Y Combinator, every mention

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every year anyone Jason Calacanis 48Chamath Palihapitiya 25David Friedberg 10David Sacks 9Jake Loosararian 5Paul Buchheit 1Mark Pincus 1Alexandra Botez 1

Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where Y Combinator comes up

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Dario Defends Himself, Datacenter Panic, AI Doomer Trap, Senate Toss-Up Aug 21, 2026 · 1 mention

AI Sovereignty Wars, Palantir-Nvidia Deal, SCOTUS Birthright Ruling, Newsom’s CA Budget Lie Jul 3, 2026 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 19:33 Jason Calacanis Sam Altman went to Y Combinator and he said, we'll give you two million dollars worth of free tokens. 2 times in the scene

Home Affordability Crisis, Palantir's Advantage, Big Short on AI, H-1B Abuse, Solar Storm Hits Earth Nov 14, 2025 · 1 mention

Does OpenAI Need a Bailout? Mamdani Wins, Socialism Rising, Filibuster Nuclear Option Nov 7, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 1:24:15 Jason Calacanis Techstars or Y Combinator or other folks even know they exist, because half of them aren't incorporated yet, right?

Trump Takes On the Fed, US-Intel Deal, Why Bankruptcies Are Up, OpenAI's Longevity Breakthrough Aug 29, 2025 · 2 mentions

Winning the AI Race Part 1: Michael Kratsios, Kelly Loeffler, Shyam Sankar, Chris Power Jul 23, 2025 · 8 mentions

  • ▶ 1:00:34 Jason Calacanis Next up, uh, we have Paul from Y Combinator.
  • ▶ 1:01:11 Jason Calacanis Um, you're at Y Combinator now.
  • ▶ 1:01:40 Jason Calacanis I think Paul Graham's great innovation at Y Combinator was saying, I'm just going to accept two or three people who actually build the product. 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 1:04:41 David Friedberg Are you seeing in the applications you get to YC, or that you've heard of more physical AI, robotics, automation, those sorts of tooling?
  • ▶ 1:07:37 Jason Calacanis It was kind of like the false start, but you did see a bunch of new entrants applying for Y Combinator or other things.
  • ▶ 1:09:44 Paul Buchheit And so actually a lot of people don't know, we started OpenAI at Y Combinator, uh, 10 years ago in 2015.

Red-pilled Billionaires, LA Fire Update, Newsom's Price Caps, TikTok Ban, Jobless MBAs Jan 18, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 1:21:21 Mark Pincus Those kinds of jobs have dried up, and the kinds of jobs that I think should be interesting to MBAs are more like, go find a Y Combinator company and join a founding team as the business person or whatever, and these people are smart and…

LA's Wildfire Disaster, Zuck Flips on Free Speech, Why Trump Wants Greenland Jan 11, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 1:33:30 Jason Calacanis When you run an accelerator, like I do, Techstars, or Y Combinator, you aren't bound by that because 50% of the companies pivot almost by design.

Hurricane fallout, AlphaFold, Google breakup, Trump surge, VC giveback, TikTok survey Oct 11, 2024 · 1 mention

Jake Loosararian, Gecko Robotics | All-In Summit 2024 Sep 30, 2024 · 5 mentions

  • ▶ 6:22 Jake Loosararian First, I got an offer to buy the company from a company that makes power plants, and then second, two partners from a group called Y Combinator said that if I stayed poor and kept on building the vision, that one day Gecko would change…
  • ▶ 20:45 Jake Loosararian So, you know, Gecko actually became profitable in 2017 right after YC's launch in 2016. 4 times in the scene

Big Fed rate cuts, AI killing call centers, $50B govt boondoggle, VC's rough years, Trump/Kamala Sep 20, 2024 · 5 mentions

  • ▶ 47:13 Jason Calacanis There was a tweet storm this week that Y Combinator might be having a hard time replicating their early success. 4 times in the scene
  • ▶ 1:00:37 Jason Calacanis If you own seven like YC or we do in a company, you're going to own three.

"Founder Mode," DOJ alleges Russian podcast op, Kamala flips proposals, Tech loses Section 230? Sep 6, 2024 · 6 mentions

  • ▶ 9:04 Jason Calacanis On Sunday, the Y Combinator founder, Paul Graham, published an essay titled Founder Mode. 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 34:14 Jason Calacanis Then Breslow made waves on Twitter by calling Stripe and YC the mob bosses of Silicon Valley. 3 times in the scene

Mag 7 sell-off, Wiz rejects Google, UBI, Kamala in, China's nuclear buildout, Sacks responds to PG Jul 26, 2024 · 16 mentions

Presidential Debate Reaction, Biden Hot Swap?, Tech unemployment, OpenAI considers for-profit & more Jun 29, 2024 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 54:44 Jason Calacanis The co-founders in SSI include Daniel Gross, a YC partner, and Pioneer Labs co-founder and OpenAI engineer Daniel Levy.

Sam Altman: Getting Fired (and Re-Hired) by OpenAI, Agents, AI Copyright issues May 10, 2024 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 0:58 Jason Calacanis And he did a stint at Y Combinator, where he was president from 2014 to 2019. 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 49:59 Jason Calacanis And you had a lot of, I think you did like some sort of a test when you were at YC about UBI.

E173: Google buying HubSpot? FTX depositors not made whole, AI job fears, Ukraine joining NATO Apr 5, 2024 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 59:06 Jason Calacanis Did you see the AI from some Y Combinator company where they like made a little video of us and like we're talking about somebody's nuts and then they were like, you said, oh, I'm going to ask my butler to ask my assistant to ask my house…

E169: Elon sues OpenAI, Apple's decline, TikTok ban, Bitcoin $100K?, Science corner: Microplastics Mar 8, 2024 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 29:11 Chamath Palihapitiya There was this thing where in the open AI emails that were leaked, they talked about being able to swap this phantom equity in open AI into either YC equity.

E166: Mind-blowing AI Video: OpenAI launches Sora + Is Biden too old? Tucker/Putin interview & more Feb 17, 2024 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 51:45 Jason Calacanis He went viral in twenty-twenty-two after he called YC and Stripe like mob bosses and had this whole conspiracy theory of how they were trying to kill his company.

E161: US strikes Houthis, market instability, Q1 rate cuts in doubt, Carta's major mishap, DEI Jan 13, 2024 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 30:41 Jason Calacanis But when you inserted safes into this, you know, a simple agreement for future equity that Y Combinator created, and you put capital, um, 2 times in the scene

E158: Global trade disrupted, Adobe/Figma canceled, realtors sued, Trump blocked Dec 23, 2023 · 2 mentions

All-In Summit: Alexandra Botez takes on the Besties in a 1v4 simultaneous chess match Oct 2, 2023 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 23:08 Alexandra Botez We went through Lightspeed, Y Combinator, raised some VC funding, and then when it didn't pan out, I had started streaming chess for fun once a week because I missed the game, and weirdly, I didn't feel like we had product market fit in…

E147: TED goes woke, Canada's Nazi blunder, AI adds vision, plus: who owns OpenAI? Sep 29, 2023 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 1:06:51 Chamath Palihapitiya So even if he doesn't have any equity in OpenAI, he'll get, he'll just put his money into the best startups that it's like Y Combinator on steroids.

E146: Did the Fed break the VC model? Plus IPOs, M&A, revaluing unicorns & more Sep 22, 2023 · 1 mention

All-In Summit: Nuclear fusion and the potential for energy abundance Sep 22, 2023 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 1:37 David Friedberg Helion's raised about 2.2 billion dollars since its founding with a recent massive five hundred million dollar funding round led by Sam Altman, who we all know is the CEO of OpenAI and formerly ran Y Combinator.

E141: State of Series A's, VC dry powder, IPO window opens + more with Bill Gurley & Brad Gerstner Aug 11, 2023 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 37:56 Jason Calacanis Okay, so I did this series, I did the seed round of Stripe, where I'm Y Combinator, and I say, you know what, 50 billion's fine, we're gonna mark it at fifty billion because we, we invested at two million in Stripe.
  • ▶ 51:46 Jason Calacanis Okay, is Stripe worth, we'll just pick Stripe as an example, fifty billion or a hundred billion, and the last investors are at a hundred, YC in a two million.

E122: Is AI the next great computing platform? ChatGPT vs. Google, containing AGI & RESTRICT Act Mar 31, 2023 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 44:41 David Sacks Yeah, he's, you know, he's a multi-time founder who sat at the top of YC and got to see everything that worked.
  • ▶ 55:55 David Sacks You look at 70% of the last YC class was ready, all AI startups.

E120: Banking crisis and the great VC reset Mar 17, 2023 · 5 mentions

  • ▶ 56:58 Jason Calacanis YC basically let go of their growth team this week. 4 times in the scene
  • ▶ 1:08:12 Jason Calacanis When it works, you get money from founder university or, you know, tech stars or Y combinator, then go to a seed fund, then go to a series a fund.

E112: Is Davos a grift? Plus: globalist mishaps, debt ceilings, TikTok's endgame & more Jan 20, 2023 · 1 mention

E111: Microsoft to invest $10B in OpenAI, generative AI hype, America's over-classification problem Jan 13, 2023 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 40:16 David Friedberg And they, you know, kind of went on, and the whole thing about Sam Gregg, Elon Reed, Jessica, Peter Thiel, AWS, YC are all donating to support OpenAI.

E110: 2023 Bestie Predictions! Jan 6, 2023 · 3 mentions

E108: Doxing debate, Nuclear fusion breakthrough, state of the markets & more Dec 16, 2022 · 1 mention

E80: Recession deep dive: VC psychology, macro risks, Tiger Global, predictions and more May 13, 2022 · 1 mention

E75: Fast shuts down, board culpability, Elon buys 9% of Twitter, deplatforming's evolution & more Apr 9, 2022 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 40:29 Jason Calacanis And what was true at one point in time when Paul Graham gave this advice and he set up Y Combinator, you don't want to say their name, but it is Paul Graham had a terrible experience in his company with venture capitalists.

E65: VC markup dynamics, Russia/US tensions over Ukraine, Altos Labs raises $3B, Stripe mafia & more Jan 29, 2022 · 5 mentions

  • ▶ 1:04:53 Jason Calacanis Did a tweet thread basically saying that YC and Stripe are the mob bosses of Silicon Valley. 5 times in the scene

E62: Elizabeth Holmes verdict, fraud origins & takeaways, navigating "The Great Markdown" & more Jan 8, 2022 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 46:21 Chamath Palihapitiya Yeah, so, you know, Paul Graham wrote this great essay, uh, as part of what he's the founder of Y Combinator, and, you know, he has this very simple, you know, framework of looking at companies, which is your default debt or your default…

E55: Valuing crypto projects, Rivian worth $100B+, inflation: causes and corrections and more Nov 13, 2021 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 1:26:57 David Friedberg But, um, this guy said that there was a, a guy that applied to Y Combinator that had seven hundred and fifty million dollars in crypto. 3 times in the scene

E43: Innovative venture strategies, Zymergen's implosion, Square acquires Afterpay & more Aug 6, 2021 · 1 mention

E28: Current state of public & private markets, Archegos debacle, US debt issues, wealth tax & more Apr 1, 2021 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 8:47 David Sacks It used to be that like, you know, I remember when, you know, pre-revenue seed deals were more like a five to 10 cap, and then like they had a little bit of revenue, it might be a 15 cap, and like the hottest company out of YC, 3 times in the scene

E26: State of Venture Capital, plus fan questions on longevity, decentralization & quantum computing Mar 20, 2021 · 4 mentions

  • ▶ 34:05 Chamath Palihapitiya Okay, YC company, I led the series
  • ▶ 45:26 David Sacks So there became more of like a playbook for just like how you actually get a company off the ground. 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 1:08:50 Jason Calacanis So if you go to the flow of funds, and that link I sent for public.co slash backstage, she is took all of her different funds, and said you can buy 10% for five million dollars you own 10% of essentially Sequoia Capital, or Y Combinator,…

E10: Twitter & Facebook botch censorship (again), the publisher vs. distributor debate & more Oct 16, 2020 · 1 mention

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