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Here鈥檚 why I believe YC is the most important company in the startup world:
1. YC creates net new founders: Many founders would not have started companies if not for YC.聽Most VCs do not fund you if you are pre-revenue (reality is most VCs are growth VCs and want to see some traction). YC bets on founder potential.聽聽
2. Startup flywheel: YC funds 200 - 300 companies a year. Early employees join these companies and then eventually start new companies.聽
3. YC creates an environment that enables founders to become better: There are founder network effects in the community - ambitious people observe other ambitious people and become better and more formidable.
4. YC is the bottom-up product version for VC that scales through software, community, media and content (vs most VCs rely on an outbound enterprise sales approach).聽聽
5. YC companies are worth聽over $600B. This is a wild stat聽since YC funds companies so early. If you include second-time YC founders (who didn't go through the batch), that number is much higher聽聽
6. Smart people are a cheat-code. You have access to young, ambitious, cracked people who are willing to help and give you feedback on product, company, connections etc. That leads to better products and companies.聽 聽
7. There is no way to A/B test this ofc, but I think if most VCs went away tomorrow, it wouldn't really matter. There is enough capital out there. If YC went away, there would be far less interesting and big startups in the world.
1. YC creates net new founders: Many founders would not have started companies if not for YC.聽Most VCs do not fund you if you are pre-revenue (reality is most VCs are growth VCs and want to see some traction). YC bets on founder potential.聽聽
2. Startup flywheel: YC funds 200 - 300 companies a year. Early employees join these companies and then eventually start new companies.聽
3. YC creates an environment that enables founders to become better: There are founder network effects in the community - ambitious people observe other ambitious people and become better and more formidable.
4. YC is the bottom-up product version for VC that scales through software, community, media and content (vs most VCs rely on an outbound enterprise sales approach).聽聽
5. YC companies are worth聽over $600B. This is a wild stat聽since YC funds companies so early. If you include second-time YC founders (who didn't go through the batch), that number is much higher聽聽
6. Smart people are a cheat-code. You have access to young, ambitious, cracked people who are willing to help and give you feedback on product, company, connections etc. That leads to better products and companies.聽 聽
7. There is no way to A/B test this ofc, but I think if most VCs went away tomorrow, it wouldn't really matter. There is enough capital out there. If YC went away, there would be far less interesting and big startups in the world.
Y Combinator has helped create more than $800 billion in market value over 20 years. Thank you to Paul, Jessica, Trevor and Robert and Happy Birthday to the fixed point combinator that changed the world.View quoted post on X
