Latest Interviews
Showing 1–7 of 7 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Y Combinator29 min
Emergent: How Six Months of Tinkering Led To A $100M ARR Company
Emergent is an AI-driven platform founded by Dunzo alumni Mukund and Madhav that enables non-programmers to build and monetize functional software through natural language interaction. Operating with a 95% Bangalore-based engineering team, the company has scaled to an $100 million annual recurring revenue run rate and serves over 8.5 million users by leveraging a proprietary multi-agent architecture that ranks first on industry coding benchmarks. The platform distinguishes itself by focusing on end-to-end software execution rather than prototypes, having shipped over 10 million applications globally within its first nine months of operation.
- Y Combinator29 min
Zepto: How Two 17-Year-Olds Built India's Largest Seller Of Fruits and Vegetables
Aadit Palicha, Jared Friedman, Keval
Founded in 2020 by college dropouts Adit Ayyal and Keval Karia, Zepto revolutionized India's grocery sector by pivoting from a WhatsApp-based service to a proprietary 10-minute dark store delivery model. Operating as a massive logistics and supply chain network, the company now manages over 200,000 jobs and delivers tens of millions of monthly orders while leveraging AI to optimize forecasting and advertising revenue. With current expansion plans targeting India's top 50 cities, Zepto aims to replicate the scale of major global retailers like Walmart and cultivate a domestic consumer goods ecosystem.
- Y Combinator21 min
BillionToOne Is Solving One of Biotech’s Hardest Problems
Jared Friedman, David Tsao, Oguzhan Atay
Billion to One, founded by PhD students Oguzhan and David, leverages proprietary synthetic DNA methods to detect rare cell-free DNA variations for prenatal screening and cancer liquid biopsies. Since its public listing with a valuation over $4 billion, the company has scaled its automated facility to process 600,000 tests annually and launched North Star Select for late-stage cancer treatment guidance. The firm now executes a strategic roadmap to address early-stage cancers through a capital-efficient progression from commercial adoption to population-wide screening, aiming to significantly reduce cancer mortality rates.
- Y Combinator31 min
This Startup Catches Fraud at Scale
Jared Friedman, Karine Mellata
Variance has officially exited stealth mode following a $21 million Series A round to commercialize AI agents that automate trust and safety infrastructure for Fortune 500 clients like GoFundMe and IAC. Founded by ex-Apple engineers Karine and Michael, the 12-person team leverages a unique "agentic" architecture to solve complex unstructured data problems in fraud detection and compliance without manual rule updates. Despite a 2024 leadership injury that threatened operations, the company is scaling its full-stack decisioning platform to replace traditional human review workflows with adaptive, self-healing systems designed to trace sophisticated abuse graphs.
- Y Combinator1 min
The AI Economy Is Stabilizing
By 2025, the AI economy has stabilized into a three-tier ecosystem of model developers, application providers, and infrastructure firms following a volatile 2024. A standardized playbook for building AI-native companies has enabled broad profitability across all layers without any single entity achieving market dominance. This progression reflects steady, incremental improvements in model capabilities rather than revolutionary breakthroughs that would disrupt the current trajectory.
- Y Combinator14 min
How Blake Scholl Built The First Independent Supersonic Jet
Boom Supersonic, founded by former Amazon and Groupon engineer Blake Schull, is advancing its XB-1 supersonic prototype to validate the technical feasibility of a next-generation airliner. This initiative aims to replace the Concorde with the Overture, a 65-passenger aircraft utilizing sustainable fuel and sonic boom mitigation technology to enable overland travel. By prioritizing business-class pricing and targeting commercial operations by 2029, the venture seeks to overcome the historical economic failures of supersonic flight through a lean development strategy.
- 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.