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We help founders make something people want.
In our new documentary series Backstory, we’re profiling the extraordinary Group Partners at the heart of YC. We’re kicking it off with Surbhi Sarna, YC’s first healthcare and biotech-focused Group Partner. In 2018 Surbhi Sarna sold her company nVision for $275 million to one of the world’s leading healthcare companies. But to understand how Surbhi got where she is today, you have to go back to her sophomore year in high school, when a cancer scare upended her life and set her on an entirely new path. In this episode Surbhi opens up about her health scare, how it impacted her life going forward and how she was able to ignore the people who doubted her along the way. If you've ever felt undervalued or underappreciated, Surbhi's story will provide you with insights and advice on how to overcome those hurdles on your journey to starting a company. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/Backstory-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/Backstory-jobs
For this latest episode of Office Hours, the Group Partners are sharing stories from their worst investor meetings. We’ll outline some of the weird plays we’ve seen investors try to pull — but we’ll also confess times that we, as founders, bungled meetings we could’ve nailed. We’ll discuss what differentiates a truly great investor, and shed a bit of light on something we rarely talk about publicly: the YC Investor Database. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/OfficeHours-apply Work at a startup: https://yc.link/OfficeHours-jobs
Should you and your startup live in San Francisco? Y Combinator Partners, Michael Seibel and Dalton Caldwell, debate their different opinions on whether startups are more likely to succeed in the Golden City or elsewhere. Where do they find common ground? Watch to find out. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs
You might think that pivoting is something done only by the startups that don’t make it. In reality, a huge number of the best startups pivoted. In this first episode of our new series, Office Hours, Y Combinator Group Partners share their favorite stories of entrepreneurs who pivoted and went on to build game-changing companies. The group of startup experts also share their own pivot stories and help answer the questions: How do you know if it’s time for your startup to pivot—and how will you know if that next idea is the one? Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/OfficeHours-apply Work at a startup: https://yc.link/OfficeHours-jobs
How will the rise of AI impact startups and entrepreneurs? Join Michael Seibel and Dalton Caldwell for a discussion on the opportunities and challenges AI brings for founders. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply
Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs
When it comes to building a startup you’re never doing it entirely from scratch. Inspiration and ideas can come from a variety of places, including other successful startups. But there’s a thin line between borrowing smart ideas and copying them blindly - otherwise known as Cargo Culting.
In this episode Dalton and Michael break down the problem with Cargo Culting and offer advice on the right way to draw inspiration from other successful companies.
Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply
Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs
YC Visiting Group Partner Divya Bhat talks about how to set your KPIs (key metrics) and how to prioritize your time. This talk helps founders launch faster and set goals in order to make real progress. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/SUS-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/SUS-jobs
It can be very easy for founders to fall into a trap of denial in the early stages of a startup’s life. But in order for your company to really take off, it’s critical to be honest with yourself and to build a community of friends and collaborators who are willing to challenge groupthink. In the first episode of our new series “The Main Function,” YC President and CEO Garry Tan explains how founders must face hard truths in order to take their company from dream to reality.
Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/MainFunction-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/MainFunction-jobs
Today Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan sits down with one of the best founders of a generation, Tracy Young. She cofounded Plangrid which sold to Autodesk for $875M, and is back with her new startup called Tigereye. But since it’s AAPI heritage month, we’re talking about a different kind of origin story.
Tracy's Predictable Growth newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7018963257554046976/
Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/MainFunction-apply
Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/MainFunction-jobs
YC Group Partner Diana Hu was the CTO of her YC startup Escher Reality, which was acquired by Niantic (makers of Pokemon Go). She shares her advice for being a technical founder at the earliest stages - including topics like how to ship an MVP fast, how to deal with technology choices and technical debt, and how and when to hire an engineering team.
Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/SUS-apply Work at a startup: https://yc.link/SUS-jobs
Amanda is a wife. A mother. A blogger. A Christian.
A charming, beautiful, bubbly, young woman who lives life to the fullest.
But Amanda is dying, with a secret she doesn’t want anyone to know.
She starts a blog detailing her cancer journey, and becomes an inspiration, touching and
captivating her local community as well as followers all over the world.
Until one day investigative producer Nancy gets an anonymous tip telling her to look at Amanda’s
blog, setting Nancy on an unimaginable road to uncover Amanda’s secret.
Award winning journalist Charlie Webster explores this unbelievable and bizarre, but
all-too-real tale, of a woman from San Jose, California whose secret ripped a family apart and
left a community in shock.
Scamanda is the true story of a woman whose own words held the key to her secret.
New episodes every Monday.
Follow Scamanda on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Amanda’s blog posts are read by actor Kendall Horn.
