When I was a 21 year old with a fledgling startup, Geoff kept a promise to me several years later that he definitely didn't need to and had barely any incentive to. He did it because he is a man of his word and I owe much of the opportunity I have in my career because of his integrity and that choice to keep it. Congrats Geoff! And THANKS!!!
Congratulations Geoff, it's fantastic to see how YC has grown and evolved over the years. I'm now six years into the Founder/CEO role, and am amazed about how much there is to learn in each stage of a company's growth. We also learnt a lot from our YC interview (which went horrendously badly on the day, but helped us out in the long run!).
From the intitial announcement of Michael becoming CEO:
* Michael Seibel will be the new CEO of YC Core, which we are now just going to call “YC”.
* I’m going to be the President of YC Group, which includes YC, YC Continuity, YC Research, and our new online class. We’ll add more organizational units over time.
Y Combinator has one president, Geoff Ralston, who is the president of YC Group, the parent organization.
It has two CEO's: Michael Seibel, who is the CEO of YC Core, the twice-a-year program YC started with, and Ali Rowghani, who is the CEO of YC Continuity, the fund that makes large investments in YC companies when they are at a growth stage.
There are 18 full-time partners, who primarily select and then work with the companies we fund.
My first immediate priority is to make sure the summer 2019 batch operates smoothly. We kick off in just a couple of weeks. Similarly, we are just working on launching YC China and I'll work hard to make sure Qi Lu has everything he needs to make that go well.
Congrats! I was recently frustrated with the whole being accepted into YC, and then not really, but I really appreciate YCs efforts and influence.
Staffing good advisors is hard, especially for the # of applicants, so I definitely understand. It would be really awesome to see YC be able to scale to more participates though. I wasn't looking for money, more advice about gauging viability and scaling, and doing A/B testing.
I've started a business before, one where I could pay my bills, but it was one on one with clients doing web development...it wasn't a business that could scale effectively. The idea I've been toying with for a year or two would need to scale, and mostly be automated in order to succeed, and the scaling part is what you all are good at and I have a lot of questions about.
So, if an opportunity ever comes up when one of your advisors wants to reach out to me, I'd enjoy talking with them for 30 min and then get out of y'all's hair. I'm AtHeartEngineer pretty much everywhere on the internet.
Thanks, appreciate all your work and good luck to you!
It reads to me like "ball's in your court, I'm happy to talk but I'm done chasing".
Being proactive and contacting people over and over is fine for a while if you're "hustling" but eventually it just becomes spam, you sound desperate, and you'll be hurting rather than helping your chances.
Also, if you feel your proposition is good enough and you don't get the response you were after, then move on and focus on getting your pitch to the right people.
> So, if an opportunity ever comes up when one of your advisors wants to reach out to me, I'd enjoy talking with them
I would not expect a YC partner to reach out to you just to chat, unless you are one of a handful of startups likely to blow up and they want to invest early. I think you should reach out to them directly instead of hoping they will find you.
Congrats to Geoff. He, along with others, has done a great job with Startup School. I would suggest that the YC core program could learn a lot from the Startup School program.
For an example of why: my startup was initially rejected from Startup School, then accidentally accepted, and then we kicked butt and won the YC Startup School Grant out of 10,000+ startups. Then we got a YC interview and were rejected for what (I think objectively) was a pretty random reason. And I understand that the stated reason isn't necessarily the full reason.
It was still a very enjoyable and super helpful experience overall. The advice, $10k cash, and cloud credits have helped tremendously and it's still helping a lot.
I just wish I could have competed against other startups for acceptance into the core YC program, rather than have a few people attempt to judge how much of an "animal" I am in 10 minutes as they groggily try to wake themselves up with coffee. Not a knock against them at all (still a very long-term PB fan!), just the process.
Because I know I'm much better at competing with hard sustained effort over the long-term than I am at seeming super impressive on first impression.
Anyway, that's my suggestion.
We will hopefully be ramen profitable soon, and may not try for YC again because it is mentally exhausting. But whatever we do, Startup School was a huge boost for us and YC asked nothing in return, so thank you very, very much.
This is a well documented bias: jurys don't react the same depending on the time of day and how long ago they ate. One study was about parole boards and was extensively reported on:
There are tons of great applicants to YC, moroever, as you hint, it's going to be pretty hard to really evaluate these entities on a case by case basis.
Though I've never been on the finance side of days-long pitches, I have however done this for hiring, and I always felt bad in those situations wherein I was very tired and had some smart people in front of me, and I had to make a decision that was barely going to affect my life, but would definitely affect theirs quite dramatically; and one has very little information to go off of.
It's inherently noisy channel.
Just do your thing, and try not to worry about it.
I'll bet that anyone who makes it to any stage of interviewing has pretty good chops on some level.
There was a mistake with acceptance/rejection emails for Startup School (not YC core) and so they accepted everyone. We were one of those that was meant to be rejected.
Just wanted to take a second to thank Sam for all that he has done over the past 5 years for YC. Also, I am very excited to work even more closely with Geoff as he takes on this new role.
Well said, Michael. It has been my good luck to work with Sam for years. He has an incredible combination of big ideas and the ability to get them done. Sam's power of intellect and his ability to communicate his thoughts clearly and concisely make him a great leader.
Sam has done so much for YC and I know is doing and will do amazing things with OpenAI.
I will continue to lean on him for his insight and advice.
Geoff is a role model for me as an investor. He taught me you can be smart, pragmatic while also kind, patient, and thoughtful - he's the definition of growth mindset in startupland and I am over the moon that he is taking over. Really lucky to have worked with him back when I was a partner at YC. Amazing news!
We were fortunate to have Geoff as one of our YC group partners in S2015 and he asked tough questions and kept us focused more so than almost any other early investor we had. Looking back, Geoff really helped us maximize our full potential - all the way from day 1 through selling our company.
Although I haven't spoken to Geoff in a number of years (We did YC S13), I remember him as a tough but effective advisor to us and many others. A lot of his lessons didn't sink in for a long time -- perhaps because I'm a little thickheaded -- but they were always spot on.
I love the fact that we are finding ways to work with more and more founders around the world, both in our core accelerator and with programs like Startup School. I believe the more entrepreneurship becomes a viable career option the more exciting the world gets.
I worked closely with Geoff on last year's Startup School. I can heartily endorse everything Sam wrote in the announcement – he sees the whole picture, and is a pleasure to work with! I'm very excited to see where he takes YC!
Geoff was the partner I felt gave the best advice. It was well thought out, direct, and usually correct. I'm glad he's been promoted. I couldn't thinking of anybody better. Good luck!
Congrats Geoff! During a trek for Iraq and Afghan war veterans, Geoff made the time to meet with us and provide office hours on our hairbrained ideas. A few of us made it into YC and are super appreciative of his support and feedback over the years. YC is lucky to have Geoff lead the organization.
Thanks! My immediate goal is to ensure that the Summer 2019 batch is fantastic and I'll be working closely with Michael on that. Besides that I think it'll take some time to figure things out.
Go, Geoff! My interaction with him was through YC Startup School, and he and Adora did a terrific job running the program and navigating uncertainty. Excited for this next phase, and what's next for Sam!
Congratulations, Geoff! I haven't had higher-impact educational/professional experience than having Geoff as a group partner. He's a natural. Optimistic about the future of YC.
I was in last fall's Startup School which Geoff was very involved in. He seems like a great leader and you can tell the other YC partners get along well with him.
In recent years YC has taken admirable steps to fund solutions to the world's biggest problems (the climate crisis, health, nutrition, etc). Would be curious to hear how you see those efforts evolving!
Hi Geoff, congratulations on the new role. Do you have any thoughts you can share on YC's presence outside of SF? Any plans to move the core operations or setup hubs in alternate geographies?
YC's core program will still be run out of Mountain View this summer. We'll all look hard at what that will look like in the future. No firm plans to discuss yet except, of course, YC China.
Congrats Geoff! Your advice and the empathy associated with it has been very helpful as we evolved out of YC. Glad to know the future batches will continue to be in great hands :)
Congrats Geoff! You helped us a lot when we were young, first-time founders and we learned a lot from you and Tim. Thanks again for all your advice—excited about the future for YC :)
Per the post -- "Working on OpenAI has been more exciting (and more complex) than I ever imagined, and I’m excited to be able to focus on it more fully."
When I was a 21 year old with a fledgling startup, Geoff kept a promise to me several years later that he definitely didn't need to and had barely any incentive to. He did it because he is a man of his word and I owe much of the opportunity I have in my career because of his integrity and that choice to keep it. Congrats Geoff! And THANKS!!!
The great leaders have less need to keep them - but keep them anyways. Speaks well of YC to recognize him.
What was it?
To raise his son as his own and never reveal his true parentage.
First of his name. Protector of the realm (of the valley) :)
Congrats Geoff! Much deserved. Looking forward to seeing great things at YC
Promise me, Geoff.
If this were Reddit, I would've awarded you Gold.
Thankfully though, it's not.
Well, a little bit of good humor never hurt nobody :-)
That he will keep his promise. Duh!
Hey everyone, thanks for the comments. I'll be around to answer questions as best I can.
Congratulations Geoff, it's fantastic to see how YC has grown and evolved over the years. I'm now six years into the Founder/CEO role, and am amazed about how much there is to learn in each stage of a company's growth. We also learnt a lot from our YC interview (which went horrendously badly on the day, but helped us out in the long run!).
Any advice for a founder six years in with a company of ~40 people is always appreciated :) https://errantscience.com/blog/2017/07/31/reflecting-on-the-...
Congrats Geoff, YC Startup School has been an incredible program
I'm a bit confused if Michael Seibel is still CEO?
Yes I am continuing my role as CEO of the accelerator. We've got a great batch coming up this summer.
I'm curious because this seems to vary greatly between companies - what is the difference at YC between the roles of CEO and President?
From the intitial announcement of Michael becoming CEO:
* Michael Seibel will be the new CEO of YC Core, which we are now just going to call “YC”.
* I’m going to be the President of YC Group, which includes YC, YC Continuity, YC Research, and our new online class. We’ll add more organizational units over time.
https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-changes/
For the uninitiated, what is the difference between President, Partner and CEO?
Good question - it is not obvious.
Y Combinator has one president, Geoff Ralston, who is the president of YC Group, the parent organization.
It has two CEO's: Michael Seibel, who is the CEO of YC Core, the twice-a-year program YC started with, and Ali Rowghani, who is the CEO of YC Continuity, the fund that makes large investments in YC companies when they are at a growth stage.
There are 18 full-time partners, who primarily select and then work with the companies we fund.
What is your top priority coming in, and how will you evaluate whether you're succeeding?
My first immediate priority is to make sure the summer 2019 batch operates smoothly. We kick off in just a couple of weeks. Similarly, we are just working on launching YC China and I'll work hard to make sure Qi Lu has everything he needs to make that go well.
Does this mean you'll now have zero time for tennis?
No! I love tennis too much and it is such an amazing workout and stress relief. I will keep on playing!
Do you play mario tennis when you are feeling sick? http://mariotennis.nintendo.com/aces/
Congrats! I was recently frustrated with the whole being accepted into YC, and then not really, but I really appreciate YCs efforts and influence.
Staffing good advisors is hard, especially for the # of applicants, so I definitely understand. It would be really awesome to see YC be able to scale to more participates though. I wasn't looking for money, more advice about gauging viability and scaling, and doing A/B testing.
I've started a business before, one where I could pay my bills, but it was one on one with clients doing web development...it wasn't a business that could scale effectively. The idea I've been toying with for a year or two would need to scale, and mostly be automated in order to succeed, and the scaling part is what you all are good at and I have a lot of questions about.
So, if an opportunity ever comes up when one of your advisors wants to reach out to me, I'd enjoy talking with them for 30 min and then get out of y'all's hair. I'm AtHeartEngineer pretty much everywhere on the internet.
Thanks, appreciate all your work and good luck to you!
>> So, if an opportunity ever comes up when one of your advisors wants to reach out to me, I'd enjoy talking with them
Never expect anyone to reach out to you. You have to reach out to them over and over if you are interested.
If they see the value in what you are doing, they will reply or reach out to you, but never expect them to do so.
This applies to everyone, mentors, investors, customers.
You have to be proactive all the time.
It reads to me like "ball's in your court, I'm happy to talk but I'm done chasing".
Being proactive and contacting people over and over is fine for a while if you're "hustling" but eventually it just becomes spam, you sound desperate, and you'll be hurting rather than helping your chances.
Also, if you feel your proposition is good enough and you don't get the response you were after, then move on and focus on getting your pitch to the right people.
First cold email - No response
1-2 weeks later - Second cold email - No response
Monthly update/touch up - No response
Move on.
Some people would consider the second or third email as spam, that is fine. If they block you, that means that was a dead end anyway.
My experience is that people are busy and we forget to reply sometimes. 3 emails in a row, in a matter of days, would be spam for me too.
The second email is spam, and I’d be sure to never do business with that person at that point. I’d be closing off a door at that point.
You're going to miss out on quite a few opportunities if you consider someone's second email as spam.
It hasn't hurt me so far.
> So, if an opportunity ever comes up when one of your advisors wants to reach out to me, I'd enjoy talking with them
I would not expect a YC partner to reach out to you just to chat, unless you are one of a handful of startups likely to blow up and they want to invest early. I think you should reach out to them directly instead of hoping they will find you.
Hi Geoff.
Geoff, I an hearing some great things already!
Are you reachable by email? If we have a private question.
Congrats to Geoff. He, along with others, has done a great job with Startup School. I would suggest that the YC core program could learn a lot from the Startup School program.
For an example of why: my startup was initially rejected from Startup School, then accidentally accepted, and then we kicked butt and won the YC Startup School Grant out of 10,000+ startups. Then we got a YC interview and were rejected for what (I think objectively) was a pretty random reason. And I understand that the stated reason isn't necessarily the full reason.
It was still a very enjoyable and super helpful experience overall. The advice, $10k cash, and cloud credits have helped tremendously and it's still helping a lot.
I just wish I could have competed against other startups for acceptance into the core YC program, rather than have a few people attempt to judge how much of an "animal" I am in 10 minutes as they groggily try to wake themselves up with coffee. Not a knock against them at all (still a very long-term PB fan!), just the process.
Because I know I'm much better at competing with hard sustained effort over the long-term than I am at seeming super impressive on first impression.
Anyway, that's my suggestion.
We will hopefully be ramen profitable soon, and may not try for YC again because it is mentally exhausting. But whatever we do, Startup School was a huge boost for us and YC asked nothing in return, so thank you very, very much.
> rather than have a few people attempt to judge ... as they groggily try to wake themselves up with coffee.
This was our experience during the YC interview as well. Since we had an end of day slot, most of the partners were yawning as we walked in :/
Agree on Startup School - amazing resource for us that we keep revisiting
This is a well documented bias: jurys don't react the same depending on the time of day and how long ago they ate. One study was about parole boards and was extensively reported on:
https://www.wired.com/2011/04/judges-mental-fatigue/
Does YC has stats about acceptance vs the time of the interview? That would be interesting.
Don't be distressed one bit.
There are tons of great applicants to YC, moroever, as you hint, it's going to be pretty hard to really evaluate these entities on a case by case basis.
Though I've never been on the finance side of days-long pitches, I have however done this for hiring, and I always felt bad in those situations wherein I was very tired and had some smart people in front of me, and I had to make a decision that was barely going to affect my life, but would definitely affect theirs quite dramatically; and one has very little information to go off of.
It's inherently noisy channel.
Just do your thing, and try not to worry about it.
I'll bet that anyone who makes it to any stage of interviewing has pretty good chops on some level.
(Easier said than done of course)
> Then we got a YC interview and were rejected for what (I think objectively) was a pretty random reason
I don't think you can expect to be completely objective/unbiased in this kind of situation...
How does one get 'accidentally accepted' into YC?
There was a mistake with acceptance/rejection emails for Startup School (not YC core) and so they accepted everyone. We were one of those that was meant to be rejected.
Just wanted to take a second to thank Sam for all that he has done over the past 5 years for YC. Also, I am very excited to work even more closely with Geoff as he takes on this new role.
Well said, Michael. It has been my good luck to work with Sam for years. He has an incredible combination of big ideas and the ability to get them done. Sam's power of intellect and his ability to communicate his thoughts clearly and concisely make him a great leader.
Sam has done so much for YC and I know is doing and will do amazing things with OpenAI.
I will continue to lean on him for his insight and advice.
Geoff is a role model for me as an investor. He taught me you can be smart, pragmatic while also kind, patient, and thoughtful - he's the definition of growth mindset in startupland and I am over the moon that he is taking over. Really lucky to have worked with him back when I was a partner at YC. Amazing news!
We were fortunate to have Geoff as one of our YC group partners in S2015 and he asked tough questions and kept us focused more so than almost any other early investor we had. Looking back, Geoff really helped us maximize our full potential - all the way from day 1 through selling our company.
Congrats, Geoff!
Although I haven't spoken to Geoff in a number of years (We did YC S13), I remember him as a tough but effective advisor to us and many others. A lot of his lessons didn't sink in for a long time -- perhaps because I'm a little thickheaded -- but they were always spot on.
Seconded. Geoff always asked us the hard questions we should have been spending more time thinking about.
Hi Geoff! What excites you most about YC and the direction it's headed?
I love the fact that we are finding ways to work with more and more founders around the world, both in our core accelerator and with programs like Startup School. I believe the more entrepreneurship becomes a viable career option the more exciting the world gets.
A photo of that scene from the Stripe office: https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1130540727341969408
I worked closely with Geoff on last year's Startup School. I can heartily endorse everything Sam wrote in the announcement – he sees the whole picture, and is a pleasure to work with! I'm very excited to see where he takes YC!
Geoff was the partner I felt gave the best advice. It was well thought out, direct, and usually correct. I'm glad he's been promoted. I couldn't thinking of anybody better. Good luck!
Nice! Geoff will do a great job running YC; it is interesting to see how long people have stayed involved, even compared to the VC industry baseline.
Congrats Geoff! During a trek for Iraq and Afghan war veterans, Geoff made the time to meet with us and provide office hours on our hairbrained ideas. A few of us made it into YC and are super appreciative of his support and feedback over the years. YC is lucky to have Geoff lead the organization.
Congratulations Geoff . Quick Question - Are there any immediate goals or plans which you have in mind ?
Thanks! My immediate goal is to ensure that the Summer 2019 batch is fantastic and I'll be working closely with Michael on that. Besides that I think it'll take some time to figure things out.
Geoff was very generous with his time between and after sessions of the YC StartUp Investor School to answer course attendee questions.
I think he was also on here helping manage the mea culpa from last year’s StartUp School email mistake.
Both were good to see.
I wish him luck in his new role.
Go, Geoff! My interaction with him was through YC Startup School, and he and Adora did a terrific job running the program and navigating uncertainty. Excited for this next phase, and what's next for Sam!
Second this.
Congratulations, Geoff! I haven't had higher-impact educational/professional experience than having Geoff as a group partner. He's a natural. Optimistic about the future of YC.
I was in last fall's Startup School which Geoff was very involved in. He seems like a great leader and you can tell the other YC partners get along well with him.
Congrats. I'm pretty outside of anything YC will ever be interested in, but I've heard lots of positive things about Startup School.
People tend to underestimate what YC will be interested in. You might be surprised!
In a general sense, true.
I'm in academia though.
Congrats, Geoff!
In recent years YC has taken admirable steps to fund solutions to the world's biggest problems (the climate crisis, health, nutrition, etc). Would be curious to hear how you see those efforts evolving!
Hi Geoff, congratulations on the new role. Do you have any thoughts you can share on YC's presence outside of SF? Any plans to move the core operations or setup hubs in alternate geographies?
Thanks!
YC's core program will still be run out of Mountain View this summer. We'll all look hard at what that will look like in the future. No firm plans to discuss yet except, of course, YC China.
Congrats Geoff! Your advice and the empathy associated with it has been very helpful as we evolved out of YC. Glad to know the future batches will continue to be in great hands :)
Congrats Geoff! You helped us a lot when we were young, first-time founders and we learned a lot from you and Tim. Thanks again for all your advice—excited about the future for YC :)
We were lucky to have Geoff as a group partner and advisor. I can't imagine a better name to keep pushing YC forward. Congratz Geoff and YC!
Congrats, Geoff. We didn't talk much back in YC S12 but I've heard good things from everyone else!
Congratulations Geoff and the YC team.
Geoff is truly great -- congrats!
Congrats Geoff! Where is Sam going?
Per the post -- "Working on OpenAI has been more exciting (and more complex) than I ever imagined, and I’m excited to be able to focus on it more fully."
it's explained in the parent link, OpenAI
Do you have plans to invest in real tech rather than toy stuffs like Peter Thiel tells?
For a moment I thought why is YC endorsing a US presidential candidate. I should read less politics. Congratulations Geoff.