Garry Tan, President and CEO of Y Combinator, pushes back on the common Silicon Valley belief that startups will displace major tech incumbents.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tan: Companies can reach $15M ARR in four months with two people
“Literally, you can go from zero to 15 mil ARR in about four months with, like, two or three people and, like, hundreds of agents. Like, you know, a few hundred skill files.”
Assertion Contradicted
Tan: San Francisco ABC affiliate refused to cover anti-Asian hate crimes
“ABC News you know, literally the mainstream media TV channel of San Francisco and the Bay Area would not cover anti-Chinese and anti-Asian crime.”
Insight
Tan: Great ventures begin as cults with beliefs defying orthodoxy
“From Palantir, I definitely learned that everything that's awesome in my life is kind of a cult. That starts with some sort of truth or belief that flies in the face of an orthodoxy, which is very punk, actually.”
Opinion
Tan: AI and vibe coding multiply developer productivity by hundreds
“What's happening right now with vibe coding and agentic coding literally any given person could be 400 of that person, like, from two years, like, even, like, nine months ago you can be a multiple of yourself.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Tan: Pure per-seat SaaS may disappear within 5 to 10 years
“Like, you know, I was just doing an analysis on, like, pure sass, and I was like, oh, shoot, like, you know, a pure, like, per seat sass thing, like, not totally clear it will exist in another five or 10 years.”
Insight
Tan: A markdown file is an employee that executes tasks perfectly
“A markdown file is an employee. And it's an employee that will do the job perfectly every single time. And it'll do it like as many times as you want.”