Really love the new site and how it highlights founders so well.
Only minor tweak I'd make is for the desktop viewport size - make it so you can also click the company names instead of needing to precisely scroll for the images to show up for that company. With notched mouse wheels it's all too easy to skip one even with a regular scroll. Or increase the scroll distance.
Also might suggest using a gradient mask to fade out the company logos as you scroll the primary text block up. Some of them get very close to the text and the one-by-one removal feels a tad distracting.
And really minor but kept finding myself trying to click the photos to see things larger. Would be nice if they could come up in a media viewer with a small caption, and let me arrow key or swipe through.
I think the items in the carousel are just too wide. There's usually some side margin showing more of the previous and next items.
I turned my phone to landscape and the scroll "sensitivity" no longer felt wrong, but then a new bug was revealed. It chooses to put focus on the right-most item in the carousel. Now the animation doesn't play for the first item.
This is followed by a series of before and after pictures. YC offers not money but personal transformation. Their standard offer of $500,000 for 7% is not mentioned on the homepage, maybe because it would invite comparison ... when you see numbers like this your first thought is: I wonder what other accelators offer? The before and after pictures are something no other accelator can compete with.
Unless things have changed? It used to be $125,000 for 7% on a SAFE, then $375,000 which converts at your next fundraise at whatever the most favourable terms offered are. So unless you never raise more money it's certainly not $500k for 7%.
Its been years since I felt urged to congratulate someone for their "webdesign", but this is really good. No boring glossy landing picture, but a distinct claim, and the the before / whoisit / after Element is unique, in a good way.
Yep, I would like to see the success/failure ratio. That would give me a good idea whether this VC funding fantasy is a number game, intentional success or just plain old luck.
Am I the only one who thinks that the Coinbase [1] picture has been AI generated, or at least heavily AI-altered?
The movie posters behind look like garbage, and what's wrong with that Return of the Jedi poster? Why is there a random blob and a broken face at the top instead of Darth Vader?
And why is there a random Google+ logo on the left?
And why does Fred Ehrsam have a huge thumb and silky smooth legs?
No, it's 100% generated. The background posters mke no sense at all, inclunding Google+ there. And also Fred's hands are wrong. I wonder if they didn't have a pic of both of them together and asked AI to generate it, though Gemini or even Grok would do a better job than that.
some of the design interactions are really polished. the section written with the quotes from founders is really cool. the hover effect with the before and after of the YC partners is a great touch too!
A minor piece of feedback, though: might be just me, not sure if anyone else has this pavlovian conditioning, but seeing the black banner/bar on top with the YC logo/color below and HN background color immediately makes me think someone passed away.
Turning a builder into a formidable founder, which via the PG quote is someone who seems they will always get what they want is in its self a death. A builder... a truth-seeking creator dies. Devoured by someone who gets what they want, a superego. There should be a black bar at the top.
Clean design. I like how it puts founders front and center instead of just listing company logos.
One suggestion: adding a quick filter by batch year or industry would make it easier to browse. Sometimes I want to see what's new in a specific space like AI or dev tools.
If you feature a quote from someone, prominently, on a prominent website, you might check in with them to make sure they don't have any issues with the usage.
The carousel is way too fast to be able to read the texts. I’ve made the same mistake as a developer when I already know each text by heart, but actual users can’t read them fast enough.
Is there a way to see all the inactive companies? Some have great names and addresses. I wonder if there's a way to efficiently use them - even keeping all the paperwork intact.. like buying a shell company and saving a lot of the overheads and registering/signups.
Brands are resurrected in fashion all the time with new designers, CEOs and owners while keeping the name, heritage (codes/motifs/archive,) goodwill and stores intact.
You could even have the ex-founders sit on a steering committee or advisory board for the switcheroo mob who could be their new bosses.
With all the unemployment around, startup musical chairs could be a solution. Isn't founders' equity the only valuable thing left in the startup world? No chance in getting rich as an employee - and with AI, who is/will not be replaceable? Also, finding the right people from the get-go is another significant challenge, and users of course.
Why don't those inactive companies share their failure stories to find some value-add? It's 2026: they could be mere hours away from an IPO horizon :)
I noticed a photo of the Kalshi founders on the new homepage. I remember when Kalshi launched I thought it was so bad, and that those founders must be the very bottom of their class... they're billionaires now!
I don’t think it’s dark, but I’ve been told that my similar attitude can rub some people the wrong way. I’m not a jerk about it, but I always show up prepared to get to where I think we need to be. If that rubs people the wrong way so be it.
EDIT
The downvotes are interesting. Do people think the world will just give them things? I'm reminded of a quote I keep nearby from a book I read many years ago.
“His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.”
I think your edit shows why people are reading your comment in a different light than yours.
When you see that quote, you apparently focus on the "if I want X to happen, I need to create the circumstances that will lead to it".
When I read that quote, I immediately think of a long list of people who choose actions with complete disregard to the consequences of those actions. Mass unemployment? Destroy local communities? Poison the environment? Surveillance states? Hey, as long as they got what they wanted...
> Do people think the world will just give them things?
No. But just that more and more people are more and more fed up of collectively paying/enduring the consequences of the ambition of a few people that do. not. care. about. their. fellow. humans. neither. the. planet.
> When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action.
Indeed. And if you act "regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way", without discernement, that tells something about you that you may, or may not realise.
You added this part. In my mind I add discernment to do right by others among other things.
Unfortunately when we distill things down to quips nuance is lost. Maybe it's my optimism, but I tend to read things charitably. Nothing I've ever accomplished has been without obstacles, some that were seemingly impossible to pass at the time.
"Without discernment" is implied in "regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way". Many of us would consider excessively exploiting others to be an obstacle.
There is at least one obvious company in the list where the founder does not advertise the slightest discernment in his public discourse (about the tech, about the business and about the impact on society).
We do not have to be charitable with people that have such financial and industrial (hence political) power over our lives, and that do not display obvious and verifiable signs of charity upon the human kind either.
Impressive! Seeing all the before and after photos is a nice touch.
With regards to the actual web page, white text on light background (partners part) makes it nice easily readable.
There’s something that bothers me about reducing achievement to stock price and exit valuations. Yet, it is sobering to witness the machinery laid bare.
The whole aesthetic of startup success—those triumphant IPO bell-ringing moments—celebrates money, not wisdom or authentic progress. I’m aware this is the dominant framework, but that doesn’t make it feel less hollow. Welcome to Heartbreak.
I’m not against big exits / valuations and showing the numbers. But… what would have added a bit of interest would have been real metrics. For example I believe AirBnB has 2 billion guest nights. Showing that instead of the ipo value is more impressive to people who want to deliver value rather than capture value.
Real world metrics would feel slightly more on brand than valuations
They should show real real world metrics, like the effect of short term rentals on the housing market, or how much of the food delivery fees go to the middleman.
> The whole aesthetic of startup success—those triumphant IPO bell-ringing moments—celebrates money, not wisdom or authentic progress.
Didn't see anything about ethics either, which, again, is not necessarily what a VC firm is about. It's actually kind of refreshing--the website clearly conveys YC's focus: It's about being "formidable" and "intensive work" and "urgency" and "fast." The editing on this site is impressive. They have boiled away everything down to the core of what the firm believes in, and it's "work hard make lots of money fast". Not something I'd personally be interested in being part of, but the site's wording is remarkable in its honesty, and I clearly know after reading it that the YC experience would not be my cup of tea!
Wisdom and authentic progress are hard to measure. They are also not the goals enterprises pursue. Enterprises go for the money, but the money is normally paid by satisfied customers; this side effect is what makes enterprises viable and useful. (In case of VC money, customers even don't have to pay for sustainably for some time.)
An IPO or a large acquisition is like a graduation event for school students. A diploma or a SAT certificate also do not certify wisdom, or even progress. They certify a certain degree of success, and a transition into "adult life". Or think about this as of an orbital insertion event for a spacecraft. Not an end goal, but a precondition for a serious progress.
If you seek wisdom, a VC firm like YCombinator is likely not the most appropriate tool for your quest. (An attempt to found a business may bring some wisdom, as usual, at a cost.)
Seems that the "it's a numbers game" thesis delivered.
(I know the previous deal was different but just to get an estimate ...)
500k to each of 5,000+ startups = 2.5 billion
in exchange of
7% of 1.3 trillion = 91 billion
~36x return.
It's even better than that as they invest, on average, less than 500k and get, on average, more than 7% equity. (But they also get diluted, so, who knows).
Of note, that 1.3 trillion follows a comically long tailed distribution.
OpenAI is 500B.
Stripe+Doordash+Airbnb+Coinbase+Reddit+Scale is 400B.
You dont get 7% of a company, you get 7% of outstanding sharez. So its shares held * stock price. Usually there are less stocks issued at the initial stages with more coming in later as more investors are added. I dont think YC maintains 7% across all their investments.
Crazy talented people. Crazy good products. I really like the redesign, I am a bit old now, but I can see how inspiring it might be for people coming into tech.
Visiting HN brings me back when to when I just started my career as a entrepreneur, I look forward to the nostalgic design it has. Have been familiar w/ YC's & HN design since 2008.
New YC page looks great – but it just doesn't feel "yc" to me.
The company features on the front page was a great opportunity to point out their positive impacts on the world. Instead, they focus on $BBB. Nice new site though.
That thing hasn't been updated in years, and could really use some love. If they don't want to do it themselves, just open source the sub-site and I'm sure a bunch of tech founders will happily do it for them (if only to be able to say they contributed to YC itself).
The implication that OpenAI is a YC company in the same sense as the other listed companies is somewhere between misleading and dishonest. Even more distasteful to show founding teams for all the others, then just Sam for OpenAI.
What stood out to me more than how impressive the carousel of companies was, was the order of them. Wild that they have OpenAI and Stripe second and third to Airbnb.
Not sure formidable founders getting whatever they want whatever the obstacle (sure market obstacles but what about laws, morality, etc) is a good thing to be honest.
Sometimes folks need to be stopped. Sometimes those walls are there for a reason.
And after IPO, maybe a founder should consider the good of the world instead of what you think you want next for yourself and just bashing down more walls.
Yeh I don't think there's much value in a credo if it celebrates Altman. He's a terrible idol to have. He compared Trump to Hitler in 2016, then donated $1M to his inauguration and tweeted about being in an "NPC trap" when he criticized him. Took about six weeks after the election to flip. Testified to Congress that AI regulation is "essential," then lobbied against California's safety bill when it actually showed up. His own board fired him for lying to them for years. His safety team leads quit in protest saying safety took a backseat to shiny products. Multiple former colleagues, including the people who left to start Anthropic, describe psychological abuse and manipulation. Claims a $65k salary while sitting on a billion-dollar fortune built through conflicts of interest. He's not a good guy. He's a guy who says whatever serves him in the moment and has left a trail of people warning us about exactly that.
The "before" pictures occasionally hint at what might be optimism and individuality.
The "after" pictures display a uniformly grim corporate homogeneity.
Maybe this is because the "before" pictures are unguarded, taken before the kool-aid sank in. But they still show people who queued up to drink that kool-aid.
Interesting how all the examples at the top are in the form of "It started here, now it's worth $xB". At least we've stopped pretending it was for anything else but money, and the power that comes with it.
Here is my insight: VALUATION is not the same as VALUE CREATION.
Put another way, the ability to accumulate resources, is not a reliable indicator of the "good" being created in the world.
When the quantitative metric of "Money" is used a a proxy for value creation, it creates serious and dangerous side effects.
This is a fundamental failure mode of modern capitalism.
Capitalism requires ethical discipline. Without it, we get runaway resource accumulation, that rationalises actions and strategies (externalisation, extraction, optimisation-at-all-costs) which cause more harm than good.
The techno-optimists (See e/acc/Marc Andreessen)[0], frame progress as intrinsically good.
I believe a more prudent approach is needed, one that is wise and looks at business from the perspective of:
STEWARDSHIP & BALANCE,
rather than
RESOURCE ACCUMULATION & PROGRESS.
While I do not disagree with all he says, and do not think technological progress is bad, you will notice there is no mention of ethics in the entire manifesto other than as an "enemy".
Philosopher Charles Taylor argues that a defining feature of modernity is the rise of what he calls “disengaged reason” [1]:
> Contrary to a Platonic understanding of reason where a meaningful order exists in the cosmos and in the soul that serves as a source for the highest good for reason to discover and conform to, disengaged reason "is no longer defined in terms of a vision of order in the cosmos" (Taylor 1989, 20). This disengagement allows reason to look at the world from an 'autonomous' viewpoint, leading to the abandonment of all 'horizons' > or frameworks "within which we know where we stand, and what meanings things have for us" (Taylor 1989, 29), thus rendering any inquiry to be independent of an overarching telos.
This idea is captured bluntly in this video (paraphrasing)[2]:
> The great innovation with modernity was to convince people that money is *GOD*. With the enlightenment *MONEY* replaced *GOD* for a lot of people
In a sense, a lot of people in the modern world treat money itself as "The Sacred"
This is not to say I am arguing that money, profit and competition are morally wrong, but rather the way it is packaged. It is often elevated to the ultimate end (telos), rather than the means.
The fundamental category error is making the assumption that:
VALUATION (or Money in the bank) = Value Creation (For The Greater Good)
As you have rightly pointed out, the "It started here, now it's worth $xB" is an indication of this worldview, where the telos itself is "MONEY"
Were OpenAI in a batch though? If not, I think maybe OpenAI deserves a mention but after companies that were actually in a batch.
Typography looks great though, animations are smooth, /formidable founder' is original and it's nice seeing Jared Friedman - he was super friendly and acted as a company champion when I applied in 2016.
I don't think a "fair" ranking of companies with a nexus to YC is really the goal of the page. YC invested in OpenAI; their logo goes on the page. Also, hard to argue that the founders of OpenAI lacked YC credentials. :)
‘Nexus’ is vague. The page is specifically asking founders to participate in YC’s program and showing founders that participated in YC’s program. Altman’s company Loopt failed - Altman went on to work on OpenAI and YC Research allegedly pledged money: we get it, but that’s not the typical YC founder experience, and it wasn’t Sam’s experience with Loopt.
In addition YC Research didn’t send their pledged funds to OpenAI:
It's fine they include openai, they can be very proud of sam. What I found a bit weird is that the reddit founder picture shows only two people. History is written by the winners I guess.
> Sam was part of YC's inaugural batch in S05 and founded OpenAI as YC Research in 2015
Notice how they omit any mention of Loopt, and almost try to imply that he's famous for founding OpenAI, when the trajectory was really Loopt -> YC President -> other stuff -> OpenAI, and Loopt was a failure that was acquired for barely more than it raised in VC money, and spent its waning days as a seedy gay hookup app.
Sam's success was preordained, and failure, for him (and his VC backers), was never an option.
Yeah, I took a glance at the source and thought the list of scripts was insane too. Even if all of that code is needed (and I doubt it is) combining them a bit would save a whole lot of requests. It's almost like every function got its own file.
Back when they started in the 2000s, most traditional VCs didn't recognize that high impact individuals can easily pivot or define product categories, and only concentrated on financial engineering (DCF go brrrrrr).
YC often also mentors founders on pivots (I'd say at least a third of all startups that make it to demo day were mentored into some sort of a pivot).
YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z Speedrun and PeakXV Surge, both of which really center on the founder first approach or Operators-turned-Angels - which I assume this marketing shift is about.
Interesting. I once talked to an investor (not YC) and they asked me what I would do if the product failed. I said one thing I can do is pivot. And they literally responded with "we don't invest in founders who think about pivoting"
> YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z Speedrun and PeakXV Surge
Maybe. A write up about the new design would be cool I think
> YC has always been founder first.
Internally yes there is a "founder community". But publicly I would argue it was product-first.
It doesn't seem unlikely to me that YC coined or at least popularized 'the pivot' in the context of changing business / startup directions. The first mention of using the word in that sense is in this comment [1] which explicitly mentions the usage by YC, while it only gets used when talking about pivot tables or more traditional uses of the word before that.
Edit: The "Lean Startup" blog series [2], which was quite influential, mentions 'the pivot' a little earlier than the post above, and really seems to coin it, so I guess that's the source (edit again: wrong :D).
> I said one thing I can do is pivot. And they literally responded with "we don't invest in founders who think about pivoting"
I'd say it depends on a VC's investment thesis as well as the stage your startup is at.
For the former, some wouldn't like your answer because it implies a lack of conviction (why should I invest in something the founder doesn't trust). Others wouldn't because it adds a degree of uncertainty (if this B2C reels company pivots into MLOps tooling how can I do due dilligence on my investment).
For the latter, seed/pre-seed that is open to pivoting isn't necessarily a negative flag because they are barely generating revenue as is and are trying to find PMF, but a Series B startup suddenly taking about a pivot might imply they aren't doing so hot.
> A write up about the new design would be cool I think
It's a lot deeper than an apparent lack of conviction. Mentioning the possibility of a pivot completely changes the dynamic of the investment. 'No pivot' is asking "please invest in this startup; here's why it's a good idea". 'Pivot possible' is asking "please invest in me; I will find a way to get you a return on investment regardless of the means". Asking someone to invest in you as a person requires a certain level of egoistic thinking. Is the ego warranted? Maybe, but the investor won't know unless they build an extremely close rapport with you. Something like YC does with a 3-month on-premise bootcamp is that exact opportunity for investors to build a close rapport, so investing in people makes sense for YC. But a lot of investors are investing without building that rapport, so investing purely on the merits of business ideas makes more sense for them.
Depends who you're marketing to. Do they need to follow what others did or should they stay in their own niche? Because I'm not hanging out on a16z forum because they make fancy marketing materials, I'm one of the thousands of people who bought into the YC brand which was build over decades. Would be stupid to become one with the crowd of sleeky VCs.
As European I'm quite happy I didn't see YC involvement with the current administration, and if they stay a bit clear of the AI supergau I'm sure they'll be fine.
It's been reported that the ratio of mentors to founders had become quite bad. Seems quality has gone down since they tried to scale something that doesn't scale
That also struck me as a pretty weird quote to highlight. Someone who "seems like they’ll get what they want" sounds more like a bully more than a persuader or value creator.
Really love the new site and how it highlights founders so well.
Only minor tweak I'd make is for the desktop viewport size - make it so you can also click the company names instead of needing to precisely scroll for the images to show up for that company. With notched mouse wheels it's all too easy to skip one even with a regular scroll. Or increase the scroll distance.
Also might suggest using a gradient mask to fade out the company logos as you scroll the primary text block up. Some of them get very close to the text and the one-by-one removal feels a tad distracting.
And really minor but kept finding myself trying to click the photos to see things larger. Would be nice if they could come up in a media viewer with a small caption, and let me arrow key or swipe through.
I think the items in the carousel are just too wide. There's usually some side margin showing more of the previous and next items.
I turned my phone to landscape and the scroll "sensitivity" no longer felt wrong, but then a new bug was revealed. It chooses to put focus on the right-most item in the carousel. Now the animation doesn't play for the first item.
yeah i think the scroll speed is too fast. that would fix all the issues.
> YC turns builders into formidable founders.
This is followed by a series of before and after pictures. YC offers not money but personal transformation. Their standard offer of $500,000 for 7% is not mentioned on the homepage, maybe because it would invite comparison ... when you see numbers like this your first thought is: I wonder what other accelators offer? The before and after pictures are something no other accelator can compete with.
Unless things have changed? It used to be $125,000 for 7% on a SAFE, then $375,000 which converts at your next fundraise at whatever the most favourable terms offered are. So unless you never raise more money it's certainly not $500k for 7%.
Interesting pattern to see how many IPO photos on the right are missing an original founder or two.
Whilst gaining better fashion and haircuts.
Impressive collection of embarrassingly young founder pictures :-)
A good remedy against lookism :)
Running a startup also ages people prematurely.
Making money fixes that. Look at some of the featured hairlines
That’s true. Mine too.
Its been years since I felt urged to congratulate someone for their "webdesign", but this is really good. No boring glossy landing picture, but a distinct claim, and the the before / whoisit / after Element is unique, in a good way.
Just realizing that in more than a decade of perusing Hacker News, I may not have ever visited the homepage.
Looks cool, though I have to be honest that I'm not a big fan of showing only the survivor stories.
I had the same reaction. Also the new vibe feels less like “make something people want” and more like “join the pantheon.”
cz as successful YC is - the graveyard is littered with thousands of graves
in each batch only 2 - 3 startups really work out and make it big.
Yep, I would like to see the success/failure ratio. That would give me a good idea whether this VC funding fantasy is a number game, intentional success or just plain old luck.
My first thought was I'd love to see everything, from the unicorns to the mid-level success to the failures, all laid out in one big infographic.
Like a lottery only advertising the winners.
Meh. If your business fails, you basically got $500K in exchange for nothing. Still sounds to me like a good deal.
I love that the founders are so prominently featured on this new version.
Am I the only one who thinks that the Coinbase [1] picture has been AI generated, or at least heavily AI-altered?
The movie posters behind look like garbage, and what's wrong with that Return of the Jedi poster? Why is there a random blob and a broken face at the top instead of Darth Vader?
And why is there a random Google+ logo on the left?
And why does Fred Ehrsam have a huge thumb and silky smooth legs?
[1] https://bookface-static.ycombinator.com/assets/ycdc/beforevs...
No, it's 100% generated. The background posters mke no sense at all, inclunding Google+ there. And also Fred's hands are wrong. I wonder if they didn't have a pic of both of them together and asked AI to generate it, though Gemini or even Grok would do a better job than that.
And the Back to the Future title is totally wrong - it's always in the stylised logo form on posters.
some of the design interactions are really polished. the section written with the quotes from founders is really cool. the hover effect with the before and after of the YC partners is a great touch too!
Looks good.
A minor piece of feedback, though: might be just me, not sure if anyone else has this pavlovian conditioning, but seeing the black banner/bar on top with the YC logo/color below and HN background color immediately makes me think someone passed away.
Weirdly enough my top bar has been set to #000000 for years now, so I forget that has a secondary meaning
I think it's fine. If it were a black bar and then an orange bar, that would be a different matter.
Turning a builder into a formidable founder, which via the PG quote is someone who seems they will always get what they want is in its self a death. A builder... a truth-seeking creator dies. Devoured by someone who gets what they want, a superego. There should be a black bar at the top.
/s
Shout out to the risk takers.
Interesting to see the OG Twitter logo rather than X in the footer. Must have been an explicit choice
The main quote is cropped on Firefox. It reads:
YC turns builders
nto formidable founders
And a little dirt next to founders.
I think I was on HN for at least three years before I realized they even had a homepage. I might check this one out in the next couple of years.
I've been here for over a decade. Today is the first time I bothered to check it out.
The most well funded forum ever
And it only needs one server! (Maybe they can afford a hot spare now?)
A real lesson in frugality.
And yet they can't be bothered to add 10 lines of CSS for dark mode support.
Clean design. I like how it puts founders front and center instead of just listing company logos.
One suggestion: adding a quick filter by batch year or industry would make it easier to browse. Sometimes I want to see what's new in a specific space like AI or dev tools.
The "Be in the room with …" image hover effects triggering the video are neat.
If you feature a quote from someone, prominently, on a prominent website, you might check in with them to make sure they don't have any issues with the usage.
(I do sense artifice. Possibly wrongly.)
The carousel is way too fast to be able to read the texts. I’ve made the same mistake as a developer when I already know each text by heart, but actual users can’t read them fast enough.
Is there a way to see all the inactive companies? Some have great names and addresses. I wonder if there's a way to efficiently use them - even keeping all the paperwork intact.. like buying a shell company and saving a lot of the overheads and registering/signups.
Brands are resurrected in fashion all the time with new designers, CEOs and owners while keeping the name, heritage (codes/motifs/archive,) goodwill and stores intact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_house) is 70% owned by the Qatari royal family.
You could even have the ex-founders sit on a steering committee or advisory board for the switcheroo mob who could be their new bosses.
With all the unemployment around, startup musical chairs could be a solution. Isn't founders' equity the only valuable thing left in the startup world? No chance in getting rich as an employee - and with AI, who is/will not be replaceable? Also, finding the right people from the get-go is another significant challenge, and users of course.
Why don't those inactive companies share their failure stories to find some value-add? It's 2026: they could be mere hours away from an IPO horizon :)
I noticed a photo of the Kalshi founders on the new homepage. I remember when Kalshi launched I thought it was so bad, and that those founders must be the very bottom of their class... they're billionaires now!
They make most of their money from sports betting. Which isn't a particularly novel business.
the "Be in the room with..." hover videos are cool but seem AI-generated.
they definitely are. im not sure why they did that, still pictures are okay too and much greener
Even the Coinbase still picture seems AI-generated (I left another comment here with details).
> A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.
This is rather dark actually. True, too. Props to Y Combinator for not trying to sugarcoat things!
I don’t think it’s dark, but I’ve been told that my similar attitude can rub some people the wrong way. I’m not a jerk about it, but I always show up prepared to get to where I think we need to be. If that rubs people the wrong way so be it.
EDIT
The downvotes are interesting. Do people think the world will just give them things? I'm reminded of a quote I keep nearby from a book I read many years ago.
“His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
I think your edit shows why people are reading your comment in a different light than yours.
When you see that quote, you apparently focus on the "if I want X to happen, I need to create the circumstances that will lead to it".
When I read that quote, I immediately think of a long list of people who choose actions with complete disregard to the consequences of those actions. Mass unemployment? Destroy local communities? Poison the environment? Surveillance states? Hey, as long as they got what they wanted...
That's the VC mindset tho, rat fucking the commons to make a buck.
It is the classic justification of the big bad evil guy.
When you reduce it to that tagline, what other people want or need is an obstacle.
The last I checked your body was given to you without any of your effort.
> Do people think the world will just give them things?
No. But just that more and more people are more and more fed up of collectively paying/enduring the consequences of the ambition of a few people that do. not. care. about. their. fellow. humans. neither. the. planet.
> When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action.
Indeed. And if you act "regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way", without discernement, that tells something about you that you may, or may not realise.
> without discernement
You added this part. In my mind I add discernment to do right by others among other things.
Unfortunately when we distill things down to quips nuance is lost. Maybe it's my optimism, but I tend to read things charitably. Nothing I've ever accomplished has been without obstacles, some that were seemingly impossible to pass at the time.
"Without discernment" is implied in "regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way". Many of us would consider excessively exploiting others to be an obstacle.
There is at least one obvious company in the list where the founder does not advertise the slightest discernment in his public discourse (about the tech, about the business and about the impact on society).
We do not have to be charitable with people that have such financial and industrial (hence political) power over our lives, and that do not display obvious and verifiable signs of charity upon the human kind either.
If you think about impact, some of those companies have made on the world, it is rather dark.
This looks good. Almost makes me want to apply...but nah. Maybe, idk.
Impressive! Seeing all the before and after photos is a nice touch. With regards to the actual web page, white text on light background (partners part) makes it nice easily readable.
This new site owes a lot to Index Ventures. The whole thing seems heavily inspired by the beautiful Index site.
There’s something that bothers me about reducing achievement to stock price and exit valuations. Yet, it is sobering to witness the machinery laid bare.
The whole aesthetic of startup success—those triumphant IPO bell-ringing moments—celebrates money, not wisdom or authentic progress. I’m aware this is the dominant framework, but that doesn’t make it feel less hollow. Welcome to Heartbreak.
I’m not against big exits / valuations and showing the numbers. But… what would have added a bit of interest would have been real metrics. For example I believe AirBnB has 2 billion guest nights. Showing that instead of the ipo value is more impressive to people who want to deliver value rather than capture value.
Real world metrics would feel slightly more on brand than valuations
They should show real real world metrics, like the effect of short term rentals on the housing market, or how much of the food delivery fees go to the middleman.
> The whole aesthetic of startup success—those triumphant IPO bell-ringing moments—celebrates money, not wisdom or authentic progress.
Didn't see anything about ethics either, which, again, is not necessarily what a VC firm is about. It's actually kind of refreshing--the website clearly conveys YC's focus: It's about being "formidable" and "intensive work" and "urgency" and "fast." The editing on this site is impressive. They have boiled away everything down to the core of what the firm believes in, and it's "work hard make lots of money fast". Not something I'd personally be interested in being part of, but the site's wording is remarkable in its honesty, and I clearly know after reading it that the YC experience would not be my cup of tea!
Wisdom and authentic progress are hard to measure. They are also not the goals enterprises pursue. Enterprises go for the money, but the money is normally paid by satisfied customers; this side effect is what makes enterprises viable and useful. (In case of VC money, customers even don't have to pay for sustainably for some time.)
An IPO or a large acquisition is like a graduation event for school students. A diploma or a SAT certificate also do not certify wisdom, or even progress. They certify a certain degree of success, and a transition into "adult life". Or think about this as of an orbital insertion event for a spacecraft. Not an end goal, but a precondition for a serious progress.
If you seek wisdom, a VC firm like YCombinator is likely not the most appropriate tool for your quest. (An attempt to found a business may bring some wisdom, as usual, at a cost.)
You know these are businesses, right? And that behind the shiny, cheery language that these are venture capitalists, right?
Right?
Seems that the "it's a numbers game" thesis delivered.
(I know the previous deal was different but just to get an estimate ...)
500k to each of 5,000+ startups = 2.5 billion
in exchange of
7% of 1.3 trillion = 91 billion
~36x return.
It's even better than that as they invest, on average, less than 500k and get, on average, more than 7% equity. (But they also get diluted, so, who knows).
Of note, that 1.3 trillion follows a comically long tailed distribution.
OpenAI is 500B.
Stripe+Doordash+Airbnb+Coinbase+Reddit+Scale is 400B.
The remainder is 5,000+ companies.
You dont get 7% of a company, you get 7% of outstanding sharez. So its shares held * stock price. Usually there are less stocks issued at the initial stages with more coming in later as more investors are added. I dont think YC maintains 7% across all their investments.
>(But they also get diluted, so, who knows)
Crazy talented people. Crazy good products. I really like the redesign, I am a bit old now, but I can see how inspiring it might be for people coming into tech.
Just as inspiring as the United Citizen Federation recruitment videos!
I'm doing my part!
There's a homepage? Kidding aside, it looks like a good landing page highlighting the top success stories and the purpose of YC.
Great history, hopefully some of these successful founders will stay in the loop here for all us up and comings.
Visiting HN brings me back when to when I just started my career as a entrepreneur, I look forward to the nostalgic design it has. Have been familiar w/ YC's & HN design since 2008.
New YC page looks great – but it just doesn't feel "yc" to me.
Love the emphasis on people behind successful companies and humble beginnings that all of them have!
The company features on the front page was a great opportunity to point out their positive impacts on the world. Instead, they focus on $BBB. Nice new site though.
> point out their positive impacts on the world.
Not particularly easy when you've been funding the likes of Flock(YC S17).
It's a nice website. I still despise ycombinator. They make a hell of a forum though!
"A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way."
...even if those obstacles are reality, the law or basic morality.
When have those things ever stopped a businessman?
Frequently. Come join me under my rock and I'll show you how some of the people I know live ;)
Redo the co-founder match sub-site next!
That thing hasn't been updated in years, and could really use some love. If they don't want to do it themselves, just open source the sub-site and I'm sure a bunch of tech founders will happily do it for them (if only to be able to say they contributed to YC itself).
The implication that OpenAI is a YC company in the same sense as the other listed companies is somewhere between misleading and dishonest. Even more distasteful to show founding teams for all the others, then just Sam for OpenAI.
Altman with the double polo.
Curious -- was any AI used? No shame in that.
“A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.”
Yeah, especially laws and regulations.
sama's double collar is legend
The “YC/Now” timer starts (and sometimes flips) before the image actually loads.
The design looks good. The quote is so kitch it could be on a self-help book.
"YC turns builders into formidable founders" - and then a bs faux-definition of formidable.
If you ever met some of the founders in the pictures, you'd know it's not bs.
The IEEE-reference feels like a cute nod to HN
No dark mode. Classic.
Idk how i feel about having sama right at the start
Clean and AI
What stood out to me more than how impressive the carousel of companies was, was the order of them. Wild that they have OpenAI and Stripe second and third to Airbnb.
Did it change? I see OpenAI listed first.
I see Airbnb first
So good!
Very cool!
what are the demographics, educational attainment, and avg net worth of prior yc founders, id like to see what unconventional bets look like.
they forgot Leftronic
[flagged]
Wow – thank you for that.
Not sure formidable founders getting whatever they want whatever the obstacle (sure market obstacles but what about laws, morality, etc) is a good thing to be honest.
Sometimes folks need to be stopped. Sometimes those walls are there for a reason.
And after IPO, maybe a founder should consider the good of the world instead of what you think you want next for yourself and just bashing down more walls.
But I dunno… I’m just a rando.
Yeh I don't think there's much value in a credo if it celebrates Altman. He's a terrible idol to have. He compared Trump to Hitler in 2016, then donated $1M to his inauguration and tweeted about being in an "NPC trap" when he criticized him. Took about six weeks after the election to flip. Testified to Congress that AI regulation is "essential," then lobbied against California's safety bill when it actually showed up. His own board fired him for lying to them for years. His safety team leads quit in protest saying safety took a backseat to shiny products. Multiple former colleagues, including the people who left to start Anthropic, describe psychological abuse and manipulation. Claims a $65k salary while sitting on a billion-dollar fortune built through conflicts of interest. He's not a good guy. He's a guy who says whatever serves him in the moment and has left a trail of people warning us about exactly that.
The "before" pictures occasionally hint at what might be optimism and individuality.
The "after" pictures display a uniformly grim corporate homogeneity.
Maybe this is because the "before" pictures are unguarded, taken before the kool-aid sank in. But they still show people who queued up to drink that kool-aid.
It's a "no" from me.
Interesting how all the examples at the top are in the form of "It started here, now it's worth $xB". At least we've stopped pretending it was for anything else but money, and the power that comes with it.
what alternative metric are you proposing?
Was there ever pretending? It was always face value from "seed" to "rounds" to "exit" - all words describing money movement.
In my memory, the original vibe of Ycombinator was more like "achieve fuck-you money in your twenties" than today's unicorn chase.
True, it was always greed veiled with an illusion of passion
Here is my insight: VALUATION is not the same as VALUE CREATION.
Put another way, the ability to accumulate resources, is not a reliable indicator of the "good" being created in the world.
When the quantitative metric of "Money" is used a a proxy for value creation, it creates serious and dangerous side effects.
This is a fundamental failure mode of modern capitalism.
Capitalism requires ethical discipline. Without it, we get runaway resource accumulation, that rationalises actions and strategies (externalisation, extraction, optimisation-at-all-costs) which cause more harm than good.
The techno-optimists (See e/acc/Marc Andreessen)[0], frame progress as intrinsically good.
I believe a more prudent approach is needed, one that is wise and looks at business from the perspective of:
STEWARDSHIP & BALANCE,
rather than
RESOURCE ACCUMULATION & PROGRESS.
While I do not disagree with all he says, and do not think technological progress is bad, you will notice there is no mention of ethics in the entire manifesto other than as an "enemy".
Philosopher Charles Taylor argues that a defining feature of modernity is the rise of what he calls “disengaged reason” [1]:
This idea is captured bluntly in this video (paraphrasing)[2]: In a sense, a lot of people in the modern world treat money itself as "The Sacred"This is not to say I am arguing that money, profit and competition are morally wrong, but rather the way it is packaged. It is often elevated to the ultimate end (telos), rather than the means.
The fundamental category error is making the assumption that:
VALUATION (or Money in the bank) = Value Creation (For The Greater Good)
As you have rightly pointed out, the "It started here, now it's worth $xB" is an indication of this worldview, where the telos itself is "MONEY"
[0] https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/
[1] https://www.academia.edu/26548899/Disciplinarity_and_Islamic...
[2] https://youtu.be/B5FtHagng8c?t=249
Vulture culture: always was, always will be.
At least we got some decent side discussions in the small spaces during the interim
I mean trying to insinuate oai is a yc company is just shady right?
I get that the subtext isn’t dishonest, but cmon, you know what you’re doing
They were an early funder. Seems p. reasonable for a VC firm to point that out.
Were OpenAI in a batch though? If not, I think maybe OpenAI deserves a mention but after companies that were actually in a batch.
Typography looks great though, animations are smooth, /formidable founder' is original and it's nice seeing Jared Friedman - he was super friendly and acted as a company champion when I applied in 2016.
I don't think a "fair" ranking of companies with a nexus to YC is really the goal of the page. YC invested in OpenAI; their logo goes on the page. Also, hard to argue that the founders of OpenAI lacked YC credentials. :)
‘Nexus’ is vague. The page is specifically asking founders to participate in YC’s program and showing founders that participated in YC’s program. Altman’s company Loopt failed - Altman went on to work on OpenAI and YC Research allegedly pledged money: we get it, but that’s not the typical YC founder experience, and it wasn’t Sam’s experience with Loopt.
In addition YC Research didn’t send their pledged funds to OpenAI:
https://archive.ph/20230518211335/https://techcrunch.com/202...
> According to federal tax filings, at least one of the named donors, YC Research, never gave a single dollar
It's fine they include openai, they can be very proud of sam. What I found a bit weird is that the reddit founder picture shows only two people. History is written by the winners I guess.
> Sam was part of YC's inaugural batch in S05 and founded OpenAI as YC Research in 2015
Notice how they omit any mention of Loopt, and almost try to imply that he's famous for founding OpenAI, when the trajectory was really Loopt -> YC President -> other stuff -> OpenAI, and Loopt was a failure that was acquired for barely more than it raised in VC money, and spent its waning days as a seedy gay hookup app.
Sam's success was preordained, and failure, for him (and his VC backers), was never an option.
[1] “A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.”
Obstacles are also any legal constraints that will break and pay later in fines, like Airbnb.
Or economic ruin, societal ruin they may cause along the way, like OpenAI.
Doesn't seem to display anything with JS disabled so it's a fail in my book, but I accept that I'll be in the minority here.
Same! uBlock on Firefox lists ~280 scripts blocked
Yeah, I took a glance at the source and thought the list of scripts was insane too. Even if all of that code is needed (and I doubt it is) combining them a bit would save a whole lot of requests. It's almost like every function got its own file.
Displays a blank page unless scripts are allowed. :(
Thanks - someone else reported this too (as a security issue for some reason!) and I've passed it on.
I found the switch of focus from startups/businesses to founders/CEOs particularly strange. Looks like a political campaign to me.
YC has always been founder first.
Back when they started in the 2000s, most traditional VCs didn't recognize that high impact individuals can easily pivot or define product categories, and only concentrated on financial engineering (DCF go brrrrrr).
YC often also mentors founders on pivots (I'd say at least a third of all startups that make it to demo day were mentored into some sort of a pivot).
YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z Speedrun and PeakXV Surge, both of which really center on the founder first approach or Operators-turned-Angels - which I assume this marketing shift is about.
> YC often also mentors founders on pivots
Interesting. I once talked to an investor (not YC) and they asked me what I would do if the product failed. I said one thing I can do is pivot. And they literally responded with "we don't invest in founders who think about pivoting"
> YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z Speedrun and PeakXV Surge
Maybe. A write up about the new design would be cool I think
> YC has always been founder first.
Internally yes there is a "founder community". But publicly I would argue it was product-first.
> YC often also mentors founders on pivots
It doesn't seem unlikely to me that YC coined or at least popularized 'the pivot' in the context of changing business / startup directions. The first mention of using the word in that sense is in this comment [1] which explicitly mentions the usage by YC, while it only gets used when talking about pivot tables or more traditional uses of the word before that.
Edit: The "Lean Startup" blog series [2], which was quite influential, mentions 'the pivot' a little earlier than the post above, and really seems to coin it, so I guess that's the source (edit again: wrong :D).
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=806601
[2] https://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/06/pivot-dont-jum...
That's a fun question! 806601 was from Sept 2009. I found 3 earlier cases of 'pivot' in the startup sense:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=699611 (July 2009)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=676514 (June 2009)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=562739 (April 2009)
All 3 of those posts were by YC founders, so the term was obviously in circulation by then. The last of them includes a (broken) likn to this article: https://web.archive.org/web/20090703130211/https://redeye.fi....
Edit: that one was discussed here, but the comments didn't say the p-word:
Yogi Berra wisdom for startups - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537331 - March 2009 (9 comments)
> I said one thing I can do is pivot. And they literally responded with "we don't invest in founders who think about pivoting"
I'd say it depends on a VC's investment thesis as well as the stage your startup is at.
For the former, some wouldn't like your answer because it implies a lack of conviction (why should I invest in something the founder doesn't trust). Others wouldn't because it adds a degree of uncertainty (if this B2C reels company pivots into MLOps tooling how can I do due dilligence on my investment).
For the latter, seed/pre-seed that is open to pivoting isn't necessarily a negative flag because they are barely generating revenue as is and are trying to find PMF, but a Series B startup suddenly taking about a pivot might imply they aren't doing so hot.
> A write up about the new design would be cool I think
We ain't the LPs. We don't deserve an answer.
It's a lot deeper than an apparent lack of conviction. Mentioning the possibility of a pivot completely changes the dynamic of the investment. 'No pivot' is asking "please invest in this startup; here's why it's a good idea". 'Pivot possible' is asking "please invest in me; I will find a way to get you a return on investment regardless of the means". Asking someone to invest in you as a person requires a certain level of egoistic thinking. Is the ego warranted? Maybe, but the investor won't know unless they build an extremely close rapport with you. Something like YC does with a 3-month on-premise bootcamp is that exact opportunity for investors to build a close rapport, so investing in people makes sense for YC. But a lot of investors are investing without building that rapport, so investing purely on the merits of business ideas makes more sense for them.
> YC also needs to pivot it's marketing
Depends who you're marketing to. Do they need to follow what others did or should they stay in their own niche? Because I'm not hanging out on a16z forum because they make fancy marketing materials, I'm one of the thousands of people who bought into the YC brand which was build over decades. Would be stupid to become one with the crowd of sleeky VCs.
As European I'm quite happy I didn't see YC involvement with the current administration, and if they stay a bit clear of the AI supergau I'm sure they'll be fine.
> YC also needs to pivot
It's been reported that the ratio of mentors to founders had become quite bad. Seems quality has gone down since they tried to scale something that doesn't scale
I'm pretty sure the designer used political campaigns as inspiration
“A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.”
Dictator is another name.
That also struck me as a pretty weird quote to highlight. Someone who "seems like they’ll get what they want" sounds more like a bully more than a persuader or value creator.
Isn't there something better to aspire to?
It means exactly what it's intended to mean. You aren't misunderstanding it.
And I can’t think of any middle to big company that is not led by bullies.
But that’s just how the world is. Capitalism is optimized for the bullies to be on top.
That’s exactly why Trump is the most powerful man of the most powerful country.
I hope it changes someday.
This is just absolutely insane. Why are you publicly humiliating your most successful founders on the home page of your VC firm?
"Here is an awful photo of our star founders. Look at how terribly they looked and what awkward nerds they used to be, when they came here."
You need to fire whoever green lit this.
"You need to fire whoever green lit this." — I'm sure they themselves probably all green lit this.
Why would they be embarrassed?
didnt know they had a website. Do lobsters have a website too ?
Gary Tan shows up in a photo at the bottom but nowhere by name. Gotta hand it to YC, whoever handles their PR needs a raise.
What...?
You can CTRL+F his name. He's right there.
> YC turns builders into formidable founders
Love this quote
A great sentence needs no explanation.