Latest Interviews
Showing 106–120 of 158 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Y Combinator35 min
Vinod Khosla : How to Build the Future
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla asserts that building a billion-dollar company requires a founder to shift from static planning to an adaptive mindset that prioritizes the "kitchen cabinet" and high-caliber talent over short-term revenue stability. He advises allocating at least 30% of equity to attract elite "athletes" with first-principles thinking while rigorously selecting investors who have survived near-bankruptcy to avoid the 90% of advisors who add negative value. Looking forward, this approach aims to reinvent global infrastructure by targeting 100% to 1,000% improvements in sectors like food, construction, and transportation to replicate top-tier living standards for the entire world.
- Y Combinator36 min
Sam Altman on Choosing Projects, Creating Value, and Finding Purpose
Sam Altman argues that individuals should minimize cognitive load on trivial tasks and embrace frequent failure to focus on high-impact projects, warning that a "deferred life plan" often leads to a career wasted on safe but unambitious paths. He recommends taking a dedicated gap year to explore diverse fields like nuclear engineering and AI while prioritizing physical health and sleep as foundational productivity drivers. Ultimately, Altman posits that while AGI will commodify cognitive intelligence, human purpose will persist through relationships, creativity, and the willingness to take long-term risks against short-term anxieties.
- Y Combinator26 min
Geoff Ralston and Adora Cheung Discuss Startup School
Geoff Ralston, Adora Cheung, Craig, Jeff
Startup School is a 10-week Stanford-taught online program led by YC partners and executives Paul Graham, Sam Altman, and Michael Seibel, designed to lower barriers for early-stage founders globally. The course offers two participation tracks featuring live lectures, expert advice from volunteer founders, and access to exclusive partner deals, while incentivizing serious commitment through $10,000 equity-free grants awarded to 100 completing companies. Building on last year's success where 38 graduates entered the YC accelerator, the initiative aims to maximize global innovation by fostering accountability and providing capital to prevent promising startups from failing due to early funding gaps.
- Y Combinator43 min
Elad Gil Shares Advice from the High Growth Handbook, a Guide to Scaling Startups
Elad Gil, Craig Cannon, Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, Naval Ravikant, Claire Hughes Johnson, Masud Hossain, Narayan Mallapur, Brianne Kimmel, Marius Chawa, Taylor Caforio, Tanmay Khandelwal, TD Bryant II, Andrew Pikul
In *High Growth Handbook*, Stripe co-founder John Collison distills decades of operational experience into a practical framework for executives and founders navigating scaling challenges, from hiring strategies to market entry pitfalls. The book synthesizes specific case studies and data-driven insights on funding hierarchies, product distribution, and cultural management while explicitly rejecting generic advice in favor of context-dependent execution models. By highlighting real-world examples like Stripe and Airtable, the text provides a comprehensive guide for identifying breakout opportunities and avoiding common strategic errors in high-velocity markets.
- Y Combinator20 min
Fireside Chat with Kat Mañalac, Kathryn Minshew, and Alex Cavoulacos
Kathryn Minshew, Alex Cavoulacos, Kat Minialek, Catherine Minshew, Alex Kamalakis
The Muse, a Y Combinator-backed career platform serving over 50 million users, leverages strict ethical standards and value-based hiring to cultivate an inclusive culture that rejects superficial "culture fit" in favor of diversity and mutual respect. Founders successfully navigated critical challenges including early missteps in sales recruitment, the dismissal of a co-founder candidate, and the termination of a corrupt investor term sheet to secure new funding. By maintaining a "no assholes" policy and enforcing shared values with partners, the company has established a reputation for integrity that attracts aligned talent and major clients like Facebook and Goldman Sachs.
- Y Combinator26 min
Announcing Work at a Startup
Jared Friedman, Matt Long, Craig Cannon
Scheduled for July, the Work at a Startup conference reunites Y Combinator partners Justin Kahn and Sam Altman with over 80% of the accelerator's hiring companies for a scaled event featuring 35 pitches across software, robotics, and deep tech. Attendees will engage directly with startups ranging from unicorns like Instacart to early-stage hardware firms offering roles in AI, DevOps, and co-founder positions, while also viewing live hardware demonstrations from entities such as Starsky Robotics. The gathering addresses critical market trends including remote work expansion, equity transparency, and the shifting definition of startup engineering to counter traditional compensation gaps.
- Y Combinator42 min
Mathematical Approaches to Image Processing with Carola Schönlieb
Carola Schönlieb, Craig Cannon
A researcher specializing in inverse imaging problems and partial differential equations is advancing techniques to reconstruct high-resolution medical, environmental, and historical data from severely limited measurements. By developing bi-level optimization strategies that integrate machine learning with interpretable, handcrafted mathematical models, this work addresses critical challenges in noise reduction and adversarial robustness for applications ranging from dynamic MRI imaging to the virtual restoration of illuminated manuscripts. The research successfully bridges theoretical stability guarantees with practical data-driven performance, enabling safer radiation exposure in CT scans and accurate 3D modeling of forest structures from airborne sensor data.
- Y Combinator45 min
Claire McDonnell and Jennifer Kim on Building an Inclusive Company Culture
Claire McDonnell, Jennifer Kim, Kat Manalac
Founders Jennifer Kim and TruLink CEO Isaac demonstrate that treating culture and Diversity & Inclusion as survival mechanisms drives superior long-term performance and retention compared to relying on tangible perks. Implementing specific tactics such as TruLink's "no blame" protocols and Lever's diverse interview panels allows early-stage companies to mitigate bias while fostering psychological safety. These strategies are supported by resources from organizations like Project Include and Capra Capital, emphasizing that intentional cultural design is a critical competitive advantage for sustainable growth.
- Y Combinator28 min
Anne Wojcicki : How to Build the Future
Anne Wojcicki, William Brangham, Dr. Kathleen King
Anne Wojcijk founded 23andMe to democratize genomic data by shifting healthcare incentives from illness monetization to preventative health, despite initial skepticism from medical professionals regarding direct-to-consumer genetic testing. Overcoming early market volatility and a regulatory transition, the company now boasts a community of over five million customers and has secured FDA approvals to leverage its massive dataset for drug discovery and large-scale intervention studies. This persistent execution of a decade-long vision aims to eventually enable personalized longevity strategies by linking genetic profiles with environmental factors like diet and exercise.
- Y Combinator38 min
Startup Investor School Preview with Geoff Ralston
The inaugural Investor School offers a four-day hybrid course at Y Combinator's Mountain View headquarters and via live stream to train accredited individuals in the mechanics of angel investing. Led by experienced mentors, the curriculum covers deal structures, founder assessment, and portfolio management while leveraging historical case studies to teach risk mitigation and effective capital allocation. Participants gain practical insights into navigating modern funding landscapes, with applications now open to a targeted audience seeking to diversify the investor ranks and contribute capital to early-stage startups.
- Y Combinator28 min
Keith Schacht and Doug Peltz on What Traction Feels Like - at YC Edtech Night
Keith Schacht, Doug Peltz, Geoff Ralston, Tim, Blake
Founded by former teacher Doug Peltz and entrepreneur Keith Schacht, Mystery Science delivers an interactive, pre-recorded science curriculum that acts as a virtual co-teacher for K-5 educators lacking subject expertise. The company secured a $2 million Series A round and entered Y Combinator in 2017 after validating a viral, teacher-led adoption model that currently operates in over 10% of U.S. schools. By replacing traditional textbooks with evidence-based storytelling, Mystery Science has bypassed the need for heavy sales infrastructure to become a dominant supplemental resource in a market where 95% of elementary schools lack dedicated science staff.
- Y Combinator26 min
Sarah Chou on Finding Product-Market Fit in the Education Industry - at YC Edtech Night
Sarah Chou, Karen Lien, Chen, Preston, Jeff, Tim, Chad
Informed K-12, a B2B SaaS platform founded by CEO Sarah and CTO Chen, facilitates the digitization of administrative workflows for school districts by managing over 600 distinct forms ranging from mileage reimbursements to travel authorizations. After pivoting from an unsuccessful teacher-focused Q&A model, the company established a repeatable sales process targeting Chief Business Officials and Assistant Superintendents to validate demand for a system-level paperwork solution. With 22 employees now operating in 22 distinct markets, the firm leverages direct relationship-building strategies and rigorous data privacy standards to modernize back-office operations for districts navigating budget constraints and staffing challenges.
- Y Combinator41 min
Elizabeth Iorns on Biotech Companies in YC
Elizabeth Iorns, Craig Cannon, Elizabeth Lyons
Science Exchange founder and CEO Elizabeth Lyons discusses how Y Combinator accelerates biotech innovation by prioritizing technology de-risking and capital access over traditional market validation. The program addresses the surplus of PhDs entering entrepreneurship by guiding scientists through complex intellectual property licensing and connecting them with Silicon Valley investors seeking deep domain expertise. Current strategic focuses include leveraging AI for drug toxicity prediction, advancing CRISPR applications for genetic editing, and navigating the clinical trial design challenges inherent in longevity research.
- Y Combinator43 min
Spotting Ecommerce Trends in Shipping Data - Laura Behrens Wu
Laura Behrens Wu, Craig Cannon
Founded by Laura in 2013 to bridge the technology gap in logistics, Shippo serves as a RESTful API platform aggregating shipping providers for e-commerce merchants from SMBs to enterprise marketplaces like eBay. The company mitigates complex regulatory risks and carrier inconsistencies while offering specialized insurance and tracking features to reduce cart abandonment and support niche product categories. With a global team of approximately 65 employees, Shippo advises B2B entrepreneurs to target inefficient infrastructure problems, having successfully scaled by positioning its "unsexy" shipping solution within the broader high-growth narrative of e-commerce.
- Y Combinator44 min
The CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate From the Bay
In March, Zapier launched a "delocation" program offering $10,000 to incentivize employees to leave the Bay Area, a move that attracted 30% more applicants but resulted in zero successful relocations while expanding the company's global reach. Concurrently, the 95-person all-remote organization is navigating its transition from internal promotions to hiring external management talent at the 100-employee mark, utilizing the "Manager Tools" framework and "Airbnb onboarding" to integrate new leaders. This strategic scaling supports the recent launch of a "Teams" product for enterprise clients, leveraging Zapier's extensive integration library and high retention rates to compete against well-funded rivals without relying on venture capital.