where the interest dries up, and at that point, the founders should just say, okay, we've raised X amount of money, we're now going to go heads back, heads down, back into our product, and we're going to take that money, and we're going to build something that just has the most, you know, all this amazing stuff in there that people really love, and then as people really love it, the growth will come, and then as the growth comes, It will be easier to raise more money down the road. And we say that so often to the founders, but what the founders do and hear or, you know, don't hear maybe is, you know, they see it fun. They see fundraising as a sign of success and they say, oh, I've only raised 250,000 dollars. I'm a failure. This is, I need to go and find more money to, to fundraise. And that's actually Totally not the case. You know, back in, again, back in 2010, 250,000 dollars was a successful raise. Um, and so, you know, people spend all their time and effort trying to raise more money, and forget about the product, and then forget about, you know, working on growing the product, and so their growth flat, flat lines, and then investors are ev…

AI assessment note: “The first thing is not knowing when to stop.”

Q And do you think it is fundamentally easier for YC alum to, to raise money off the back of leaving YC, and how do you guys manage the potentially inflated valuations that come from being a YC alum?

A Um, I think, I don't think it's necessarily easier to raise money. You know, investors know what they're looking for, and they know, um, you know, they know when a company looks like it's going to be doing something interesting. I think what YC does give these companies is it gives them a seal of approval. You know, somebody has already looked at them once. We've worked through with them to, to figure out some of their questions, some of their problems, and the investors know that, that we are always there in the background. We always have the founders back. So it's, it's, it's more of a badge of approval. Um, but then the investors go in and they talk to the founders and they, they do their own diligence and, and it's up to them to make their, their, Minds up themselves. And so, you know, we don't, we don't get involved in any of that side of it. Um, what we do do is, is, you know, we hear investors saying that YC, uh, valuations are high. And, and, you know, we work hard with the founders to try to make them understand how valuations actually impact their, their cap table. Um, one of the things I've done in this latest batch is I've, I've built a, a modeling spreadsheet for, for our founders to use so that they can, they can see and they can plug in. You know, if I raise a million dollars at a six million dollar valuation cap on a safe, how does that impact when it converts a…

AI assessment note: “I don't think it's necessarily easier to raise money. You know, investors know what”

Q What would you say to an apartment, then, where your office is and your team work, but you also live?

A Yeah, you see, that's, that's kind of a grey area. It's, it's not straightforward. Um, generally, we say to our founders in the very early stages is that's, you know, expense, the rents, For the, for the apartment if you're working out of it, but know that it's not a hundred percent right and know that you're going to have to change it. And as soon as you start raising money, you're really going to need to get your own office. And so you'll be paying rent on the office with your business as money. And then you were paying rent on your apartment with the money that you pay yourself. And that's something that where we also drill into the founders from very early stages is that they must pay themselves. Everybody must be paid a minimum wage. Um, because again, we've, we've seen issues in the past where founders are, um, they, they break up, and it's not, it's not a happy, um, you know, it's an acrimonious split, and the first thing that the departing founder does is go and talk to a lawyer, and the first thing the lawyer says is, well, how much have they paid you? And if the founder said, well, I haven't been, I haven't been earning any money. I haven't, I haven't had any salary. Then the lawyer says, oh, well, we can go against them for, for employment claims. You know, you're, you're entitled to the minimum wage. And so suddenly the, the company is, is under a, has all these pro…

AI assessment note: “expense, the rents, For the, for the apartment if you're working out of it”

Q Was it quite overwhelming being placed with all this responsibility at very short notice?

A It was, it was incredible how much trust was placed in me straight away. Um, you know, I, I had control over all the bank accounts. I, I had access to absolutely everything. And I think, I think in, in that respect, you know, when you give somebody so much trust, it, it makes them more trustworthy. So I took the responsibility very, very seriously. Um, and you know, I was, I was very keen to, to make sure that things were right and things were good. And you know, it became a real You know, personal sort of role that, that, you know, I wanted to do things properly because they'd put so much trust in me. Um, and then as, as things grew with Y Combinator, I gradually shed different, different responsibilities onto new teams. Um, and so we created an events team and we created an operations team and things like that. So then I could just focus on the finance side of things.

AI assessment note: “It was, it was incredible how much trust was placed in me straight away.”

Q And in your role as CFO, you, I'm sure you've developed a certain pattern recognition with regards to what investors and VCs like to see in terms of startups. So can you reveal a little about that pattern recognition of what you have seen?

A Yeah, I mean, we, we look for specific things when we are choosing the companies that, that we want to invest in. Um, and I'm involved in the, the review of those companies and the, the interviews of those companies. Um, and from our point of view, very much the strongest indicator that we look for is, is the team. Um, you know, are the team very close knit? Do they know each other well? Are they, are they determined? Are they going to, you know, we don't want them to give up as soon as things get a bit tough. We want them to, to say, okay, this is tough, but how are we going to figure it out? Um, and that's so, so important for us. Um, and obviously, you know, we're looking at companies that are very, very young, very early, and so the idea is, is important, and the market they're working in is very important, but, you know, ideas can change, markets can change, but teams can't. You know, people's personalities generally don't change that much, and, and you can, if there's, if there's a little seed of determination and toughness in there, we can work with the companies to To bring that out, to bring that out of the founders. But if that's not there in the first place, we, we can't create that for them. Um, so, you know, a lot of it is very much, like I say, the personalities and the, the, the founders actual themselves. I mean, in, in terms of pattern recognition, a lot of it …

AI assessment note: “very much the strongest indicator that we look for is, is the team”

Q And in your role as CFO, you, I'm sure you've developed a certain pattern recognition with regards to what investors and VCs like to see in terms of startups. So can you reveal a little about that pattern recognition of what you have seen?

A Yeah, I mean, we, we look for specific things when we are choosing the companies that, that we want to invest in. Um, and I'm involved in the, the review of those companies and the, the interviews of those companies. Um, and from our point of view, very much the strongest indicator that we look for is, is the team. Um, you know, are the team very close knit? Do they know each other well? Are they, are they determined? Are they going to, you know, we don't want them to give up as soon as things get a bit tough. We want them to, to say, okay, this is tough, but how are we going to figure it out? Um, and that's so, so important for us. Um, and obviously, you know, we're looking at companies that are very, very young, very early, and so the idea is, is important, and the market they're working in is very important, but, you know, ideas can change, markets can change, but teams can't. You know, people's personalities generally don't change that much, and, and you can, if there's, if there's a little seed of determination and toughness in there, we can work with the companies to To bring that out, to bring that out of the founders. But if that's not there in the first place, we, we can't create that for them. Um, so, you know, a lot of it is very much, like I say, the personalities and the, the, the founders actual themselves. I mean, in, in terms of pattern recognition, a lot of it …

AI assessment note: “the strongest indicator that we look for is, is the team.”

Q And you said when you joined there that it was an accelerator that not many people knew about. So how have you seen YC develop in the time that you've been there? And what do you think have been the key drivers to the success you've seen?

A Uh, well, the first batch that I was involved in was winter, 2010. And that had, I think, 26 companies in it. Um, so, now, our last batch, we had 114 companies. So, it's, it's grown beyond recognition. Um, I think, I think if somebody had said to us in winter 2010 that we would be doing this in five years time, we would all have just laughed them out of the room and said, not a chance. Um, so, you know, it's, it's kind of, it's grown unexpectedly, I suppose. Um, And, you know, a lot of that is because startups have become much more acceptable for people to take the risk to do them. Um, and, and, you know, I mean, a lot of this is, is, you know, are we the cause or are we the effect? It's, it's a bit of both. Um, and, and also, you know, we've, we, as we've grown, we've taken on more partners, we've got more bandwidth to be able to help more companies. Um, when I started, it was, it was kind of a family business, really. You know, it was, it, Paul Graham and Jessica, and then Trevor and Robert, it, it felt like a small family business, and because they'd started it from this mindset of, oh, we want to learn about startups ourselves, so we'll invest in, in, in a batch to, to kind of figure out what all the problems are, and, and see how we can help. It was, it was a slightly different mindset. So then as we started to grow and take more partners in, it, it became a different, the…

AI assessment note: “startups have become much more acceptable for people to take the risk to do them”

Q And would you say that's the core financial cornerstone to setting up a company, the payroll itself?

A Um, I think, I think there's two things. I mean, the, the, the two main things are setting up payroll and making sure that you get tax returns filed. Um, there's a huge amount more that can be done. That's, those two are the kind of almost external reporting things. Obviously, there's a lot of internal reporting. You know, the founders should be able to tell off the top of their head at any one time how much money they have in the bank, what their runway is, what their growth rate is, what their burn is, you know, and so their burn being the net of how much money they've got in compared to how much money is being spent out. Um, so they, you know, there should be tools for them to reporting that and know that just they, every day they should know that they should be looking at that. Um, so that's, you know, and that's more internal because it, it, it depends on the company and, and, you know, the metrics they're looking at depends very much on the company. So that's, that's less, uh, Of the sort of financial side of things, but because it's part of the financial health of the company, it still, it still needs to be known.

AI assessment note: “the two main things are setting up payroll and making sure that you get tax”

Q And how can founders determine how much is the right amount to raise then? You said stop when, when you know it's enough. How should founders know how much? Is it in terms of run rate or product development? What would you say?

A Um, yeah, I mean, there's some elements of looking at run rate. Uh, we always say to, to our founders, you know, have sort of a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C. Um, and you know, if you raise a small amount of money, this is what you'll do with it. This is, you know, you maybe you'll, you'll only hire one new engineer. Maybe you'll work to get to this specific place in the product roadmap, but if you hire a little, if you raise a little bit more, then maybe you can hire a couple of more, a couple more engineers, and you can, you can accelerate that growth. So it's always a case of, you know, figuring out where you are in that spectrum of money being raised. Um, it's, it's, I think the hardest thing is that people see fundraising as a competitive thing, which it totally isn't. You know, some companies can take 250,000 dollars and get to profitability, and you know, that's great for them, because then they're in this amazing situation where they don't need any more money, and then that's exactly when the investors start to get interested in them. Um, other companies might need Three, four, five more million dollars to, to get to that stage. So it, it very much depends on what kind of company you're actually making. Um, but the founders definitely compare themselves to each other and, and see it as They're failing if they haven't raised much money.

AI assessment note: “have sort of a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C.”

Q What would you say to an apartment, then, where your office is and your team work, but you also live?

A Yeah, you see, that's, that's kind of a grey area. It's, it's not straightforward. Um, generally, we say to our founders in the very early stages is that's, you know, expense, the rents, For the, for the apartment if you're working out of it, but know that it's not a hundred percent right and know that you're going to have to change it. And as soon as you start raising money, you're really going to need to get your own office. And so you'll be paying rent on the office with your business as money. And then you were paying rent on your apartment with the money that you pay yourself. And that's something that where we also drill into the founders from very early stages is that they must pay themselves. Everybody must be paid a minimum wage. Um, because again, we've, we've seen issues in the past where founders are, um, they, they break up, and it's not, it's not a happy, um, you know, it's an acrimonious split, and the first thing that the departing founder does is go and talk to a lawyer, and the first thing the lawyer says is, well, how much have they paid you? And if the founder said, well, I haven't been, I haven't been earning any money. I haven't, I haven't had any salary. Then the lawyer says, oh, well, we can go against them for, for employment claims. You know, you're, you're entitled to the minimum wage. And so suddenly the, the company is, is under a, has all these pro…

AI assessment note: “expense, the rents, For the, for the apartment if you're working out of it”

Q Absolutely. And another aspect of your role at YC's, as well as the mentorship, is the financial assistance you kind of briefly alluded to there with the cap explanation. And so to startups and Including this is their business expenses and how they use their business expenses. So can you reveal a funny, maybe potentially horror story of expenses that maybe shouldn't have been expenses?

A Um, sure. I mean, we take this very, very seriously. Um, you know, we, we drill into the founders many times that this is not their money, and the investors have basically, you know, they're, they're expecting miracles out of these founders. They're expecting them to take a small amount of money and turn it into a huge amount of money. Um, and so, you know, we, we, we are very, very serious that the founders should be using this money to further their, their business. Um, and you know, the, the stories that we've heard where founders have not done that, we, we have taken very seriously and we've, we've taken steps to, to stop it. Um, I mean, I guess, I guess I would not describe them as funny stories because actually it's, it's really bad if people are spending, spending investors money on things they shouldn't be. Um, you know, we, we, we have had situations where that has happened. Um, and, you know, we've taken steps to, to deal with that, and, and founders have, have left companies as a result. Um, and, and it's, you know, we try to explain to founders that, you know, there, there are business expenses that are obvious business expenses. So, you know, you're, AWS hosting bill is obviously a business expense, but then there's this gray area of things that May or may not be business expenses, you know, there's, there's a lot of founders.

AI assessment note: “I would not describe them as funny stories because actually it's really bad”

Q Okay, and then what YC investment are you most excited about, and why? Uh, so probably on the same strand of favorite child.

A Yes. Um, I mean, I, I think really it's, it's more in the, the sort of, The, the types of investments, you know, it's, it's absolutely fascinating. Some of the biotech companies that we're doing and, you know, we, we have these companies who are coming in that really could change the world. You know, we, we've got companies who are coming in looking at, um, looking at being able to identify cancers earlier, looking at being able to figure out what the best cure for Alzheimer's is or for, you know, for, for cancer or for whatever. And, and there's just so much, So much possibility there that of changing the world and, you know, it's, it's, it's something that YC still gets, um, criticism of that they think that, you know, we have all these companies that, that are sort of doing ditzy social apps or, you know, whatever it might be, but no, we have these companies that are going to change the world. Um, so, you know, that's, that's what gets us excited.

AI assessment note: “it's more in the, the sort of, The, the types of investments”

Q Absolutely. And another aspect of your role at YC's, as well as the mentorship, is the financial assistance you kind of briefly alluded to there with the cap explanation. And so to startups and Including this is their business expenses and how they use their business expenses. So can you reveal a funny, maybe potentially horror story of expenses that maybe shouldn't have been expenses?

A Um, sure. I mean, we take this very, very seriously. Um, you know, we, we drill into the founders many times that this is not their money, and the investors have basically, you know, they're, they're expecting miracles out of these founders. They're expecting them to take a small amount of money and turn it into a huge amount of money. Um, and so, you know, we, we, we are very, very serious that the founders should be using this money to further their, their business. Um, and you know, the, the stories that we've heard where founders have not done that, we, we have taken very seriously and we've, we've taken steps to, to stop it. Um, I mean, I guess, I guess I would not describe them as funny stories because actually it's, it's really bad if people are spending, spending investors money on things they shouldn't be. Um, you know, we, we, we have had situations where that has happened. Um, and, you know, we've taken steps to, to deal with that, and, and founders have, have left companies as a result. Um, and, and it's, you know, we try to explain to founders that, you know, there, there are business expenses that are obvious business expenses. So, you know, you're, AWS hosting bill is obviously a business expense, but then there's this gray area of things that May or may not be business expenses, you know, there's, there's a lot of founders.

AI assessment note: “I would not describe them as funny stories because actually it's, it's really bad”