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☆ The man who led Google Photos to 1 billion users is now the newest group partner at Y Combinator
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Lieb, having a background in semiconductors and not server management, reached out to his fellow Y Combinator founders for support. After a year and a half of advising at the accelerator, he's stepping up as a group partner, Y Combinator tells Business Insider exclusively. It was never released, but many of the ideas would later come back in the form of Google Photos. From there, he reached into the Y Combinator alumni network to find other promising upstarts. David Lieb, second from left, speaks to a group of Y Combinator founders.

Persons: David Lieb, Lieb, Alex Polvi, Combinator —, Garry Tan, Jared Friedman, Harj Taggar, Michael Seibel, Sam Altman, it's, Y Combinator, " Lieb, Dan Lieb, Y, Xoogler, Patrick, John Collison's, Mixpanel, Jake Mintz, Forbes, Kevin Systrom, Flock, Andy Huibers, Mary, 72m2YgJZq8 — David Lieb, Ryan Peterson, He's Organizations: Apple, Business, Investors, Google Locations: Cloudkick, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Flexport

☆ Take a look at the workhorse C-130 cargo plane that the US Air Force is reinventing to fight like a bomber
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( Elias Chavez | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

The first of its kindThe first C-130 Transport flying back from its early flight paces over California's Mojave Desert. Bettmann/Getty ImagesThe C-130 Hercules was created to address deficiencies in the US Air Force fleet during the Korean War. At the time, no plane could simultaneously achieve all the objectives the Air Force needed. To this day, Lockheed still makes C-130 models and their upgraded versions. The US Air Force has not stopped production of the C-130 class plane since it was invented in the 1950s, making it the longest continuous aircraft production run in history.

Persons: Hercules, Fairchild, Lockheed Martin, Jeff Rhodes, Rhodes Organizations: US Air Force, Air Force, Boeing, Douglas, Lockheed, Popular Mechanics, YC, Edwards Air Force Base Locations: Burbank , California, Kern County , California

☆ Inside Y Combinator's 60,000-square-foot, San Francisco college town
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-03 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The full-blown mania in artificial intelligence is bringing tech workers and startups back to San Francisco. Last June, the startup accelerator moved its headquarters from Mountain View into its new digs at the Pier 70 shipyard. Y Combinator partners record an episode of the Lightcone podcast in a production studio complete with professional cameras and lighting fixtures. Y CombinatorRemoving 'friction'For 17 years, Y Combinator set its base in Mountain View. The new San Francisco outpost was born from a desire to get founders in person again post-pandemic.

Persons: —, Jared Friedman, hasn't, Y Combinator Friedman, Y, Friedman, Carlos Avila Gonzalez, Bart, Lindsay Amos Organizations: Service, Volkswagen, Business, Chase, San, Rail, San Francisco Chronicle, Bay Area, YC Locations: San Francisco, Mountain View, San, bayside, View, Mission Bay, Bay, North Beach

☆ Some VCs are over the Sam Altman hype
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

In late 2023, when OpenAI sought $300 million from investors, CEO Sam Altman chose a different approach. In some corners of this clubby world, over $7 coffee and artisanal cocktails, the meteoric rise of OpenAI and Sam Altman is giving way to an inevitable backlash. "He's a kingmaker," a Silicon Valley startup founder and angel investor who knows Altman. Sam Altman and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment. A certain somethingMany of the VCs who spoke with BI said Altman has a certain something.

Persons: —, OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, they'd, I've, Ali Ghodsi, Altman's, Ghodsi, Steve Jobs's, Paul Graham, he's, Sam, Jack Altman, It's, it's, Elon, Alexander the Great, Adam Neumann Organizations: Service, NEA, Business, Altman's, The Washington Post, The, YC, BI, WeWork Locations: Sequoia, Silicon Valley, The, San Francisco

☆ Conversational AI startup Vocode entered Y Combinator without a business plan. Now, it's raised $3.25 million without a pitch deck.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Vocode, a conversational AI startup, has raised $3.25 million in seed funding. Founded in 2023, by Ajay Raj and Kian Hooshmand, Vocode raised funding at Y Combinator without a formal pitch deck. Vocode's founders are friends from high school who made it into Y Combinator despite opting against pitching their original business plan. With 10 weeks until demo day, the team began interviewing teams across fintech, healthcare, and climate, searching for ideas before landing on conversational AI. The company began making waves in online hacker communities before its demo day pitch session in front of investors.

Persons: Ajay Raj, Kian, Vocode, PrankGPT, Hooshmand, Y Organizations: Business Locations: San Francisco, fintech

☆ The IRL social startup 222 is moving from LA to NYC as it launches an app and raises $2.5 million
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-05 | by ( Sydney Bradley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

For the founders behind the IRL social startup 222, it's all about the "magic of the backyard." The 222 team then organizes a multi-stage meetup, which includes a restaurant as well as another venue like a museum or a bar. At its events, 222 wants attendees to feel comfortable and leave "judgment at the door," said Hashemi, 222 's COO. "A lot more people are coming around to this idea of in real-life social," Hashemi said. Kazemian, Hashemi, and Roshannai, meanwhile, want to help swing the pendulum back to IRL — back to real relationships.

Persons: Keyan Kazemian, Danial Hashemi, Arman Roshannai, — Kazemian, Hashemi, Roshannai, Kazemian, —, Catalyst, Arash Ferdowsi, Cory, Catalyst's Niko Bonatsos, Sydney Bradley Organizations: Business, Scrum Ventures, Dropbox, University of Southern, YC, Tech, IRL Locations: Los Angeles, California, New York, New York City, University of Southern California, SoHo , New York

☆ In ousting CEO Sam Altman, ChatGPT loses its best fundraiser
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-18 | by ( Greg Bensinger | Thomson Reuters | Greg Bensinger Joined Reuters As A Technology Correspondent In Focusing On The World'S Largest Technology Companies. He Was Previously A Member Of The New York Times Editorial Board | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testifies before a Senate Judiciary Privacy, Technology & the Law Subcommittee hearing titled 'Oversight of A.I. But on Friday it was the earnest Altman who was upended after OpenAI’s board, in a surprise move, stripped him of his CEO title and directorship. Directors of the company, now worth about $80 billion, cited a failure to be "consistently candid in his communications." Further details of what finally led to the ouster of Altman were not immediately clear Friday. “You and a small group of rebels get the space to solve an important problem that might otherwise not get solved."

Persons: Sam Altman, Elizabeth Frantz, Sam Altman’s, Altman, Elon Musk’s, “, what’s, ” Altman, Satya Nadella, OpenAI, ”, Greg Bensinger, Diane Craft Organizations: Privacy, Technology, Intelligence, REUTERS, Microsoft, Wednesday, Google, Stanford, Thomson Locations: Washington , U.S, OpenAI, San Francisco, St, Louis , Missouri

☆ Founder-turned-investor Liz Wessel worked with more than 100 startups during her time at YC. Now, she's First Round Capital's newest partner.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-05 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Liz Wessel has heard more than her fair share of startup pitches in her career as a founder. Now, Wessel is fulfilling that desire to invest and advise founders full-time, by joining the early-stage venture capital firm First Round Capital as the team's newest investment partner. Wessel had met many of the partners at First Round Capital while she was still the CEO of WayUp. She shared that Y Combinator's managing director Michael Seibel counseled her directly on her decision to jump into venture investing full-time. And given the increasingly tenuous state of the seed market, she'll be looking for startup founders that are particularly knowledgable about their customer base and have "strong business fundamentals," she said.

Persons: Liz Wessel, Wessel, WayUp, JJ Fliegelman, Fliegelman, Michael Seibel, Combinator, she's Organizations: WayUp, Yello, Google, First, YC

☆ As Instacart goes public, it's no victory lap for founder Apoorva Mehta
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-19 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Mehta was replaced as CEO of Instacart in July 2021 following a messy dispute with some of the company's largest investors. Instacart Founder Apoorva Mehta in his 2003 yearbook photo from Westdale Secondary School. The app started gaining momentum and Mehta put out ads on Craigslist for shoppers to do the grocery runs for him. Whole Foods reportedly broke the news to Mehta and a fellow Instacart executive on an early morning call. In a sworn affidavit, Mehta denies that he misappropriated any trade secrets and says he's since cut ties with Singh.

Persons: Apoorva Mehta, Mehta, Safeway Mehta, Hamilton Public Library Mehta, Bing Gordon, Kleiner Perkins, Gordon, he'd, Garry Tan, Tan, Garry, Andreessen Horowitz, catapulting Mehta, Forbes, Instacart, Mike Moritz, Fidji Simo, Simo, That's, Mehta's, he's, Tejasvi, Singh, Sam Bankman, NextMed, it's Organizations: Instacart, Safeway, Westdale Secondary, Hamilton Public Library, The University of Waterloo, Amazon, NPR, Electronic Arts, YC, TechCrunch, Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Forbes, Foods, Costco, Kroger, Facebook, Sunrise Locations: India, Libya, Hamilton , Ontario, Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco, wallowing, Sequoia, Mehta's, Marin County

☆ Insider Today: Y Combinator's Demo Day decline
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-07 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Y Combinator's Demo Day, which will wrap up today, was long considered the event for early-stage startups. AdvertisementAdvertisementInvestors front-running Demo Day was previously considered a major faux pas. You might ask yourself: Who cares if startups line up investments before Demo Day? And companies that get investments before Demo Day might regret it in the long run. The new rating system for performance reviews determines pay — and managers were instructed to not share it with employees.

Persons: I've, that's, Madeline Renbarger, haven't, It's, it's, Samantha Lee, Madeline, There's, Martin, Ryan Reynolds, LeBron James, they're, Ed Yardeni, Jeremy Grantham, Brevan Howard, Peter Hornick, Eduardo Munoz, Sapna Chadha, Shopify, Arantza Pena Popo, YIMBYism, Elon Musk, Katy Perry, Hozier, Hayao Miyazaki's, Heidi Tissenbaum's, Dan DeFrancesco, Naga Siu, Hallam Bullock, Lisa Ryan Organizations: Service, NFL, Tech, Bank, Getty Images, REUTERS, Google, Google Asia Pacific, The Kansas City Chiefs —, Detroit Lions, 48th Toronto, Getty Locations: Wall, Silicon, Silicon Valley, Nevada, The, New York City, San Diego, London, New York

☆ VCs don't care as much about Y Combinator's Demo Day anymore
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Y Combinator's Demo Day used to be the hottest in-person early-stage event in Silicon Valley. For early-stage venture capitalists, few days on the calendar used to compare to Y Combinator's biannual Demo Day. "All of the funds try to go meet the best YC companies before Demo Day," the same investor told Insider. When asked about startups raising before Demo Day, Y Combinator president and CEO Garry Tan told Insider in an emailed statement that "lots of the best companies raise at Demo Day and after." "Coinbase, Instacart, Whatnot, Rappi, Airbyte, Retool — you could have gotten into their rounds at Demo Day.

Persons: It's, Erik Bruckner, Y, Garry Tan, it's, Bruckner, They're, Y Combinator, Jeff Weinstein, Combinator, Tan, haven't Organizations: YC, Bruckner Ventures, FJ Labs Locations: Silicon Valley, Columbus , Ohio

☆ I'm a generative AI startup founder who got into Y Combinator this year. But I turned them down for Neo, another smaller accelerator program. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-25 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Here's why my cofounder and I decided to go with Neo and turned down a spot in Y Combinator. We also worked at another YC company, Fractional, after that too. So we changed ideas, and I think YC was maybe not too happy about that. I do think YC, outside of Silicon Valley, is still a bigger name, and there's a huge number of unicorns that have come out of there. If you're a B2B company, YC is probably a better buy, because YC's network can be great for finding new customers.

Persons: Combinator, Wesley Tian, Ali Partovi, scrappy, Neo's, Reid Hoffman, Erik Goldman Organizations: YC Locations: Aragon, Silicon Valley, Oregon

☆ 6 years ago, AI startup MindsDB was an open source project that few took seriously. Now it's worth $160 million and on a growth rocketship.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Vishal Persaud | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

MindsDB helps developers apply machine learning to their data to build AI applications. Founded in 2017, the startup began as an AI open source project that some doubted in its early days. But six years ago, MindsDB was just an abstraction and later an open source AI project that few paid attention to. "'You're going to be able to automate the work of a machine learning engineer? "After YC, we became an actual company," Torres said.

Persons: MindsDB, Jorge Torres, he's, Torres, cofound, Adam Carrigan, Aneesh Chopra, Barack Obama, Carrigan, Michael Seibel, Y, Seibel, Luck, There's, It's Organizations: Mayfield Fund, Benchmark, Forbes, Investors, CareJourney, Mayfield Locations: London

☆ Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst lead $50 million seed round in Hippocratic AI to deliver large language models to healthcare providers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Hippocratic AI is a large language model company aiming to serve healthcare providers. Now, the entrepreneur is marrying his interest in healthcare with his experience as a multi-time AI founder to create Hippocratic AI, a healthcare-focused large language model company. First, Hippocratic AI tested its large language model against 114 different healthcare certifications, 105 of which its model outperformed OpenAI's GPT-4 on, Shah told Insider. Despite its intensive model training efforts and recent hefty capital infusion, Hippocratic AI has yet to release a product. "This language model business has turned software development back into a capital intensive business," he said.

☆ OpenAI: 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Cnbc.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Since launching ChatGPT in November, OpenAI has quickly become a household name. Microsoft came into the picture in 2019 with a $1 billion investment. The tech giant followed up with a multi-billion-dollar investment in 2023, with some reports putting the figure as high as $10 billion. Today, OpenAI is reportedly valued at $29 billion, though the company has not shared total funding or valuation data. Microsoft has been integrating the technology into Bing, its search engine, as well as its Microsoft 365 bundle and Dynamics 365 sales and marketing tools.

☆ AI startup founders from Y Combinator's latest class reveal the top 3 things they learned from the accelerator
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Several AI startup founders who participated said the program had many more in person events. And they also said it was a huge benefit and made a difference being in San Francisco. For its winter 2023 cohort, Y Combinator accepted founders from 282 startups for its coveted startup accelerator program. Insider spoke with the founders of four AI startups that went through this latest batch and asked them to share what they learned most from the experience. "It feels like the next platform shift, and San Francisco is definitely the heart of it."

☆ VCs are scrambling to invest in AI startups in Y Combinator's latest class: 'There's hysteria for a reason'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

VCs are scrambling to back the AI startups in Y Combinator's latest batch. Several generative AI startups have already secured funding from top firms, sources say. And while valuations are down across the board, YC AI startups are still hot. Startups focused on AI, and generative AI specifically, which saw a substantial jump in the latest batch, were some of the most highly sought after by investors. An AI feeding frenzyVC buzz was common across generative AI startups both in the application and infrastructure layers.

☆ Developer tool startups in Y Combinator's latest class are grabbing the attention of investors like Elad Gil and Google's Gradient Ventures. Here are 4 that have already landed funding.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Developer tool startups that were part of Y Combinator's latest class are drawing strong interest from several high-profile venture capitalists. Sequoia partner Lauren Reeder personally participated in the code review startup's recent funding round, according to a Sequoia spokesperson. That fundraising was at a $30 million post-money valuation, one person familiar with the deal said. Developer tool startups accounted for 26% of the companies in YC's winter 2023 batch, up from 16% of the summer 2022 class, according to the accelerator's startup directory. Have a tip on a startup funding round?

☆ Y Combinator's latest class is a feeding frenzy for VCs looking to back AI startups: 'There's hysteria for a reason'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

☆ There are more generative AI startups that are launching out of Y Combinator than ever before. Here are 55 of them.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

The startup accelerator Y Combinator had the most generative AI startups ever in this cohort. These startups are set to reveal what they've been working on at Demo Day on April 5 and 6. Here are 55 generative AI startups in the startup accelerator's winter 2023 batch. This year, the hottest topic in startup and VC land is generative AI, and this cohort saw a jump in the number of generative AI startups that made the cut. The last cohort had only nine startups that described themselves as generative AI companies, but the current one has over 50 startups in the category.

☆ Y Combinator's head of admissions is reviewing over 20,000 startups for its summer 2023 cohort. Here's what she's looking for.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

For early-stage founders looking to grow their startups in an accelerator, few names spark as much excitement as Y Combinator. Several of Silicon Valley's marquee companies are Y Combinator graduates, including Airbnb, Stripe, and Dropbox. While the number of startups that were part of last year's summer cohort were down 40% from the previous batch, this winter batch had 17.5% more startups accepted, said a Y Combinator spokesperson. Now, Y Combinator is looking ahead to its next batch, accepting applications for the summer 2023 cohort, which are due by April 7th. Stephanie Simon, the head of Y Combinator's admissions team, wants founders to know she's still sifting through all those applications.

☆ Y Combinator pulls back from late-stage startup investing to focus on its core accelerator program, and parts ways with 17 employees
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Y Combinator president Garry Tan announced the accelerator is moving away from late-stage investing. The startup accelerator will also eliminate 17 roles on the late-stage investing team. Known for its early-stage investing focus through its core accelerator program, YC also does late-stage investing. "But late stage investing turned out to be so different from early stage that we found it to be a distraction from our core mission. As part of the restructuring, 17 employees on the late-stage investing teams had their roles eliminated, Tan wrote in the post.

Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by regulators on Friday. The news has made startup founders worried that they won't be able to pay their employees next week. Startup founders still reeling from Silicon Valley Bank's implosion have something new to stress about: whether they'll be able to access enough money to cut employee paychecks next week. "Lots of startups are missing payroll in 2-4 weeks if a) Silicon Valley Bank doesn't have the deposits b) SVB doesn't get sold or c) SVB isn't rescued." "If you're a startup founder dealing with this, I'm here to help any way I can," Ayush Sharma, founder and CEO of payroll and compliance startup Warp, tweeted.

☆ Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck that Y Combinator alum Opkit, a health insurance verification startup, used to raise funding from investors like Plaid CEO Zach Perret's VC firm
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Opkit is a startup that helps telehealth companies verify and process patient health insurance. Software engineers Sherwood Callaway and Justin Ko first met as early employees at the fintech startup Brex and became fast friends. As more telehealth companies were popping up after the pandemic, they often had issues with quickly processing patient health insurance for care, Callaway told Insider. Opkit also offers providers an insurance dashboard, that allows telehealth employees to perform eligibility checks or inquiries to insurance companies about specific patients' plans. "Opkit was our first experience doing venture fundraising, and Y Combinator really helped us make connections with investors," said Callaway.

☆ Former NBA star Zach Randolph & Marcus 'Head' Howell on building NLess Entertainment and the rise of Moneybagg Yo
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( John Lynch | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

NLess Entertainment co-founders Zach Randolph and Marcus Howell spoke to Insider about the trajectory of their independent record label. After signing with NLess in 2016, Moneybagg Yo released his debut studio album, "Reset," and steadily built momentum with each subsequent LP. "Man, staying in the studio," Howell reinforced. "Bagg work hard. I asked Randolph and Howell what separates Memphis from the rest of the US in their minds.

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