Over the last two years, YC has made more seed investments in bio companies than any other investor in the world. The number of bio companies in each batch has been exponentially increasing, and there are now 141 bio companies funded by YC. | Continue reading
Peter Reinhardt is cofounder and CEO of Segment. Segment helps companies capture data from every customer touchpoint and send it to the tools where it can be used most effectively. | Continue reading
Many of the largest companies in the world started in markets so small they looked like toys. Over time, each of these companies grew their markets or created new ones to dominate. Founders in toy markets who want to raise money need to find the right investors, and tell those in … | Continue reading
Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator, shares his thoughts on how you can succeed with a startup. | Continue reading
This fall, YC and YC alum will be hosting office hours and events in cities around the world. We’ll be adding to this list in the next couple weeks. We hope to see you there. | Continue reading
We just wrapped up YC’s 27th Demo Day. 132 companies presented over two days. Below are stats about the S18 batch. | Continue reading
David Zeevi is a James S. McDonnell independent fellow at the Rockefeller University Center for Studies in Physics and Biology. He focuses on developing computational methods for studying microbial ecology in the human gut and in the marine environment, and its contribution to hu … | Continue reading
Hiring your first engineer at a startup is incredibly hard. Start by being clear on what exactly you’re looking for. Once you know what you’re looking for, you’re ready to start finding candidates. I’ll go through the strategies available, starting with what I believe is most eff … | Continue reading
We messed up and sent acceptance emails to many Startup School applicants who we didn’t previously have a place for. We’ve decided to use this error as an opportunity to try something new: we’re going to let in every company that applied to Startup School. | Continue reading
At Y Combinator, founders decide when they want to announce that they’re part of the program. Meet 9 of the companies who have announced that they’re part of the YC Summer 2018 batch so far. | Continue reading
At Y Combinator, founders decide when they want to announce that they’re part of the program. Meet 5 of the companies who have announced that they’re part of the YC Summer 2018 batch so far.Meru Health Inc. is an online medical clinic for depression, burnout and anxiety treatment … | Continue reading
At Y Combinator, founders decide when they want to announce that they’re part of the program. Meet 14 of the companies who have announced that they’re part of the YC Summer 2018 batch. | Continue reading
I am delighted to announce that Qi Lu is joining YC to launch and run YC China. We are excited for Qi to come onboard as the Founding CEO of YC China and to build a long-term local organization that will combine the best of Silicon Valley and China and create a lot of innovation. | Continue reading
At Y Combinator, founders decide when they want to announce that they’re part of the program. Meet 15 of the companies who have announced that they’re part of the YC Summer 2018 batch. | Continue reading
Two weeks ago we announced Startup School 2018. Our free, online course will kick off in just three weeks, on August 28th. We also let founders know that 100 of the companies that complete the course will receive $10,000 in equity-free funding from YC. This year’s course will fea … | Continue reading
Geoff Ralston and Adora Cheung are both partners at YC. This episode is about Startup School. It’s a free, online course we’re offering that starts on August 28th. Anyone can sign up for the course at StartupSchool.org. | Continue reading
In this piece, my goal is to suggest the mathematical background necessary to build products or conduct academic research in machine learning. These suggestions are derived from conversations with machine learning engineers, researchers, and educators, as well as my own experienc … | Continue reading
The YC Growth Program is designed for companies with between 50 – 150 employees that are scaling rapidly. If you would like to be considered for admission, please complete this application. | Continue reading
Our 2018 summer reading list. Featuring: Shoe Dog, How to Change Your Mind, Man's Search for Meaning, Mind of Napoleon, The Undoing Project, Powerhouse, Radiolab: Border Trilogy, Parable of the Sower, The Lathe of Heaven, H is for Hawk, and others. | Continue reading
There are now hundreds, probably thousands, of people with at least some experience in startups. Most of these people are willing to help/advise some number of the people who ask. This is a blessing and a curse. | Continue reading
It's been three years since Y Combinator backed its very first nonprofit, medical treatment funding platform Watsi. | Continue reading
Founders often ask how they should split equity with their co-founders.When I search the web on this topic I often see horrible advice, typically advocating for significant inequality among different founding team members. We see this trend reflected in the thousands of applicati … | Continue reading
Jocko Willink and Mike Sarraille served together as Navy SEALs and now work together at Echelon Front. They've just launched an initiative called Overwatch. Overwatch is a talent acquisition firm that matches employers with veterans from special operations forces and combat aviat … | Continue reading
We’re hosting Startup School again this year. Startup School is a free, 10-week, online course. It’s designed for any startup founder who would like to get help through the earliest, most difficult challenges of starting a company. The course will begin on August 27, 2018 and app … | Continue reading
The hardest conversation I have to have with a founder is when they’ve spent their 1-2 million dollar angel round but haven’t found product market fit. Unfortunately, I have to ask them a very unforgiving question: why does your company deserve more money? | Continue reading
João Batalha and Luís Batalha are cofounders of Fermat’s Library. Fermat’s Library is a platform for annotating papers. Each week they send out a paper annotated by their community. Some recent papers were Birds and Frogs by Freeman Dyson and Von Neumann's First Computer Program … | Continue reading
Applications for YC Winter 2019 are now open. Here are some helpful resources if you're thinking about applying. | Continue reading
Here are some of our favorite Hacker News comments from April and May: A HN user writes about exchanging emails with John Carmack in the way Carmack writes about emailing Steve Jobs, then Carmack joins the thread; Responding to post about Mandaeism, an ancient Gnostic religion, a … | Continue reading
We launched a Series A program 6 months ago, but we started prototyping the program 6 months before that with a few companies. In that year, we’ve learned a huge amount about what works and what doesn’t work when raising an A. We’re now ready to launch the next phase of the progr … | Continue reading
Liz Wessel is the cofounder and CEO of WayUp. WayUp is a job and internship platform for college students and recent graduates. They were part of the Winter 2015 YC batch. | Continue reading
Simon Benjamin is a Professor of Quantum Technologies at Oxford. He is also the Principle Investigator for Oxford's project on Quantum Optimisation and Machine Learning. | Continue reading
One of the hardest questions to answer when considering an A is “when is my company ready?” I’ve been returning to this problem nearly every day since we started the Series A program and I’ve started to build a framework for how to solve it. | Continue reading
John Preskill is a theoretical physicist and the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech. In this episode we cover what John’s been focusing on for years: quantum information, quantum computing, and quantum error correction. | Continue reading
A machine learning learning PhD doesn’t only open up some of the highest-paying jobs around, it sets you up to have an outsized positive impact on the world. This comprehensive guide on machine learning PhDs from 80,000 Hours (YC S15) will help you get started. | Continue reading
In running our Series A program, we uncovered a way to materially influence the leverage a founder has in any round: process. Process is important because it gives founders the best opportunity to create a market for startups that favors the founders in the most important aspect … | Continue reading
Y Combinator is heading to China for the first time with a live Startup School conference on May 19, 2018 at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Applications are open today. | Continue reading
Why Raise Money - When to Raise Money - How Much to Raise? - Financing Options - Convertible Debt - Safe - Equity - Valuation - InvestorsCrowdfunding - Meeting Investors - Closing the Deal - Negotiations - Documents You Need - Next - Appendix - Glossary - SourcesIntroductionStart … | Continue reading