Y Combinator Quotes

The number one problem companies have during the Y Combinator interview is that a minute into the interview, we don't know what they do. It's the same problem with the application. You might think we're experts, but you still have to explain it to us.

The first time I went through YC, it was smaller, and the founders were younger. The advantage of that was that the set of founders who were older than us had really seen the Web 1.0 meltdown. They brought that knowledge to us.

We were very, very lucky being in the first round of Y Combinator because that alone generated a lot of interest. A lot of readers of Paul Graham were just excited to see what was going to come up. And we were the first ones to launch.

In 2007, there weren't any other accelerators, at least that I was aware of. We were almost the prototypical Y Combinator founders: We were highly technical but had never done a startup before. We also didn't know anyone in the Valley - investors, other entrepreneurs, potential hires. YC seemed like a great way to bootstrap that network.

A lot of times when you're an investor, it's very easy to lean back and say, 'Well, people should come to me in Silicon Valley.' YC has the opposite opinion.

The thing about Y Combinator that's cool is that most companies won't happen if we don't fund them.

Loopt wouldn't have happened without Y Combinator.

I actually made a website called Y2 Combinator, which was the Y Combinator that starts Y Combinator clones. There's a very clear difference in the quality between the companies that come from YC and the companies that don't.

We have co-opted seed funds. You know, Y Combinator, that was completely our money. We have secret handshakes with a whole bunch of people. Very dangerous, because word gets out that so-and-so's money is Sequoia's money, that would not be a good thing.

One of the things we urge Y-Combinator companies to do is to have profitability in grasp. If you need to get profitable before your A round of money, you ought to be able to do that.

Sometimes people think Y Combinator has big ideas about themes. But really, we just fund the best startups.

Everyone is on Facebook. It is very rare that I can't find a startup. Out of the 72 Y Combinator startups, almost all of them were on Facebook.

There is a directory where you can explore every single person who has gone through YC and a private forum that only founders can participate in.

Finding entrepreneurs from diverse and international backgrounds is a top priority for us at Y Combinator.