12 ms·

New YC homepage

298 points by sarreph 9mo ago

TheCoreh 9mo ago
Looks good. A minor piece of feedback, though: might be just me, not sure if anyone else has this pavlovian conditioning, but seeing the black banner/bar on top with the YC logo/color below and HN background color immediately makes me think someone passed away.
- wizzwizz4 9mo ago
  I think it's fine. If it were a black bar and then an orange bar, that would be a different matter.
- 0003 9mo ago
  Turning a builder into a formidable founder, which via the PG quote is someone who seems they will always get what they want is in its self a death. A builder... a truth-seeking creator dies. Devoured by someone who gets what they want, a superego. There should be a black bar at the top. /s Shout out to the risk takers.
- BoorishBears 9mo ago
  Weirdly enough my top bar has been set to #000000 for years now, so I forget that has a secondary meaning
ls-a 9mo ago
I found the switch of focus from startups/businesses to founders/CEOs particularly strange. Looks like a political campaign to me.
- alephnerd 9mo ago
  YC has always been founder first. Back when they started in the 2000s, most traditional VCs didn't recognize that high impact individuals can easily pivot or define product categories, and only concentrated on financial engineering (DCF go brrrrrr). YC often also mentors founders on pivots (I'd say at least a third of all startups that make it to demo day were mentored into some sort of a pivot). YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z Speedrun and PeakXV Surge, both of which really center on the founder first approach or Operators-turned-Angels - which I assume this marketing shift is about.
  - deleted 9mo ago
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  - ls-a 9mo ago
    > YC often also mentors founders on pivots Interesting. I once talked to an investor (not YC) and they asked me what I would do if the product failed. I said one thing I can do is pivot. And they literally responded with "we don't invest in founders who think about pivoting" > YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z Speedrun and PeakXV Surge Maybe. A write up about the new design would be cool I think > YC has always been founder first. Internally yes there is a "founder community". But publicly I would argue it was product-first.
    - throwaway89201 9mo ago
      > YC often also mentors founders on pivots It doesn't seem unlikely to me that YC coined or at least popularized 'the pivot' in the context of changing business / startup directions. The first mention of using the word in that sense is in this comment [1] which explicitly mentions the usage by YC, while it only gets used when talking about pivot tables or more traditional uses of the word before that. Edit: The "Lean Startup" blog series [2], which was quite influential, mentions 'the pivot' a little earlier than the post above, and really seems to coin it, so I guess that's the source (edit again: wrong :D). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=806601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=806601 [2] https://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/06/pivot-dont-jump-to-new-vision.html https://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/06/pivot-dont-jum...
      - dang 9mo ago
        That's a fun question! 806601 was from Sept 2009. I found 3 earlier cases of 'pivot' in the startup sense: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=699611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=699611 (July 2009) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=676514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=676514 (June 2009) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=562739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=562739 (April 2009) All 3 of those posts were by YC founders, so the term was obviously in circulation by then. The last of them includes a (broken) likn to this article: https://web.archive.org/web/20090703130211/https://redeye.firstround.com/2009/03/pivoting-and-yogi-berra.html https://web.archive.org/web/20090703130211/https://redeye.fi.... Edit: that one was discussed here, but the comments didn't say the p-word: Yogi Berra wisdom for startups - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537331 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537331 - March 2009 (9 comments)
- ls-a 9mo ago
  I'm pretty sure the designer used political campaigns as inspiration
- wahnfrieden 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - bflesch 9mo ago
    any details?
    - hackable_sand 9mo ago
      https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/y-combinators-police-surveillance-darling-flock-safety-raises-275m-at-7-5b-valuation/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/y-combinators-police-surve...
    - wahnfrieden 9mo ago
      [flagged]
      - popalchemist 9mo ago
        [flagged]
      - nailer 9mo ago
        You’re going to need at least a single reference, maybe for the death threats claim.
        wahnfrieden 9mo ago
        That’s the easiest one because it made national news and he made a public statement apologizing for it saying there’s “no place, no excuse and no reason for this type of speech and charged language in the discourse.” I had the number of targets wrong it looks like it was only 7 officials. Several of them filed police reports against him for it. His public threat also prompted others to deliver physical notes of death threats toward the same officials. https://sfstandard.com/2024/01/30/garry-tan-vulgar-tweet-prompts-san-francisco-police-reports/ https://sfstandard.com/2024/01/30/garry-tan-vulgar-tweet-pro... You could have found that with less typing than it took to ask me for it. There’s an NYT article too. Which other one are you suspicious of? These are all public knowledge and well documented.
deleted 9mo ago
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0xferruccio 9mo ago
some of the design interactions are really polished. the section written with the quotes from founders is really cool. the hover effect with the before and after of the YC partners is a great touch too!
deleted 9mo ago
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ncb9094 9mo ago
[flagged]
ripped_britches 9mo ago
I mean trying to insinuate oai is a yc company is just shady right? I get that the subtext isn’t dishonest, but cmon, you know what you’re doing
- tptacek 9mo ago
  They were an early funder. Seems p. reasonable for a VC firm to point that out.
  - nailer 9mo ago
    Were OpenAI in a batch though? If not, I think maybe OpenAI deserves a mention but after companies that were actually in a batch. Typography looks great though, animations are smooth, /formidable founder' is original and it's nice seeing Jared Friedman - he was super friendly and acted as a company champion when I applied in 2016.
    - tptacek 9mo ago
      I don't think a "fair" ranking of companies with a nexus to YC is really the goal of the page. YC invested in OpenAI; their logo goes on the page. Also, hard to argue that the founders of OpenAI lacked YC credentials. :)
      - nailer 9mo ago
        ‘Nexus’ is vague. The page is specifically asking founders to participate in YC’s program and showing founders that participated in YC’s program. Altman’s company Loopt failed - Altman went on to work on OpenAI and YC Research allegedly pledged money: we get it, but that’s not the typical YC founder experience, and it wasn’t Sam’s experience with Loopt. In addition YC Research didn’t send their pledged funds to OpenAI: https://archive.ph/20230518211335/https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/17/elon-musk-used-to-say-he-put-100m-in-openai-but-now-its-50m-here-are-the-receipts/ https://archive.ph/20230518211335/https://techcrunch.com/202... > According to federal tax filings, at least one of the named donors, YC Research, never gave a single dollar
trebligdivad 9mo ago
Impressive collection of embarrassingly young founder pictures :-)
- nine_k 9mo ago
  A good remedy against lookism :)
  - nailer 9mo ago
    Running a startup also ages people prematurely.
    - jdross 9mo ago
      Making money fixes that. Look at some of the featured hairlines
      - nailer 9mo ago
        That’s true. Mine too.
scheeseman486 9mo ago
[flagged]
- dmazin 9mo ago
  Wow – thank you for that.
hajrice 9mo ago
Visiting HN brings me back when to when I just started my career as a entrepreneur, I look forward to the nostalgic design it has. Have been familiar w/ YC's & HN design since 2008. New YC page looks great – but it just doesn't feel "yc" to me.
NKosmatos 9mo ago
Impressive! Seeing all the before and after photos is a nice touch. With regards to the actual web page, white text on light background (partners part) makes it nice easily readable.
skeptrune 9mo ago
I love that the founders are so prominently featured on this new version.
- deleted 9mo ago
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PStamatiou 9mo ago
Really love the new site and how it highlights founders so well. Only minor tweak I'd make is for the desktop viewport size - make it so you can also click the company names instead of needing to precisely scroll for the images to show up for that company. With notched mouse wheels it's all too easy to skip one even with a regular scroll. Or increase the scroll distance. Also might suggest using a gradient mask to fade out the company logos as you scroll the primary text block up. Some of them get very close to the text and the one-by-one removal feels a tad distracting. And really minor but kept finding myself trying to click the photos to see things larger. Would be nice if they could come up in a media viewer with a small caption, and let me arrow key or swipe through.
- stingrae 9mo ago
  yeah i think the scroll speed is too fast. that would fix all the issues.
- sublinear 9mo ago
  I think the items in the carousel are just too wide. There's usually some side margin showing more of the previous and next items. I turned my phone to landscape and the scroll "sensitivity" no longer felt wrong, but then a new bug was revealed. It chooses to put focus on the right-most item in the carousel. Now the animation doesn't play for the first item.
foresto 9mo ago
Displays a blank page unless scripts are allowed. :(
- dang 9mo ago
  Thanks - someone else reported this too (as a security issue for some reason!) and I've passed it on.
perfmode 9mo ago
There’s something that bothers me about reducing achievement to stock price and exit valuations. Yet, it is sobering to witness the machinery laid bare. The whole aesthetic of startup success—those triumphant IPO bell-ringing moments—celebrates money, not wisdom or authentic progress. I’m aware this is the dominant framework, but that doesn’t make it feel less hollow. Welcome to Heartbreak.
- nine_k 9mo ago
  Wisdom and authentic progress are hard to measure. They are also not the goals enterprises pursue. Enterprises go for the money, but the money is normally paid by satisfied customers; this side effect is what makes enterprises viable and useful. (In case of VC money, customers even don't have to pay for sustainably for some time.) An IPO or a large acquisition is like a graduation event for school students. A diploma or a SAT certificate also do not certify wisdom, or even progress. They certify a certain degree of success, and a transition into "adult life". Or think about this as of an orbital insertion event for a spacecraft. Not an end goal, but a precondition for a serious progress. If you seek wisdom, a VC firm like YCombinator is likely not the most appropriate tool for your quest. (An attempt to found a business may bring some wisdom, as usual, at a cost.)
- ryandrake 9mo ago
  > The whole aesthetic of startup success—those triumphant IPO bell-ringing moments—celebrates money, not wisdom or authentic progress. Didn't see anything about ethics either, which, again, is not necessarily what a VC firm is about. It's actually kind of refreshing--the website clearly conveys YC's focus: It's about being "formidable" and "intensive work" and "urgency" and "fast." The editing on this site is impressive. They have boiled away everything down to the core of what the firm believes in, and it's "work hard make lots of money fast". Not something I'd personally be interested in being part of, but the site's wording is remarkable in its honesty, and I clearly know after reading it that the YC experience would not be my cup of tea!
  - akomtu 9mo ago
    [flagged]
hungryhobbit 9mo ago
Redo the co-founder match sub-site next! That thing hasn't been updated in years, and could really use some love. If they don't want to do it themselves, just open source the sub-site and I'm sure a bunch of tech founders will happily do it for them (if only to be able to say they contributed to YC itself).
autoexec 9mo ago
Doesn't seem to display anything with JS disabled so it's a fail in my book, but I accept that I'll be in the minority here.
- robertwpearce 9mo ago
  Same! uBlock on Firefox lists ~280 scripts blocked
  - autoexec 9mo ago
    Yeah, I took a glance at the source and thought the list of scripts was insane too. Even if all of that code is needed (and I doubt it is) combining them a bit would save a whole lot of requests. It's almost like every function got its own file.
bigyabai 9mo ago
Gary Tan shows up in a photo at the bottom but nowhere by name. Gotta hand it to YC, whoever handles their PR needs a raise.
- Klonoar 9mo ago
  What...? You can CTRL+F his name. He's right there.
moomoo11 9mo ago
Very cool!
magicmicah85 9mo ago
There's a homepage? Kidding aside, it looks like a good landing page highlighting the top success stories and the purpose of YC.
raldi 9mo ago
The “YC/Now” timer starts (and sometimes flips) before the image actually loads.
amelius 9mo ago
Looks cool, though I have to be honest that I'm not a big fan of showing only the survivor stories.
- raleighm 9mo ago
  I had the same reaction. Also the new vibe feels less like “make something people want” and more like “join the pantheon.”
  - camillomiller 9mo ago
    [flagged]
  - dzonga 9mo ago
    cz as successful YC is - the graveyard is littered with thousands of graves in each batch only 2 - 3 startups really work out and make it big.
- jonahx 9mo ago
  My first thought was I'd love to see everything, from the unicorns to the mid-level success to the failures, all laid out in one big infographic.
- wavemode 9mo ago
  Meh. If your business fails, you basically got $500K in exchange for nothing. Still sounds to me like a good deal.
- rrgok 9mo ago
  Yep, I would like to see the success/failure ratio. That would give me a good idea whether this VC funding fantasy is a number game, intentional success or just plain old luck.
- mrgoldenbrown 9mo ago
  Like a lottery only advertising the winners.
pelagicAustral 9mo ago
Crazy talented people. Crazy good products. I really like the redesign, I am a bit old now, but I can see how inspiring it might be for people coming into tech.
- camillomiller 9mo ago
  [flagged]
- hackable_sand 9mo ago
  Just as inspiring as the United Citizen Federation recruitment videos!
  - faidit 9mo ago
    I'm doing my part!
archeantus 9mo ago
What stood out to me more than how impressive the carousel of companies was, was the order of them. Wild that they have OpenAI and Stripe second and third to Airbnb.
- sbsnjsks 9mo ago
  [dead]
- tjr 9mo ago
  Did it change? I see OpenAI listed first.
  - archeantus 9mo ago
    I see Airbnb first
NetOpWibby 9mo ago
This looks good. Almost makes me want to apply...but nah. Maybe, idk.
elAhmo 9mo ago
Love the emphasis on people behind successful companies and humble beginnings that all of them have!
PyWoody 9mo ago
I think I was on HN for at least three years before I realized they even had a homepage. I might check this one out in the next couple of years.
- conductr 9mo ago
  The most well funded forum ever
  - imiric 9mo ago
    And it only needs one server! (Maybe they can afford a hot spare now?) A real lesson in frugality.
  - halapro 9mo ago
    And yet they can't be bothered to add 10 lines of CSS for dark mode support.
- recursive 9mo ago
  I've been here for over a decade. Today is the first time I bothered to check it out.
smnplk 9mo ago
didnt know they had a website. Do lobsters have a website too ?
Mc_Big_G 9mo ago
“A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.” Yeah, especially laws and regulations.
- waterproof 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - brodo 9mo ago
    [flagged]
dewey 9mo ago
The "Be in the room with …" image hover effects triggering the video are neat.
sapphire42 9mo ago
[flagged]
ansk 9mo ago
The implication that OpenAI is a YC company in the same sense as the other listed companies is somewhere between misleading and dishonest. Even more distasteful to show founding teams for all the others, then just Sam for OpenAI.
cjflog 9mo ago
Interesting pattern to see how many IPO photos on the right are missing an original founder or two.
- neilv 9mo ago
  Whilst gaining better fashion and haircuts.
jonshariat 9mo ago
[flagged]
- hexbin010 9mo ago
  [dead]
hackomorespacko 9mo ago
[flagged]
asadm 9mo ago
the "Be in the room with..." hover videos are cool but seem AI-generated.
- nasso_dev 9mo ago
  they definitely are. im not sure why they did that, still pictures are okay too and much greener
  - camillomiller 9mo ago
    [flagged]
- reddalo 9mo ago
  Even the Coinbase still picture seems AI-generated (I left another comment here with details).
sailfast 9mo ago
Not sure formidable founders getting whatever they want whatever the obstacle (sure market obstacles but what about laws, morality, etc) is a good thing to be honest. Sometimes folks need to be stopped. Sometimes those walls are there for a reason. And after IPO, maybe a founder should consider the good of the world instead of what you think you want next for yourself and just bashing down more walls. But I dunno… I’m just a rando.
- camillomiller 9mo ago
  [flagged]
- padolsey 9mo ago
  Yeh I don't think there's much value in a credo if it celebrates Altman. He's a terrible idol to have. He compared Trump to Hitler in 2016, then donated $1M to his inauguration and tweeted about being in an "NPC trap" when he criticized him. Took about six weeks after the election to flip. Testified to Congress that AI regulation is "essential," then lobbied against California's safety bill when it actually showed up. His own board fired him for lying to them for years. His safety team leads quit in protest saying safety took a backseat to shiny products. Multiple former colleagues, including the people who left to start Anthropic, describe psychological abuse and manipulation. Claims a $65k salary while sitting on a billion-dollar fortune built through conflicts of interest. He's not a good guy. He's a guy who says whatever serves him in the moment and has left a trail of people warning us about exactly that.
Computer0 9mo ago
It's a nice website. I still despise ycombinator. They make a hell of a forum though!
- BitsAndObjects 9mo ago
  "A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way." ...even if those obstacles are reality, the law or basic morality.
  - direwolf20 9mo ago
    When have those things ever stopped a businessman?
    - BitsAndObjects 9mo ago
      Frequently. Come join me under my rock and I'll show you how some of the people I know live ;)
ukd1 9mo ago
So good!
adrianwaj 9mo ago
Is there a way to see all the inactive companies? Some have great names and addresses. I wonder if there's a way to efficiently use them - even keeping all the paperwork intact.. like buying a shell company and saving a lot of the overheads and registering/signups. Brands are resurrected in fashion all the time with new designers, CEOs and owners while keeping the name, heritage (codes/motifs/archive,) goodwill and stores intact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_house) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_house) is 70% owned by the Qatari royal family. You could even have the ex-founders sit on a steering committee or advisory board for the switcheroo mob who could be their new bosses. With all the unemployment around, startup musical chairs could be a solution. Isn't founders' equity the only valuable thing left in the startup world? No chance in getting rich as an employee - and with AI, who is/will not be replaceable? Also, finding the right people from the get-go is another significant challenge, and users of course. Why don't those inactive companies share their failure stories to find some value-add? It's 2026: they could be mere hours away from an IPO horizon :)
photochemsyn 9mo ago
[flagged]
austinjp 9mo ago
The "before" pictures occasionally hint at what might be optimism and individuality. The "after" pictures display a uniformly grim corporate homogeneity. Maybe this is because the "before" pictures are unguarded, taken before the kool-aid sank in. But they still show people who queued up to drink that kool-aid. It's a "no" from me.
emmelaich 9mo ago
Curious -- was any AI used? No shame in that.
coldtea 9mo ago
The design looks good. The quote is so kitch it could be on a self-help book. "YC turns builders into formidable founders" - and then a bs faux-definition of formidable.
- coffeemug 9mo ago
  If you ever met some of the founders in the pictures, you'd know it's not bs.
- promiseofbeans 9mo ago
  The IEEE-reference feels like a cute nod to HN
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
yc-critical 9mo ago
“A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.” Dictator is another name.
- waterproof 9mo ago
  That also struck me as a pretty weird quote to highlight. Someone who "seems like they’ll get what they want" sounds more like a bully more than a persuader or value creator. Isn't there something better to aspire to?
  - idiotsecant 9mo ago
    It means exactly what it's intended to mean. You aren't misunderstanding it.
  - pjerem 9mo ago
    And I can’t think of any middle to big company that is not led by bullies. But that’s just how the world is. Capitalism is optimized for the bullies to be on top. That’s exactly why Trump is the most powerful man of the most powerful country. I hope it changes someday.
- Der_Einzige 9mo ago
  [flagged]
kneel 9mo ago
sama's double collar is legend
charlie0simmon 9mo ago
Clean design. I like how it puts founders front and center instead of just listing company logos. One suggestion: adding a quick filter by batch year or industry would make it easier to browse. Sometimes I want to see what's new in a specific space like AI or dev tools.
milancurcic 9mo ago
The company features on the front page was a great opportunity to point out their positive impacts on the world. Instead, they focus on $BBB. Nice new site though.
- deaux 9mo ago
  > point out their positive impacts on the world. Not particularly easy when you've been funding the likes of Flock(YC S17).
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
bastian 9mo ago
A great sentence needs no explanation.
adamiscool8 9mo ago
Just realizing that in more than a decade of perusing Hacker News, I may not have ever visited the homepage.
doanbactam 9mo ago
Clean and AI
cya11 9mo ago
Great history, hopefully some of these successful founders will stay in the loop here for all us up and comings.
cdelsolar 9mo ago
they forgot Leftronic
amadeuspagel 9mo ago
> YC turns builders into formidable founders. This is followed by a series of before and after pictures. YC offers not money but personal transformation. Their standard offer of $500,000 for 7% is not mentioned on the homepage, maybe because it would invite comparison ... when you see numbers like this your first thought is: I wonder what other accelators offer? The before and after pictures are something no other accelator can compete with.
- c0_0p_ 9mo ago
  Unless things have changed? It used to be $125,000 for 7% on a SAFE, then $375,000 which converts at your next fundraise at whatever the most favourable terms offered are. So unless you never raise more money it's certainly not $500k for 7%.
dhruv3006 9mo ago
> YC turns builders into formidable founders Love this quote
topherPedersen 9mo ago
I noticed a photo of the Kalshi founders on the new homepage. I remember when Kalshi launched I thought it was so bad, and that those founders must be the very bottom of their class... they're billionaires now!
- testdelacc1 9mo ago
  They make most of their money from sports betting. Which isn't a particularly novel business.
moralestapia 9mo ago
Seems that the "it's a numbers game" thesis delivered. (I know the previous deal was different but just to get an estimate ...) 500k to each of 5,000+ startups = 2.5 billion in exchange of 7% of 1.3 trillion = 91 billion ~36x return. It's even better than that as they invest, on average, less than 500k and get, on average, more than 7% equity. (But they also get diluted, so, who knows). Of note, that 1.3 trillion follows a comically long tailed distribution. OpenAI is 500B. Stripe+Doordash+Airbnb+Coinbase+Reddit+Scale is 400B. The remainder is 5,000+ companies.
- another_twist 9mo ago
  You dont get 7% of a company, you get 7% of outstanding sharez. So its shares held * stock price. Usually there are less stocks issued at the initial stages with more coming in later as more investors are added. I dont think YC maintains 7% across all their investments.
  - moralestapia 9mo ago
    >(But they also get diluted, so, who knows)
Uptrenda 9mo ago
what are the demographics, educational attainment, and avg net worth of prior yc founders, id like to see what unconventional bets look like.
popalchemist 9mo ago
[flagged]
- brodo 9mo ago
  [flagged]
JamesAdir 9mo ago
[1] “A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.” Obstacles are also any legal constraints that will break and pay later in fines, like Airbnb.
- asaddhamani 9mo ago
  Or economic ruin, societal ruin they may cause along the way, like OpenAI.
_zagj 9mo ago
> Sam was part of YC's inaugural batch in S05 and founded OpenAI as YC Research in 2015 Notice how they omit any mention of Loopt, and almost try to imply that he's famous for founding OpenAI, when the trajectory was really Loopt -> YC President -> other stuff -> OpenAI, and Loopt was a failure that was acquired for barely more than it raised in VC money, and spent its waning days as a seedy gay hookup app. Sam's success was preordained, and failure, for him (and his VC backers), was never an option.
yamono432 9mo ago
Idk how i feel about having sama right at the start
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
tasuki 9mo ago
> A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way. This is rather dark actually. True, too. Props to Y Combinator for not trying to sugarcoat things!
- matwood 9mo ago
  I don’t think it’s dark, but I’ve been told that my similar attitude can rub some people the wrong way. I’m not a jerk about it, but I always show up prepared to get to where I think we need to be. If that rubs people the wrong way so be it. EDIT The downvotes are interesting. Do people think the world will just give them things? I'm reminded of a quote I keep nearby from a book I read many years ago. “His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.” ― Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
  - Juliate 9mo ago
    > Do people think the world will just give them things? No. But just that more and more people are more and more fed up of collectively paying/enduring the consequences of the ambition of a few people that do. not. care. about. their. fellow. humans. neither. the. planet. > When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. Indeed. And if you act "regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way", without discernement, that tells something about you that you may, or may not realise.
    - matwood 9mo ago
      > without discernement You added this part. In my mind I add discernment to do right by others among other things. Unfortunately when we distill things down to quips nuance is lost. Maybe it's my optimism, but I tend to read things charitably. Nothing I've ever accomplished has been without obstacles, some that were seemingly impossible to pass at the time.
simgt 9mo ago
Interesting how all the examples at the top are in the form of "It started here, now it's worth $xB". At least we've stopped pretending it was for anything else but money, and the power that comes with it.
- anon_anon12 9mo ago
  True, it was always greed veiled with an illusion of passion
- ghufran_syed 9mo ago
  what alternative metric are you proposing?
- qznc 9mo ago
  In my memory, the original vibe of Ycombinator was more like "achieve fuck-you money in your twenties" than today's unicorn chase.
- tetris11 9mo ago
  Vulture culture: always was, always will be. At least we got some decent side discussions in the small spaces during the interim
- ismail 9mo ago
  Here is my insight: VALUATION is not the same as VALUE CREATION. Put another way, the ability to accumulate resources, is not a reliable indicator of the "good" being created in the world. When the quantitative metric of "Money" is used a a proxy for value creation, it creates serious and dangerous side effects. This is a fundamental failure mode of modern capitalism. Capitalism requires ethical discipline. Without it, we get runaway resource accumulation, that rationalises actions and strategies (externalisation, extraction, optimisation-at-all-costs) which cause more harm than good. The techno-optimists (See e/acc/Marc Andreessen)[0], frame progress as intrinsically good. I believe a more prudent approach is needed, one that is wise and looks at business from the perspective of: STEWARDSHIP & BALANCE, rather than RESOURCE ACCUMULATION & PROGRESS. While I do not disagree with all he says, and do not think technological progress is bad, you will notice there is no mention of ethics in the entire manifesto other than as an "enemy". Philosopher Charles Taylor argues that a defining feature of modernity is the rise of what he calls “disengaged reason” [1]: > Contrary to a Platonic understanding of reason where a meaningful order exists in the cosmos and in the soul that serves as a source for the highest good for reason to discover and conform to, disengaged reason "is no longer defined in terms of a vision of order in the cosmos" (Taylor 1989, 20). This disengagement allows reason to look at the world from an 'autonomous' viewpoint, leading to the abandonment of all 'horizons' > or frameworks "within which we know where we stand, and what meanings things have for us" (Taylor 1989, 29), thus rendering any inquiry to be independent of an overarching telos. This idea is captured bluntly in this video (paraphrasing)[2]: > The great innovation with modernity was to convince people that money is *GOD*. With the enlightenment *MONEY* replaced *GOD* for a lot of people In a sense, a lot of people in the modern world treat money itself as "The Sacred" This is not to say I am arguing that money, profit and competition are morally wrong, but rather the way it is packaged. It is often elevated to the ultimate end (telos), rather than the means. The fundamental category error is making the assumption that: VALUATION (or Money in the bank) = Value Creation (For The Greater Good) As you have rightly pointed out, the "It started here, now it's worth $xB" is an indication of this worldview, where the telos itself is "MONEY" [0] https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ [1] https://www.academia.edu/26548899/Disciplinarity_and_Islamic_Education https://www.academia.edu/26548899/Disciplinarity_and_Islamic... [2] https://youtu.be/B5FtHagng8c?t=249 https://youtu.be/B5FtHagng8c?t=249
stewsnooze 9mo ago
This new site owes a lot to Index Ventures. The whole thing seems heavily inspired by the beautiful Index site.
yyx 9mo ago
No dark mode. Classic.
oe 9mo ago
The carousel is way too fast to be able to read the texts. I’ve made the same mistake as a developer when I already know each text by heart, but actual users can’t read them fast enough.
reddalo 9mo ago
Am I the only one who thinks that the Coinbase [1] picture has been AI generated, or at least heavily AI-altered? The movie posters behind look like garbage, and what's wrong with that Return of the Jedi poster? Why is there a random blob and a broken face at the top instead of Darth Vader? And why is there a random Google+ logo on the left? And why does Fred Ehrsam have a huge thumb and silky smooth legs? [1] https://bookface-static.ycombinator.com/assets/ycdc/beforevsnow/coinbase-batch-1-d0d5c84104f9f9578d888d283099ee17b47731e6301304faf9d1109b38e4d177.jpg https://bookface-static.ycombinator.com/assets/ycdc/beforevs...
- mkl 9mo ago
  And the Back to the Future title is totally wrong - it's always in the stylised logo form on posters.
- 101008 9mo ago
  No, it's 100% generated. The background posters mke no sense at all, inclunding Google+ there. And also Fred's hands are wrong. I wonder if they didn't have a pic of both of them together and asked AI to generate it, though Gemini or even Grok would do a better job than that.
bkfh 9mo ago
Interesting to see the OG Twitter logo rather than X in the footer. Must have been an explicit choice
ianbooker 9mo ago
Its been years since I felt urged to congratulate someone for their "webdesign", but this is really good. No boring glossy landing picture, but a distinct claim, and the the before / whoisit / after Element is unique, in a good way.
songodongo 9mo ago
Altman with the double polo.
constantcrying 9mo ago
This is just absolutely insane. Why are you publicly humiliating your most successful founders on the home page of your VC firm? "Here is an awful photo of our star founders. Look at how terribly they looked and what awkward nerds they used to be, when they came here." You need to fire whoever green lit this.
- another-dave 9mo ago
  "You need to fire whoever green lit this." — I'm sure they themselves probably all green lit this. Why would they be embarrassed?
computerthings 9mo ago
[dead]
thimkerbell 9mo ago
If you feature a quote from someone, prominently, on a prominent website, you might check in with them to make sure they don't have any issues with the usage. (I do sense artifice. Possibly wrongly.)
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
deleted 9mo ago
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andraaspar 9mo ago
The main quote is cropped on Firefox. It reads: YC turns builders nto formidable founders And a little dirt next to founders.
coldtrait 9mo ago
Why can't the hackernews home page look like that?

298 points by sarreph 9mo ago

Looks good. A minor piece of feedback, though: might be just me, not sure if anyone else has this pavlovian conditioning, but seeing the black banner/bar on top with the YC logo/color below and HN background color immediately makes me think someone passed away.

wizzwizz4 9mo ago
I think it's fine. If it were a black bar and then an orange bar, that would be a different matter.
0003 9mo ago
Turning a builder into a formidable founder, which via the PG quote is someone who seems they will always get what they want is in its self a death. A builder... a truth-seeking creator dies. Devoured by someone who gets what they want, a superego. There should be a black bar at the top. /s Shout out to the risk takers.
BoorishBears 9mo ago
Weirdly enough my top bar has been set to #000000 for years now, so I forget that has a secondary meaning

ls-a 9mo ago

I found the switch of focus from startups/businesses to founders/CEOs particularly strange. Looks like a political campaign to me.

alephnerd 9mo ago
YC has always been founder first. Back when they started in the 2000s, most traditional VCs didn't recognize that high impact individuals can easily pivot or define product categories, and only concentrated on financial engineering (DCF go brrrrrr). YC often also mentors founders on pivots (I'd say at least a third of all startups that make it to demo day were mentored into some sort of a pivot). YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z Speedrun and PeakXV Surge, both of which really center on the founder first approach or Operators-turned-Angels - which I assume this marketing shift is about.
- deleted 9mo ago
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- deleted 9mo ago
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- ls-a 9mo ago
  > YC often also mentors founders on pivots Interesting. I once talked to an investor (not YC) and they asked me what I would do if the product failed. I said one thing I can do is pivot. And they literally responded with "we don't invest in founders who think about pivoting" > YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z Speedrun and PeakXV Surge Maybe. A write up about the new design would be cool I think > YC has always been founder first. Internally yes there is a "founder community". But publicly I would argue it was product-first.
  - throwaway89201 9mo ago
    > YC often also mentors founders on pivots It doesn't seem unlikely to me that YC coined or at least popularized 'the pivot' in the context of changing business / startup directions. The first mention of using the word in that sense is in this comment [1] which explicitly mentions the usage by YC, while it only gets used when talking about pivot tables or more traditional uses of the word before that. Edit: The "Lean Startup" blog series [2], which was quite influential, mentions 'the pivot' a little earlier than the post above, and really seems to coin it, so I guess that's the source (edit again: wrong :D). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=806601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=806601 [2] https://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/06/pivot-dont-jump-to-new-vision.html https://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/06/pivot-dont-jum...
    - dang 9mo ago
      That's a fun question! 806601 was from Sept 2009. I found 3 earlier cases of 'pivot' in the startup sense: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=699611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=699611 (July 2009) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=676514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=676514 (June 2009) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=562739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=562739 (April 2009) All 3 of those posts were by YC founders, so the term was obviously in circulation by then. The last of them includes a (broken) likn to this article: https://web.archive.org/web/20090703130211/https://redeye.firstround.com/2009/03/pivoting-and-yogi-berra.html https://web.archive.org/web/20090703130211/https://redeye.fi.... Edit: that one was discussed here, but the comments didn't say the p-word: Yogi Berra wisdom for startups - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537331 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537331 - March 2009 (9 comments)
ls-a 9mo ago
I'm pretty sure the designer used political campaigns as inspiration
wahnfrieden 9mo ago
[flagged]
- bflesch 9mo ago
  any details?
  - hackable_sand 9mo ago
    https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/y-combinators-police-surveillance-darling-flock-safety-raises-275m-at-7-5b-valuation/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/y-combinators-police-surve...
  - wahnfrieden 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - popalchemist 9mo ago
      [flagged]
    - nailer 9mo ago
      You’re going to need at least a single reference, maybe for the death threats claim.
      - wahnfrieden 9mo ago
        That’s the easiest one because it made national news and he made a public statement apologizing for it saying there’s “no place, no excuse and no reason for this type of speech and charged language in the discourse.” I had the number of targets wrong it looks like it was only 7 officials. Several of them filed police reports against him for it. His public threat also prompted others to deliver physical notes of death threats toward the same officials. https://sfstandard.com/2024/01/30/garry-tan-vulgar-tweet-prompts-san-francisco-police-reports/ https://sfstandard.com/2024/01/30/garry-tan-vulgar-tweet-pro... You could have found that with less typing than it took to ask me for it. There’s an NYT article too. Which other one are you suspicious of? These are all public knowledge and well documented.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

0xferruccio 9mo ago

some of the design interactions are really polished. the section written with the quotes from founders is really cool. the hover effect with the before and after of the YC partners is a great touch too!

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

ncb9094 9mo ago

[flagged]

ripped_britches 9mo ago

I mean trying to insinuate oai is a yc company is just shady right? I get that the subtext isn’t dishonest, but cmon, you know what you’re doing

tptacek 9mo ago
They were an early funder. Seems p. reasonable for a VC firm to point that out.
- nailer 9mo ago
  Were OpenAI in a batch though? If not, I think maybe OpenAI deserves a mention but after companies that were actually in a batch. Typography looks great though, animations are smooth, /formidable founder' is original and it's nice seeing Jared Friedman - he was super friendly and acted as a company champion when I applied in 2016.
  - tptacek 9mo ago
    I don't think a "fair" ranking of companies with a nexus to YC is really the goal of the page. YC invested in OpenAI; their logo goes on the page. Also, hard to argue that the founders of OpenAI lacked YC credentials. :)
    - nailer 9mo ago
      ‘Nexus’ is vague. The page is specifically asking founders to participate in YC’s program and showing founders that participated in YC’s program. Altman’s company Loopt failed - Altman went on to work on OpenAI and YC Research allegedly pledged money: we get it, but that’s not the typical YC founder experience, and it wasn’t Sam’s experience with Loopt. In addition YC Research didn’t send their pledged funds to OpenAI: https://archive.ph/20230518211335/https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/17/elon-musk-used-to-say-he-put-100m-in-openai-but-now-its-50m-here-are-the-receipts/ https://archive.ph/20230518211335/https://techcrunch.com/202... > According to federal tax filings, at least one of the named donors, YC Research, never gave a single dollar

trebligdivad 9mo ago

Impressive collection of embarrassingly young founder pictures :-)

nine_k 9mo ago
A good remedy against lookism :)
- nailer 9mo ago
  Running a startup also ages people prematurely.
  - jdross 9mo ago
    Making money fixes that. Look at some of the featured hairlines
    - nailer 9mo ago
      That’s true. Mine too.

scheeseman486 9mo ago

[flagged]

dmazin 9mo ago
Wow – thank you for that.

hajrice 9mo ago

Visiting HN brings me back when to when I just started my career as a entrepreneur, I look forward to the nostalgic design it has. Have been familiar w/ YC's & HN design since 2008. New YC page looks great – but it just doesn't feel "yc" to me.

NKosmatos 9mo ago

Impressive! Seeing all the before and after photos is a nice touch. With regards to the actual web page, white text on light background (partners part) makes it nice easily readable.

skeptrune 9mo ago

I love that the founders are so prominently featured on this new version.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

PStamatiou 9mo ago

Really love the new site and how it highlights founders so well. Only minor tweak I'd make is for the desktop viewport size - make it so you can also click the company names instead of needing to precisely scroll for the images to show up for that company. With notched mouse wheels it's all too easy to skip one even with a regular scroll. Or increase the scroll distance. Also might suggest using a gradient mask to fade out the company logos as you scroll the primary text block up. Some of them get very close to the text and the one-by-one removal feels a tad distracting. And really minor but kept finding myself trying to click the photos to see things larger. Would be nice if they could come up in a media viewer with a small caption, and let me arrow key or swipe through.

stingrae 9mo ago
yeah i think the scroll speed is too fast. that would fix all the issues.
sublinear 9mo ago
I think the items in the carousel are just too wide. There's usually some side margin showing more of the previous and next items. I turned my phone to landscape and the scroll "sensitivity" no longer felt wrong, but then a new bug was revealed. It chooses to put focus on the right-most item in the carousel. Now the animation doesn't play for the first item.

foresto 9mo ago

Displays a blank page unless scripts are allowed. :(

dang 9mo ago
Thanks - someone else reported this too (as a security issue for some reason!) and I've passed it on.

perfmode 9mo ago

There’s something that bothers me about reducing achievement to stock price and exit valuations. Yet, it is sobering to witness the machinery laid bare. The whole aesthetic of startup success—those triumphant IPO bell-ringing moments—celebrates money, not wisdom or authentic progress. I’m aware this is the dominant framework, but that doesn’t make it feel less hollow. Welcome to Heartbreak.

nine_k 9mo ago
Wisdom and authentic progress are hard to measure. They are also not the goals enterprises pursue. Enterprises go for the money, but the money is normally paid by satisfied customers; this side effect is what makes enterprises viable and useful. (In case of VC money, customers even don't have to pay for sustainably for some time.) An IPO or a large acquisition is like a graduation event for school students. A diploma or a SAT certificate also do not certify wisdom, or even progress. They certify a certain degree of success, and a transition into "adult life". Or think about this as of an orbital insertion event for a spacecraft. Not an end goal, but a precondition for a serious progress. If you seek wisdom, a VC firm like YCombinator is likely not the most appropriate tool for your quest. (An attempt to found a business may bring some wisdom, as usual, at a cost.)
ryandrake 9mo ago
> The whole aesthetic of startup success—those triumphant IPO bell-ringing moments—celebrates money, not wisdom or authentic progress. Didn't see anything about ethics either, which, again, is not necessarily what a VC firm is about. It's actually kind of refreshing--the website clearly conveys YC's focus: It's about being "formidable" and "intensive work" and "urgency" and "fast." The editing on this site is impressive. They have boiled away everything down to the core of what the firm believes in, and it's "work hard make lots of money fast". Not something I'd personally be interested in being part of, but the site's wording is remarkable in its honesty, and I clearly know after reading it that the YC experience would not be my cup of tea!
- akomtu 9mo ago
  [flagged]

hungryhobbit 9mo ago

Redo the co-founder match sub-site next! That thing hasn't been updated in years, and could really use some love. If they don't want to do it themselves, just open source the sub-site and I'm sure a bunch of tech founders will happily do it for them (if only to be able to say they contributed to YC itself).

autoexec 9mo ago

Doesn't seem to display anything with JS disabled so it's a fail in my book, but I accept that I'll be in the minority here.

robertwpearce 9mo ago
Same! uBlock on Firefox lists ~280 scripts blocked
- autoexec 9mo ago
  Yeah, I took a glance at the source and thought the list of scripts was insane too. Even if all of that code is needed (and I doubt it is) combining them a bit would save a whole lot of requests. It's almost like every function got its own file.

bigyabai 9mo ago

Gary Tan shows up in a photo at the bottom but nowhere by name. Gotta hand it to YC, whoever handles their PR needs a raise.

Klonoar 9mo ago
What...? You can CTRL+F his name. He's right there.

moomoo11 9mo ago

Very cool!

magicmicah85 9mo ago

There's a homepage? Kidding aside, it looks like a good landing page highlighting the top success stories and the purpose of YC.

raldi 9mo ago

The “YC/Now” timer starts (and sometimes flips) before the image actually loads.

amelius 9mo ago

Looks cool, though I have to be honest that I'm not a big fan of showing only the survivor stories.

raleighm 9mo ago
I had the same reaction. Also the new vibe feels less like “make something people want” and more like “join the pantheon.”
- camillomiller 9mo ago
  [flagged]
- dzonga 9mo ago
  cz as successful YC is - the graveyard is littered with thousands of graves in each batch only 2 - 3 startups really work out and make it big.
jonahx 9mo ago
My first thought was I'd love to see everything, from the unicorns to the mid-level success to the failures, all laid out in one big infographic.
wavemode 9mo ago
Meh. If your business fails, you basically got $500K in exchange for nothing. Still sounds to me like a good deal.
rrgok 9mo ago
Yep, I would like to see the success/failure ratio. That would give me a good idea whether this VC funding fantasy is a number game, intentional success or just plain old luck.
mrgoldenbrown 9mo ago
Like a lottery only advertising the winners.

pelagicAustral 9mo ago

Crazy talented people. Crazy good products. I really like the redesign, I am a bit old now, but I can see how inspiring it might be for people coming into tech.

camillomiller 9mo ago
[flagged]
hackable_sand 9mo ago
Just as inspiring as the United Citizen Federation recruitment videos!
- faidit 9mo ago
  I'm doing my part!

archeantus 9mo ago

What stood out to me more than how impressive the carousel of companies was, was the order of them. Wild that they have OpenAI and Stripe second and third to Airbnb.

sbsnjsks 9mo ago
[dead]
tjr 9mo ago
Did it change? I see OpenAI listed first.
- archeantus 9mo ago
  I see Airbnb first

NetOpWibby 9mo ago

This looks good. Almost makes me want to apply...but nah. Maybe, idk.

elAhmo 9mo ago

Love the emphasis on people behind successful companies and humble beginnings that all of them have!

PyWoody 9mo ago

I think I was on HN for at least three years before I realized they even had a homepage. I might check this one out in the next couple of years.

conductr 9mo ago
The most well funded forum ever
- imiric 9mo ago
  And it only needs one server! (Maybe they can afford a hot spare now?) A real lesson in frugality.
- halapro 9mo ago
  And yet they can't be bothered to add 10 lines of CSS for dark mode support.
recursive 9mo ago
I've been here for over a decade. Today is the first time I bothered to check it out.

smnplk 9mo ago

didnt know they had a website. Do lobsters have a website too ?

Mc_Big_G 9mo ago

“A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.” Yeah, especially laws and regulations.

waterproof 9mo ago
[flagged]
- brodo 9mo ago
  [flagged]

dewey 9mo ago

The "Be in the room with …" image hover effects triggering the video are neat.

sapphire42 9mo ago

[flagged]

ansk 9mo ago

The implication that OpenAI is a YC company in the same sense as the other listed companies is somewhere between misleading and dishonest. Even more distasteful to show founding teams for all the others, then just Sam for OpenAI.

cjflog 9mo ago

Interesting pattern to see how many IPO photos on the right are missing an original founder or two.

neilv 9mo ago
Whilst gaining better fashion and haircuts.

jonshariat 9mo ago

[flagged]

hexbin010 9mo ago
[dead]

hackomorespacko 9mo ago

[flagged]

asadm 9mo ago

the "Be in the room with..." hover videos are cool but seem AI-generated.

nasso_dev 9mo ago
they definitely are. im not sure why they did that, still pictures are okay too and much greener
- camillomiller 9mo ago
  [flagged]
reddalo 9mo ago
Even the Coinbase still picture seems AI-generated (I left another comment here with details).

sailfast 9mo ago

Not sure formidable founders getting whatever they want whatever the obstacle (sure market obstacles but what about laws, morality, etc) is a good thing to be honest. Sometimes folks need to be stopped. Sometimes those walls are there for a reason. And after IPO, maybe a founder should consider the good of the world instead of what you think you want next for yourself and just bashing down more walls. But I dunno… I’m just a rando.

camillomiller 9mo ago
[flagged]
padolsey 9mo ago
Yeh I don't think there's much value in a credo if it celebrates Altman. He's a terrible idol to have. He compared Trump to Hitler in 2016, then donated $1M to his inauguration and tweeted about being in an "NPC trap" when he criticized him. Took about six weeks after the election to flip. Testified to Congress that AI regulation is "essential," then lobbied against California's safety bill when it actually showed up. His own board fired him for lying to them for years. His safety team leads quit in protest saying safety took a backseat to shiny products. Multiple former colleagues, including the people who left to start Anthropic, describe psychological abuse and manipulation. Claims a $65k salary while sitting on a billion-dollar fortune built through conflicts of interest. He's not a good guy. He's a guy who says whatever serves him in the moment and has left a trail of people warning us about exactly that.

Computer0 9mo ago

It's a nice website. I still despise ycombinator. They make a hell of a forum though!

BitsAndObjects 9mo ago
"A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way." ...even if those obstacles are reality, the law or basic morality.
- direwolf20 9mo ago
  When have those things ever stopped a businessman?
  - BitsAndObjects 9mo ago
    Frequently. Come join me under my rock and I'll show you how some of the people I know live ;)

ukd1 9mo ago

So good!

adrianwaj 9mo ago

Is there a way to see all the inactive companies? Some have great names and addresses. I wonder if there's a way to efficiently use them - even keeping all the paperwork intact.. like buying a shell company and saving a lot of the overheads and registering/signups. Brands are resurrected in fashion all the time with new designers, CEOs and owners while keeping the name, heritage (codes/motifs/archive,) goodwill and stores intact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_house) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_house) is 70% owned by the Qatari royal family. You could even have the ex-founders sit on a steering committee or advisory board for the switcheroo mob who could be their new bosses. With all the unemployment around, startup musical chairs could be a solution. Isn't founders' equity the only valuable thing left in the startup world? No chance in getting rich as an employee - and with AI, who is/will not be replaceable? Also, finding the right people from the get-go is another significant challenge, and users of course. Why don't those inactive companies share their failure stories to find some value-add? It's 2026: they could be mere hours away from an IPO horizon :)

photochemsyn 9mo ago

[flagged]

austinjp 9mo ago

The "before" pictures occasionally hint at what might be optimism and individuality. The "after" pictures display a uniformly grim corporate homogeneity. Maybe this is because the "before" pictures are unguarded, taken before the kool-aid sank in. But they still show people who queued up to drink that kool-aid. It's a "no" from me.

emmelaich 9mo ago

Curious -- was any AI used? No shame in that.

coldtea 9mo ago

The design looks good. The quote is so kitch it could be on a self-help book. "YC turns builders into formidable founders" - and then a bs faux-definition of formidable.

coffeemug 9mo ago
If you ever met some of the founders in the pictures, you'd know it's not bs.
promiseofbeans 9mo ago
The IEEE-reference feels like a cute nod to HN
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

yc-critical 9mo ago

“A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.” Dictator is another name.

waterproof 9mo ago
That also struck me as a pretty weird quote to highlight. Someone who "seems like they’ll get what they want" sounds more like a bully more than a persuader or value creator. Isn't there something better to aspire to?
- idiotsecant 9mo ago
  It means exactly what it's intended to mean. You aren't misunderstanding it.
- pjerem 9mo ago
  And I can’t think of any middle to big company that is not led by bullies. But that’s just how the world is. Capitalism is optimized for the bullies to be on top. That’s exactly why Trump is the most powerful man of the most powerful country. I hope it changes someday.
Der_Einzige 9mo ago
[flagged]

kneel 9mo ago

sama's double collar is legend

charlie0simmon 9mo ago

Clean design. I like how it puts founders front and center instead of just listing company logos. One suggestion: adding a quick filter by batch year or industry would make it easier to browse. Sometimes I want to see what's new in a specific space like AI or dev tools.

milancurcic 9mo ago

The company features on the front page was a great opportunity to point out their positive impacts on the world. Instead, they focus on $BBB. Nice new site though.

deaux 9mo ago
> point out their positive impacts on the world. Not particularly easy when you've been funding the likes of Flock(YC S17).

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

bastian 9mo ago

A great sentence needs no explanation.

adamiscool8 9mo ago

Just realizing that in more than a decade of perusing Hacker News, I may not have ever visited the homepage.

doanbactam 9mo ago

Clean and AI

cya11 9mo ago

Great history, hopefully some of these successful founders will stay in the loop here for all us up and comings.

cdelsolar 9mo ago

they forgot Leftronic

amadeuspagel 9mo ago

> YC turns builders into formidable founders. This is followed by a series of before and after pictures. YC offers not money but personal transformation. Their standard offer of $500,000 for 7% is not mentioned on the homepage, maybe because it would invite comparison ... when you see numbers like this your first thought is: I wonder what other accelators offer? The before and after pictures are something no other accelator can compete with.

c0_0p_ 9mo ago
Unless things have changed? It used to be $125,000 for 7% on a SAFE, then $375,000 which converts at your next fundraise at whatever the most favourable terms offered are. So unless you never raise more money it's certainly not $500k for 7%.

dhruv3006 9mo ago

> YC turns builders into formidable founders Love this quote

topherPedersen 9mo ago

I noticed a photo of the Kalshi founders on the new homepage. I remember when Kalshi launched I thought it was so bad, and that those founders must be the very bottom of their class... they're billionaires now!

testdelacc1 9mo ago
They make most of their money from sports betting. Which isn't a particularly novel business.

moralestapia 9mo ago

Seems that the "it's a numbers game" thesis delivered. (I know the previous deal was different but just to get an estimate ...) 500k to each of 5,000+ startups = 2.5 billion in exchange of 7% of 1.3 trillion = 91 billion ~36x return. It's even better than that as they invest, on average, less than 500k and get, on average, more than 7% equity. (But they also get diluted, so, who knows). Of note, that 1.3 trillion follows a comically long tailed distribution. OpenAI is 500B. Stripe+Doordash+Airbnb+Coinbase+Reddit+Scale is 400B. The remainder is 5,000+ companies.

another_twist 9mo ago
You dont get 7% of a company, you get 7% of outstanding sharez. So its shares held * stock price. Usually there are less stocks issued at the initial stages with more coming in later as more investors are added. I dont think YC maintains 7% across all their investments.
- moralestapia 9mo ago
  >(But they also get diluted, so, who knows)

Uptrenda 9mo ago

what are the demographics, educational attainment, and avg net worth of prior yc founders, id like to see what unconventional bets look like.

popalchemist 9mo ago

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brodo 9mo ago
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JamesAdir 9mo ago

[1] “A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.” Obstacles are also any legal constraints that will break and pay later in fines, like Airbnb.

asaddhamani 9mo ago
Or economic ruin, societal ruin they may cause along the way, like OpenAI.

_zagj 9mo ago

> Sam was part of YC's inaugural batch in S05 and founded OpenAI as YC Research in 2015 Notice how they omit any mention of Loopt, and almost try to imply that he's famous for founding OpenAI, when the trajectory was really Loopt -> YC President -> other stuff -> OpenAI, and Loopt was a failure that was acquired for barely more than it raised in VC money, and spent its waning days as a seedy gay hookup app. Sam's success was preordained, and failure, for him (and his VC backers), was never an option.

yamono432 9mo ago

Idk how i feel about having sama right at the start

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tasuki 9mo ago

> A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way. This is rather dark actually. True, too. Props to Y Combinator for not trying to sugarcoat things!

matwood 9mo ago
I don’t think it’s dark, but I’ve been told that my similar attitude can rub some people the wrong way. I’m not a jerk about it, but I always show up prepared to get to where I think we need to be. If that rubs people the wrong way so be it. EDIT The downvotes are interesting. Do people think the world will just give them things? I'm reminded of a quote I keep nearby from a book I read many years ago. “His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.” ― Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
- Juliate 9mo ago
  > Do people think the world will just give them things? No. But just that more and more people are more and more fed up of collectively paying/enduring the consequences of the ambition of a few people that do. not. care. about. their. fellow. humans. neither. the. planet. > When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. Indeed. And if you act "regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way", without discernement, that tells something about you that you may, or may not realise.
  - matwood 9mo ago
    > without discernement You added this part. In my mind I add discernment to do right by others among other things. Unfortunately when we distill things down to quips nuance is lost. Maybe it's my optimism, but I tend to read things charitably. Nothing I've ever accomplished has been without obstacles, some that were seemingly impossible to pass at the time.

simgt 9mo ago

Interesting how all the examples at the top are in the form of "It started here, now it's worth $xB". At least we've stopped pretending it was for anything else but money, and the power that comes with it.

anon_anon12 9mo ago
True, it was always greed veiled with an illusion of passion
ghufran_syed 9mo ago
what alternative metric are you proposing?
qznc 9mo ago
In my memory, the original vibe of Ycombinator was more like "achieve fuck-you money in your twenties" than today's unicorn chase.
tetris11 9mo ago
Vulture culture: always was, always will be. At least we got some decent side discussions in the small spaces during the interim
ismail 9mo ago
Here is my insight: VALUATION is not the same as VALUE CREATION. Put another way, the ability to accumulate resources, is not a reliable indicator of the "good" being created in the world. When the quantitative metric of "Money" is used a a proxy for value creation, it creates serious and dangerous side effects. This is a fundamental failure mode of modern capitalism. Capitalism requires ethical discipline. Without it, we get runaway resource accumulation, that rationalises actions and strategies (externalisation, extraction, optimisation-at-all-costs) which cause more harm than good. The techno-optimists (See e/acc/Marc Andreessen)[0], frame progress as intrinsically good. I believe a more prudent approach is needed, one that is wise and looks at business from the perspective of: STEWARDSHIP & BALANCE, rather than RESOURCE ACCUMULATION & PROGRESS. While I do not disagree with all he says, and do not think technological progress is bad, you will notice there is no mention of ethics in the entire manifesto other than as an "enemy". Philosopher Charles Taylor argues that a defining feature of modernity is the rise of what he calls “disengaged reason” [1]: > Contrary to a Platonic understanding of reason where a meaningful order exists in the cosmos and in the soul that serves as a source for the highest good for reason to discover and conform to, disengaged reason "is no longer defined in terms of a vision of order in the cosmos" (Taylor 1989, 20). This disengagement allows reason to look at the world from an 'autonomous' viewpoint, leading to the abandonment of all 'horizons' > or frameworks "within which we know where we stand, and what meanings things have for us" (Taylor 1989, 29), thus rendering any inquiry to be independent of an overarching telos. This idea is captured bluntly in this video (paraphrasing)[2]: > The great innovation with modernity was to convince people that money is *GOD*. With the enlightenment *MONEY* replaced *GOD* for a lot of people In a sense, a lot of people in the modern world treat money itself as "The Sacred" This is not to say I am arguing that money, profit and competition are morally wrong, but rather the way it is packaged. It is often elevated to the ultimate end (telos), rather than the means. The fundamental category error is making the assumption that: VALUATION (or Money in the bank) = Value Creation (For The Greater Good) As you have rightly pointed out, the "It started here, now it's worth $xB" is an indication of this worldview, where the telos itself is "MONEY" [0] https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ [1] https://www.academia.edu/26548899/Disciplinarity_and_Islamic_Education https://www.academia.edu/26548899/Disciplinarity_and_Islamic... [2] https://youtu.be/B5FtHagng8c?t=249 https://youtu.be/B5FtHagng8c?t=249

stewsnooze 9mo ago

This new site owes a lot to Index Ventures. The whole thing seems heavily inspired by the beautiful Index site.

yyx 9mo ago

No dark mode. Classic.

oe 9mo ago

The carousel is way too fast to be able to read the texts. I’ve made the same mistake as a developer when I already know each text by heart, but actual users can’t read them fast enough.

reddalo 9mo ago

Am I the only one who thinks that the Coinbase [1] picture has been AI generated, or at least heavily AI-altered? The movie posters behind look like garbage, and what's wrong with that Return of the Jedi poster? Why is there a random blob and a broken face at the top instead of Darth Vader? And why is there a random Google+ logo on the left? And why does Fred Ehrsam have a huge thumb and silky smooth legs? [1] https://bookface-static.ycombinator.com/assets/ycdc/beforevsnow/coinbase-batch-1-d0d5c84104f9f9578d888d283099ee17b47731e6301304faf9d1109b38e4d177.jpg https://bookface-static.ycombinator.com/assets/ycdc/beforevs...

mkl 9mo ago
And the Back to the Future title is totally wrong - it's always in the stylised logo form on posters.
101008 9mo ago
No, it's 100% generated. The background posters mke no sense at all, inclunding Google+ there. And also Fred's hands are wrong. I wonder if they didn't have a pic of both of them together and asked AI to generate it, though Gemini or even Grok would do a better job than that.

bkfh 9mo ago

Interesting to see the OG Twitter logo rather than X in the footer. Must have been an explicit choice

ianbooker 9mo ago

Its been years since I felt urged to congratulate someone for their "webdesign", but this is really good. No boring glossy landing picture, but a distinct claim, and the the before / whoisit / after Element is unique, in a good way.

songodongo 9mo ago

Altman with the double polo.

constantcrying 9mo ago

This is just absolutely insane. Why are you publicly humiliating your most successful founders on the home page of your VC firm? "Here is an awful photo of our star founders. Look at how terribly they looked and what awkward nerds they used to be, when they came here." You need to fire whoever green lit this.

another-dave 9mo ago
"You need to fire whoever green lit this." — I'm sure they themselves probably all green lit this. Why would they be embarrassed?

computerthings 9mo ago

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thimkerbell 9mo ago

If you feature a quote from someone, prominently, on a prominent website, you might check in with them to make sure they don't have any issues with the usage. (I do sense artifice. Possibly wrongly.)

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andraaspar 9mo ago

The main quote is cropped on Firefox. It reads: YC turns builders nto formidable founders And a little dirt next to founders.

coldtrait 9mo ago

Why can't the hackernews home page look like that?