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Jared Friedman

Managing Partner, Y Combinator · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investorfounderexecutivehostengineer@snowmaker ↗jaredfriedman.wordpress.com ↗

Jared Friedman is a Managing Partner at Y Combinator, where he advises early-stage tech and AI startups and co-hosts YC media programs. He is best known for co-founding the digital library and document platform Scribd, where he served as Chief Technology Officer.

10statements → 5claims → 2claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 2.3/5average debate potential → 7said about them ↓

1 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

5 assertions · 1 opinion · 3 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Jared argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

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

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
50% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

220 words/min while actually speaking · 1.7 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Jared Friedman: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews.

Measured by listening to 2,407 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Jared Friedman is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 4/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 3/10
setup questions received 65%

Everything Jared Friedman said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Disclosure
Friedman: SF Housing Is a Multi-Billion Dollar Opportunity for Tech
“My most recent angel investment is in a YC company called Star City, which is doing local In Star City, one, because I think it's actually a multi-billion dollar opportunity, can make a huge amount of money, but also because I believe that solving the housing …”
Jared Friedman Mar 29, 2017 ▶ 18:36 20VC: How Investors Can Get Into The Best Y Combinator Startups & How YC Startups Should Choose The Right Investors with Jared Friedman, Partner @ YC
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

The other half of the tape: Jared Friedman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 6 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Nico Laqua 3Jon Dishotsky 3

Statements about Jared Friedman, by other people (1)

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

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
00213120192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions
01120192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
001.50.53120192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 3 mentions in 1 episode
2019 3 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: How Investors Can Get Into The Best Y Combinator Startups & How YC Startups Should C Mar 29, 2017 12m
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