Latest Interviews

Software for Agents

Projections indicate that the next trillion internet users will be AI agents rather than humans, yet current human-centric infrastructure creates slow and brittle interactions due to its reliance on visual interfaces. To address this, the market requires a new software foundation built on machine-readable protocols like APIs and CLIs, with successful startups emerging by designing "agent-first" architectures instead of retrofitting legacy systems. This shift creates a primary investment opportunity in building the foundational software infrastructure that enables autonomous agent discovery and usage, inviting founders to initiate contact if they are developing solutions for this specific need.

Counter-Swarm Defense

An incident involving Iranian drone swarms exposing the cost asymmetry and fragmentation of current defense systems has prompted Y Combinator to solicit counter-swarm stack solutions. These new initiatives aim to replace traditional interceptor models with software-driven, non-kinetic technologies capable of neutralizing thousands of coordinated units through sensor fusion and autonomy targeting. The resulting infrastructure is expected to function more like scalable cloud networks than conventional weaponry, fundamentally shifting the defense paradigm from weapon operation to distributed system management.

Company Brain

Enterprise AI automation is currently bottlenecked by the fragmentation of proprietary domain knowledge siloed within human memory and legacy systems, creating an urgent need for a "company brain" that extracts, structures, and converts this data into executable skills files. This dynamic infrastructure serves as a critical intermediate layer between raw enterprise data and reliable AI agents, moving beyond simple document chatbots to map specific operational workflows like refund handling and incident response. The speaker predicts universal global adoption of this technology for safe, efficient automation and invites startups to apply to Y Combinator to build this essential primitive.

AI for Government

Despite the private sector's rapid adoption of AI for form processing, government agencies still rely on manual systems, creating a critical need for automated solutions to manage surging application volumes. This event addresses the unique challenges and high-value rewards of penetrating the public sector, where successful vendors gain sticky long-term contracts that can expand significantly after initial acquisition. The speaker specifically invites skilled developers to join the effort of building specialized AI tools that bridge this digital divide and replicate global efficiency benchmarks within government operations.

Early Decision for Students

Y Combinator is launching an "Early Decision" track specifically for graduating seniors to apply during their final year of study, securing guaranteed funding and a spot in the Summer 2026 batch. This program eliminates the immediate pressure to interview for traditional employment by providing financial support and a committed place in a future cohort before graduation. By allowing founders to receive capital and enrollment immediately, the initiative enables students to focus entirely on building their startups while completing their degrees.

Using LLMs Instead of Government Consulting

With the U.S. government spending hundreds of billions annually on consulting, rising political pressure and the maturation of Large Language Models are driving a shift away from reliance on major vendors like Deloitte and Accenture. Investors are now targeting startups that streamline FedRAMP compliance and utilize AI to validate policy legality, creating a strategic avenue to displace traditional consulting work. This market evolution presents a clear opportunity to fund LLM-based solutions that replace outsourced labor with automated, cost-effective government operations.

AI Native Enterprise Software

Top-tier enterprise vendors Salesforce and ServiceNow established dominant market positions by pioneering cloud-native solutions, a disruption pattern now emerging in the generational shift toward AI-native systems. This transition promises to transform enterprise software from passive record-keeping into active assistants for sales, HR, and accounting, creating a structural opening for new startups to challenge incumbent architectures. Founders and builders interested in developing these next-generation AI tools are invited to connect to capitalize on this competitive window.

AI Voice Assistants for Email

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The speaker proposes a collaborative initiative to engineering teams for building voice-activated tools that triage emails, draft replies, and manage scheduling during the daily commute. Leveraging current advancements in voice AI technology, the project aims to eliminate keyboard dependency for users with mobility impairments while utilizing comprehensive inbox data to train a general-purpose assistant. This partnership seeks to transform the email inbox into a foundational dataset for social, logistical, and linguistic intelligence, ultimately enabling users to achieve inbox zero before arriving at work.

AI Research Labs

Y Combinator is actively soliciting applications from founders to establish new AI research labs with multi-year commercialization timelines, explicitly mirroring the long-term trajectory of OpenAI, its first investor. While acknowledging OpenAI's success in pioneering the independent research model, the accelerator emphasizes that significant unsolved problems persist to justify funding deep, open-ended inquiry beyond typical three-month product cycles. This initiative aims to capitalize on remaining opportunities in the field by supporting new entrants committed to extended research horizons rather than rapid shipping.

Internal Agent Builder

Y Combinator is funding founders to build internal agent platforms that enable every employee to create personal AI tools for automating routine tasks. This initiative leverages secure infrastructure integrated with daily software to handle sensitive data, effectively reducing time spent on mundane operations like term sheet reviews. The strategic goal is to eliminate low-value work so staff can dedicate their efforts to high-value human activities, such as supporting founders, while YC invites entrepreneurs to develop the foundational AI infrastructure required for this shift.

AI Personal Tutor for Everyone

Grant Sanderson

Building on JCR Licklider's 1960s concept of human-computer symbiosis, the initiative leverages modern multimodal reasoning models to deliver the interactive, step-by-step visualizations and voice explanations seen in benchmarks like 3Blue1Brown. This approach overcomes historical limitations by offering true personalization that decomposes complex topics into accessible formats for every learner with basic internet access. The project concludes with an open invitation for developers of AI tools to collaborate in realizing a vision where high-quality, personalized tutoring is universally available.

AI Personal Assistant

Driven by recent advances in Large Language Models, a new class of AI personal assistants is emerging to transform static task lists into automated execution systems that act as full-fledged chief of staff. These advanced tools leverage deep contextual understanding of a user's correspondence, scheduling, and work routines to independently handle emails, calendar management, and recurring processes while maintaining user approval controls. The initiative seeks strategic collaboration with startups to bring this executive assistance technology to market, ultimately offloading operational burdens so users can dedicate their attention exclusively to high-value strategic work.

More Design Founders

The presentation argues that integrating advanced coding tools over the next decade will elevate superior design to a primary strategic asset, prompting a shift from traditional employment to founder-led product launches. By redefining the "design job of the future" as entrepreneurship, the speaker highlights how user empathy and quality standards, proven by successes like Airbnb and Stripe, can drive independent company formation. Consequently, the strategy prioritizes funding teams that embed strong design culture from the outset to capitalize on these accelerating technological capabilities.

Full-stack AI Companies

Y Combinator announced a strategic pivot to prioritize funding for "full-stack AI companies" that replace industry core operations with automated agents rather than selling tools to existing businesses. This initiative specifically targets slow-moving incumbents, aiming to have startups build entirely new firms that directly compete with traditional players using large language models. The shift marks a deliberate move from a vendor model to an aggressive strategy designed to displace established industry dinosaurs through complete operational automation.

The Future of Software Engineering

Language models are projected to reduce software development costs to near zero while driving demand for human engineers to shift from direct coding to managing autonomous agent teams. These agents are expected to assume specialized responsibilities spanning quality assurance, operations, and compliance audits, fundamentally transforming the engineering workflow. Consequently, the speaker is seeking funding for startups that provide generalist developers with tools to coordinate these large agent forces for high-volume software delivery.