Kids Echo Parents' Unheard Feelings
"He just doesn't listen to me. Just like you." — Jessica on our younger son
Skipping College? You Must Self‑Educate, Startups Won’t
If you skip some or all of college to start a startup, it's on you to develop your mind the way college would have. And that's not something that happens by default in most startups.
Worrying About Model Giants? Failure Is Far Likelier.
Worrying that your startup will be eaten by the model companies is like worrying that your life will be constrained after you become a movie star. You're far more likely simply to fail.
Noora Health's Team Saves 75,000 Lives, Visits Community
Edith and Shahed from Noora Health came to visit. They've saved over 75,000 lives so far. A small city of people. https://t.co/k9S2vtMUTE
Buy Art at Auction, but Get Watches From Dealers
The best way to buy art is at auction, once you know what you're doing. But old watches you should buy from dealers. You can get enough information about paintings to judge their condition, but you have no idea what's...
Your True Size Shows in a Bigger Pond
You don't know how big a fish you are till you try a big pond.
Non‑AI Ideas Are the Hidden Goldmine for Founders
The biggest opportunity for would-be startup founders is AI. But the most underpriced opportunity is probably non-AI ideas. So if you have a good non-AI idea, go for it, because everyone else is going to overlook it.
From Funding Fears to Unsolicited Share Offers
Boom always used to have hard time raising money. Investors are terrified of funding anything that's not like existing hot startups. And now, after 10 years of lean times, I'm getting unsolicited offers to buy Boom shares. It's so great.
AI Now Generates 75% of YC Startup Code
Each Y Combinator batch I ask the startups what percent of their code is written by AI. It passed 75% at least a year ago, maybe two.
Early Mornings Boost Productivity: Finished Essay in Two Hours
Wake up at 4:30 am. Essay starts forming in my head. Since I'm staying in a hotel, my laptop is right there, so I get up to at least write down the sentences I already have. Two hours later I've...
Launch Early, Learn What to Actually Build
This is true of startups too. You launch to learn what you should have built.
Fear of Climate’s Irreversible Tipping Points
This is the aspect of climate change that I worry most about — when instead of seeing gradual degradation, we cross an irreversible line.
Auctioned Watches Keep Looping Back to Sellers
The watchmaker hands a watch back to me, having determined that it can't be repaired: Watchmaker: My advice is to sell it at auction. Me: I bought it in an auction. Watchmaker: You and seventeen other people. That's what happens with these watches.
Working Just Enough Eliminates Your Error Buffer
One danger of working just hard enough to get by is that you tend not to leave much margin for error when you do that. It's the effort equivalent of doing things at the last moment.
AI Supercharges Growth for Diligent Startup Founders
AI is giving a lot of hard-working founders the growth they deserve. Every couple days I hear about another startup that was working hard and doing ok but not great but has now had its growth accelerated by AI.
Progress: More Forward Steps Than Backward, Over Time
Something I taught 14 yo: Most progress is a mix of steps forward and steps back, just with with more of the former. But you can get a run of steps back. So to judge progress accurately you need to...
Self‑portraits Always Keep Glasses on, Unlike Others
Self-portrait by Joshua Reynolds, 1780s. Other sitters can take their glasses off, but sitters in self-portraits can't. https://t.co/RAmCnr2OVz
Dirty Watch Movements Reveal Simple Fixes; Clean Means Structural Issues
A watchmaker told me that he prefers it when he opens a watch that needs service and the movement is dirty. If the movement is clean, it's more likely the problem is structural.
Skip High School Startups to Preserve Curious Exploration
Don't start a startup in high school. What if it works? You'll lose the opportunity you'd otherwise have to explore random, interesting ideas, driven only by curiosity. Because while you will indeed learn a lot from a startup, you won't...
Isolation Blinds Founder to Her Own Success
A British founder I funded is doing everything right, but she doesn't realize it. She lives in the country and doesn't know any other founders, so she's never seen startups done wrong.
Soviet Gift Great Seal Harbored Theremin‑Made Passive
TIL the USSR concealed a bug in a hand-carved Great Seal given as a "gift" in 1945 to the US ambassador that was only discovered by accident in 1951. The bug was designed by Theremin (!) and had no power...
Founders Need Player‑coach Partners Who Build Alongside Them
How can you empathize with founders if you don't build stuff yourself? This was one advantage of running HN while I was running YC. It was an enormous schlep, but it meant I was dealing daily with the same problems as...
Demo Day Revenue Targets Jump From $150K to $1M
Later stage investors always grumble about increasing valuations. But there is some basis in reality for it: companies do grow faster now.
Clarifying: Sam Wasn't Fired over Partner Distrust
Since there's yet another article claiming that we "removed" Sam because partners distrusted him, no, we didn't. It's not because I want to defend Sam that I keep insisting on this. It's because it's so annoying to read false accounts...
AI Replies Are Unnaturally Punchy, Revealing Fake Content
Sadly, one way I now recognize fake AI-generated replies is that AIs write punchier sentences than most ordinary humans.
Jessica's Life Story Forged the Traits Behind YC Success
This interview with Jessica goes the deepest of any interview she's done into her life story, and how it gave her the unique combination of qualities that made Y Combinator work.
Too Many AI Spam Replies; Switching to Mute
I now get so many AI-generated replies that it's just too much work to report them for spam and block them, so I'm downshifting to muting.
VCs Fund Performance, Not Just Thesis Alignment
The thing that will make a VC want to fund you is not how well you match their (claimed) investment thesis. It's the same thing that will make every other VC want to fund you: how well you're doing.
Audemars Piguet 2003 Movement Sits Between Penny and Nickel
The Audemars Piguet 2003 movement has a volume of .56 cm³, exactly mid-way between a penny (.43 cm³) and a nickel (.69 cm³). https://t.co/xfL2ffv61l
Detect AI-Generated Spam Replies Before Responding
Now before I reply to someone I have to check first that I'm not being baited by an account that spams everyone with AI-generated replies. Can you write some software to do this check for me @nikitabier?
AI Bullet Lists Reveal Readers' Dwindling Attention Spans
The fact that AIs tend to answer you in bulleted lists tells us something important, though somewhat depressing: people can't read. They don't do this by accident. What you're seeing is an implicit portrait of the median user.
YC Board Majority Defends Garry Amid External Criticism
Some people criticize Garry, but this excerpt from the latest Social Radars episode is a good example of how insiders feel about how he's doing. The 3 of us in this conversation are 3/5 of YC's board.
Measure Growth Rate, Not Raw Numbers; Flat Is Success
If you really want to hold yourself to a high standard, graph the growth rate of the number you care about instead of the number itself. Then you're winning if you can even keep it flat.
Use YC‑style ‘Vertebrae’ for Stronger Demo Day Pitches
I'm glad she chose this excerpt about how to make a convincing Demo Day presentation. Founders would be so much more effective at fundraising if they gave their pitches YC-style "vertebrae".
Growth Rate Focus Reveals Early Signals for Product Switch
Another advantage of focusing on growth rate rather than absolute numbers is that it makes it easier to switch to a new variant of the product if you discover one. It makes it easier to see tails that will eventually...
Found an Unexpected Ellipse Pocket Watch at Subdial
I went to visit Subdial in London. Cool place with some good watches. I bought something so strange that till I saw it I'd never have believed it existed: an Ellipse pocket watch. I kid you not. https://t.co/L7rptQn61v
Your Resume Doesn't Matter—Product Wins in Startups
Someone asked if it's a good idea to start a startup when you have nothing notable on your resume. Absolutely. All that matters in a startup is whether users like the product, and users don't care (either way) what's on...
Lucky Access to DeepMind Yields Inside AI Revolution
This sounds like a promising book. Mallaby is a sharp observer, and sharpness + access tends to yield insights.
European Auction Sites Demand Absurdly Many Verification Steps
Creating an account on a European auction site is so hard that sometimes I keep going just to see if it's actually possible. The Druot account I just created required four separate confirmation codes. But that was easy compared to...
Vintage Vibes: Shinagawa’s Print Feels Like a 1958 Postcard
Sometimes it's pleasing when art is dated. This print by Takumi Shinagawa is like a getting a postcard from 1958. https://t.co/1LZaRne3rI
Churn Reveals Product Disapproval, Stalling Growth
Churn is the worst reason to have slow growth. Churn means you're not just unknown, or that there's a big threshold to sign up. It means people are actually trying the product and deciding they don't like it.
Replit’s New Tools Will Redefine Vibe Coding
Amjad showed me Replit's latest stuff. They're about to redefine vibe coding in a way that will seem obvious in retrospect. A lot of the biggest ideas have that quality.
Modern Treasury: Stripe‑style API for Corporate Cash Flows
This is a big deal. It's like Stripe but for moving money in and out of companies. You just call the API and Modern Treasury does the rest.
YC Mentors Founders for a Decade, Not Just Launch
One of the things that surprised me about YC is how long we continue to advise founders. We thought we'd just help them get started and then hand them over to later stage investors, but in fact we're still talking...
Slow Growth, Faster Spending: Hire Aggressively
I did office hours with a startup yesterday that I ended up advising to (a) decrease their growth rate and (b) spend the money they've raised faster by hiring more people and paying them high salaries. Possibly the first time...
Only Heed Advice that Could Later Haunt You
In the process of giving advice to a startup whose domain I know very little about, I came up with a useful form of qualification: only listen to this advice if you can imagine scenarios where this email comes back...
Companies Either Create What They Love or Exploit Customers
The most important division between companies is between those who make things they themselves admire, and those who regard their customers as fools, and cynically give them what they want. Companies sometimes shift from the former to the latter, but...
Wealth Isn’t Exclusive to Entrepreneurs—Founders Just Have More Leverage
Saying that only entrepreneurs generate wealth is as mistaken as saying that only workers do. In fact founders, managers, employees, and individual craftsmen can all generate wealth. Founders do have the most leverage though.
Successful Startups Act, Others Stay Stuck in Denial
Few startups have a smooth ascent. Many if not most have some setbacks initially. The good ones react by focusing on specific steps they can take. The bad ones are vaguely hopeful, or depressed, or in denial — and change...
Founders Fail When They Skip Understanding Market Needs
"Make something people want" sounds obvious, but not doing it is the most common mistake founders make. I explained why I made it in the essay where I coined the term. I didn't understand the market I was building for,...