<Leadership>

We are launching a new app called Sora. This is a combination of a new model called Sora 2, and a new product that makes it easy to create, share, and view videos. This feels to many of us like the “ChatGPT for creativity” moment, and it feels fun and new....

Optimism, obsession, self-belief, raw horsepower and personal connections are how things get started. Cohesive teams, the right combination of calmness and urgency, and unreasonable commitment are how things get finished....

Helion has been progressing even faster than I expected and is on pace in 2024 to 1) demonstrate Q > 1 fusion and 2) resolve all questions needed to design a mass-producible fusion generator....

I’m delighted to be investing more in Helion. Helion is by far the most promising approach to fusion I’ve seen. David and Chris are two of the most impressive founders and builders (in the sense of building fusion machines, in addition to building companies!...

I would like to find and support a slate of candidates for the 2018 California elections, and also to find someone to run a ballot initiative focused on affordable housing in the state. A team of aligned people has a chance to make a real change....

If you want to get funded by YC as a founder in the future, but you don't have a startup that's ready for that yet, joining the YC software team is a great hack to get there.

A lot of people ask me what the ideal cofounder looks like. I now have an answer: Greg Brockman. Every successful startup I know has at least one person who provides the force of will to make the startup happen....

Dear YC Community: In response to a comment on Hacker News, I’m going to try writing an annual letter to the YC community with an update on our progress. Our mission is to enable the most innovation of any company in the world in order to make the future great for everyone....

The Affordable Care Act is far from perfect–for one thing, I think health insurance should be entirely separate from employment–but I hate the thought of losing it without a replacement for people who will lose insurance....

Airbnb has recently been attacked by San Francisco politicians for driving up the price of housing in the city. San Francisco has tried, and will continue to try, to ban Airbnb in various ways. Last week, this excellent post was published on Prop F—“the Airbnb law”....

This is a very short summary with lots left out—here is the long version: http://startupclass.samaltman.com You should start with an idea, not a company....

Last week, Yishan Wong resigned from reddit. The reason was a disagreement with the board about a new office (location and amount of money to spend on a lease). To be clear, though, we didn’t ask or suggest that he resign—he decided to when we didn’t approve the new office plan....

I’m very excited to share that I’m investing in reddit (personally, not via Y Combinator). I have been a daily reddit user for 9 years—longer than pretty much any other service I still use besides Facebook, Google, and Amazon—and reddit's founders (Steve Huffm...

Richard Hamming gave this talk in March of 1986. [1] It's one of the best talks I've ever read and has long impacted how I think about spending my time. I mentioned it to a number of people this weekend who, to my surprise, had never heard of it....

On the whole, I got a great response to my request for feedback about how YC could encourage female founders. It's clear there are two separate problems: 1) Some women already starting startups aren't interested in doing Y Combinator....

There’s a lot written about what you should do when you raise money, but there hasn’t been as much written about the common mistakes founders make....

After startups raise money, their next biggest problem becomes hiring. It turns out it’s both really hard and really important to hire good people; in fact, it’s probably the most important thing a founder does....

In honor of the new YC batch starting tomorrow, here is some of the best startup advice I’ve heard or given (mostly heard): 1. Make something people want. 2. A great team and a great market are both critically important—you have to have both....

I'm reading The Endurance and "by endurance we conquer" (Ernest Shackleton's family motto) struck me as a great piece of startup wisdom. Everyone knows that you need a great team, great execution, and a great idea. Less obvious is that you have to have great endurance....