WEBVTT - Inside Silicon Valley's Famous Startup School 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:11.840 Hi, hard to see you, get to see you. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:14.480 I hear this as a special coffee shop. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.760 Yeah, this is just where so much stuff happened, especially 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.680 for YC, over really ten years. 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:25.280 I'm Emily Chang, and this is the circuit. Gary Tan 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.800 is head of one of Silicon Valley's most influential startup accelerators. 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:32.159 It's called Why Combinator, and it's kind of like mecca 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:36.479 for aspiring entrepreneurs. Tan first got accepted to YC as 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:39.000 a founder himself in two thousand and eight when he 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.920 founded Postuous, a blogging platform that was later acquired by Twitter. 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.200 He went on to become a partner at YC, start 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.280 his own venture capital firm, Initialized, and even has a 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.200 popular YouTube channel where he shares his insights on dos 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:54.880 and don'ts for startups. When it comes to all of 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.280 the videos you've made, what have you found really resonate? 0:00:58.320 --> 0:00:58.760 It's like what. 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:00.240 Takes off umber? 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.200 One thing for me is just actually talking about the 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:04.160 things I messed up. 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.119 Fifteen years after joining y C is a founder, he's 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:12.960 now back steering the ship. But first coffee. Here's my 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:16.399 conversation with Why Combinator president and CEO Gary Tan. 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:19.080 I have ever done a deal here or anything like that. 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:23.000 Ah, you know, like YC is interesting because the deal 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:27.080 is pretty straightforward. We just meet them for ten minutes 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:28.240 and then decide yes or no. 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.920 Yeah that's right. So that's ten minutes and then yes 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:32.120 or no, Yeah that's right. 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:34.920 Wow, how do you know in ten minutes? 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:37.680 Well, I think you can look at you know, what 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:40.720 the founders are capable of their skills. I think we're 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:45.480 up to forty thousand applications ever every year. 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:46.119 Every year. 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:48.279 Yeah, and you pick like a few hundred. 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:48.840 That's right. 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.920 It's a very it's the lowest acceptance rate, you know, 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.160 more more selective than you know, pretty much any selective 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:58.160 school in the world. I feel like a lot of 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.880 this stuff all started here, you know, back in really 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.360 two thousand and five, this idea that you could give 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.400 very small amounts of money to just a few teams 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:09.240 and have those teams go on to become sort of 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.160 the the Reddit and the Airbnbs of the world. 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.800 All right, thank you got to try, and oh. 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:16.640 Thank you very much. 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:18.560 Warm let's go. 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.360 This is where people meet their first investors. This is 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:26.600 where they meet their co founder for the first time. 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.120 Sometimes this is a really important part. 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.880 Of Silicon Valley and you actually were in YC yourself. 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:35.880 Oh yeah, I lived five blocks down that way and 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.160 YC is about five blocks down this way. 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:40.959 And when were you accepted to YC two thousand and eight, 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.959 two thousand and eight, So just at the start of 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:44.880 financial crisis. 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:45.639 Yeah, for sure. 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:48.760 We raised our angel around for posterous the day Lehman 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:51.200 died and nobody else in our batch managed to raise 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:51.680 any money. 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:54.000 And you're a barrier guy, that's right. You were born 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:54.600 and raised here. 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:56.919 Yeah. I grew up right here in Fremont, right across 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.639 the bay, and Tech gave me everything I have honestly, 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:02.760 you know, child of Chinese immigrants. You know, we were 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:07.160 sometimes food and secure, but I just remember tech was here, 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.440 and we grew up in the shadow of all this greatness, 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.320 all this technology being built from nothing. I knew that 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.000 I wanted to learn to code, and you know, I 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.639 cold called the Internet section until I got a job. 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.200 And we were living in one or two bedroom apartments, 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:25.200 right and for my parents to you know, sometimes struggle 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:26.840 with English, the cultural barrier. 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:27.400 You know. 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.600 My dad was forming at a machine shop, my mom 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.639 was a nurse assistant at a convalescent home for dinner. 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:35.839 We would sort of have the expired bread that someone 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.560 would drop off to sort of help out my mom, 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.400 who was, you know, working sometimes two shifts just to 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:45.680 keep the family going. And so I think that's one 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.000 of the really important things to me that I realized, like, 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.040 tech is this thing that can bring people out of 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.240 whatever situation they're in and often into prosperity. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:55.680 And that's what I want for everyone. 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.760 You were sort of like an engineered designer by background. 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.240 How does that inform you perspective? 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.120 This is why YC really attracted me in two thousand 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.920 and eight was that here was the one place that 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:09.600 wasn't about the flash. 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:11.440 It wasn't about you. 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.440 Know, whether you had an MBA or you know, you 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.560 went to some school or whatever. It was just purely, hey, 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:19.480 can you build something great? 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.520 You have this picture, it's two thousand and eight. I 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.280 believe you're sitting on the ground and you can see 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:28.320 Paul Graham in the background and Mark Zuckerberg. What's going 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:29.120 on in that moment? 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:31.880 At that point I knew I wanted to start a company, 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:34.760 and Y see through this event that was a free 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.600 event called Startup School, and it was all sort of 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:38.600 like the luminaries. 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:40.720 You know, I believe that year. 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:45.839 Jeff Bezos came and he actually launched AWS at that 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.839 startup school in two thousand and eight at the auditorium 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:49.480 at Stanford. 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:51.039 I was sitting on the ground. 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.560 Photography was one of my loves, and I was actually 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.120 thinking about, you know, either starting a company or becoming 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:59.559 a hip hop editorial photographer. 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:00.480 Very different opposition. 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.440 Yeah, you went on to become a partner at YC yourself. 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.120 How did you make the transition from entrepreneur to investor? 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:08.880 You know, we were doing dead simple blogs by email 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.880 posters and then didn't you sell that to Twitter much later? Actually, 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.400 I mean Instagram came out and that flatlined our growth. 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:17.480 And this is one of the interesting things about being 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:19.680 an investor. You know, I think we were very much 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:22.200 in the running to be sort of one of the 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:26.400 major social networks, but that was because there were no 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.680 really great iPhone apps yet for uploading photos until Instagram. 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.040 And now I realize it's actually the role of the investor. 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.120 We need to be helping them understand the historical context, 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.080 like you know, what is actually happening in the market, 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:43.400 and what are the brass rings that are going to 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.000 be enduring, meaningful businesses that could be worth billions adults. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:48.720 So obviously you worked at YC for but you went 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:49.799 on to start your own fund. 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:50.960 Initialized. 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.160 Absolutely you made some pretty smart bets early on. You 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.480 invested in coinbase, for example. What did you learn from 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.680 that experience that gave you sort of the bona fides 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:01.400 to an investor? 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.839 This is actually a business that requires you to see enough. 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.880 And YC was just such a concentrated form of all 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.039 of tech happening, and it remains that that. I think 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:15.560 you just end up learning way more about what's doable, 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:16.360 what's possible. 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.240 So coming back to YC as CEO, is that like 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:21.480 a dream job? 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:26.479 Yeah, the ability to help people basically achieve their dreams. 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.640 That's what YC did for me. I'm a steward here. 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.200 I'm trying to figure out what can we do to 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.320 help more innovation happen in the world. 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:37.040 So YC is how far away? 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:38.880 About five blocks down the street? 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:40.120 I want to see it. 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:41.600 Yeah, let's go check it out. 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:49.960 Airbnb, Stripe, drop Box, Instacart, Twitch, Coinbase. 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:51.200 Am I forgetting anyone? 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:52.159 I mean so many? 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.080 The thing is there are ninety companies worth a billion 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:55.880 dollars or more. 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:58.279 So many companies have come through these doors. 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:00.719 Talk to me a little bit about to process. 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.640 For those who don't understand what exactly does a startup accelerator. 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.200 Do well, HYC works kind of as a ten to 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.800 twelve week program. Anyone can apply online. All they have 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:17.160 to do is ideally have an idea and have a demo. 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:22.080 Sometimes we get about eighteen thousand such applications every six months, 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:24.640 and what we do is we try to figure out 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:29.080 who are the smartest, best people, who are capable, and 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:31.800 what are the things that they're trying to do and 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.320 are those things viable? And then we actually try to 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:38.080 interview about a thousand of them every six months and 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.920 we whittle it down to about two hundred and fifty 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.280 to give half a million dollars to which is great 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.000 because when I first started, I think YC only gave 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.200 me twelve thousand dollars. I think that's gone up a bit. 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.280 It's gone up a bit. You know, times are different. 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.440 But I think the most important reason why it's more 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:59.080 money is because we want anyone who is really talented 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.360 and skilled, regardless of whether or not they have your 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:04.760 credit card debt. The way I did when I started 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.760 my company, or you might have pretty big savings. You know, 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.160 that's privilege. I think that regardless of any of that, 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.840 people who have skills should be able to start great businesses. 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.560 And YC is the place to give you not just money, 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.400 but also know how and a community. 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.920 You mentioned y see, it's like a community like no other. 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:26.160 I mean, you know, the people who get in here 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:28.920 are getting a ticket to a massive network. I mean, 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:31.040 if you talk about all the companies we just mentioned, 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.839 right absolutely, you know, if I come into YC, can 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:37.079 I just call Brian Chesky or call Gary Tan and 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:38.000 get your advice? 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.520 Yeah, I mean that's sort of what it's meant to be, right. 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.800 I Mean one of the things that is always important 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.280 to me is that YC be the most inclusive place 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.199 for the people who are the best, simply because if 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.880 you go to you know, a tech conference or you know, 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.600 you try to network your way into startups, it's actually 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:58.760 really impossible for the people on the other end to 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.800 even figure out, oh, is as someone who's good who 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.360 I could spend time with. And when you look at 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.320 the failure rate of startups period, more often than not, 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.640 when you approach someone in one of those other contexts. 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.440 The answer is no, I can't spend time here because 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:15.880 I can't vet you. I can't figure out if this 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:19.800 is someone who know something good will happen with that. 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:21.960 I think is some of the reason why y SEE 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:24.640 exists is that no, no, this is actually a community 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:26.400 of really great people. 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.240 What does the newest class of founders look like? What 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.000 problems are they trying to solve? 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:33.640 Yeah, I think that one of the biggest things is 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.760 always what are the new capabilities and what we're seeing 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.960 with whether it's open AI or anthropic or you know, 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:43.000 any number of large language models. There's this sort of 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:47.320 moment where computers can think like they can actually look 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:51.880 at blocks of text and give you something that a 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.199 human being normally would be necessary to sort of give you. 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:59.160 That's a really exciting time for just software period. You know, 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:03.000 before you had to have long training processes for very 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:06.800 specialized tasks, and now we're seeing it sort of approach 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:09.800 all of knowledge work and we're just scratching the surface 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:11.960 on what that could be. And then a good deal 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:16.240 of them are focused on AI bringing in large language models. 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:18.880 Demo day is sort of like a write a passage. Oh, 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:20.920 definitely right, what happens on demo day? 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:23.840 Obviously, these companies come in, they have half a million dollars. 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:27.360 They don't necessarily have to raise because if you're an engineer, designer, 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.280 product person, you can just do it yourself. And then 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:34.800 it's a thousand investors, vcs, angel investors, people who have 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:39.440 been there, and they often raise millions of dollars. And 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:43.200 so that's a really powerful moment because when that's a 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.920 moment of euphoria and then hey guys, it's back to work, 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:47.439 what do. 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:48.880 You say to the folks who are out there thinking 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:49.960 how do I get in? 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:52.920 The big thing is I think we really like people 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.680 who are earnest, Like you don't have to pretend to 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:58.679 be something other than you're not. What we really care 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.120 about is are you solving a real problem? Can you 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.800 show us the quality of your work? Is there a 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:08.480 feed of strength in terms of like technically or design wise, 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.320 or even go to market, like can you access a 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:14.800 market that nobody else can actually access? Like? Those are 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.840 sort of the sum total things that end up mattering 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:19.760 for a startup. You know, the startups that make it 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.720 all have sort of a bunch of these things figured 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:24.080 out in a row and you don't have to have 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.720 all of those things, but just show your work, show 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:31.640 us what you can do and why you're actually working 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:33.960 on that problem. The great thing about YC is that 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.679 you don't have to know anyone. You just have to 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.800 have a web browser and you go to y combinator, 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.839 dot com, slash apply and you answer about you know, 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.400 a dozen questions or so record a thirty second video. 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:47.720 But in those questions, we care. 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.120 About, you know, what can you do, what have you 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:52.800 done in the past, show us the demo, tell us 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.000 about the market. You know, are you solving a problem 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:58.400 that people really want? And those are really the questions 0:11:58.440 --> 0:11:59.400 that we care about. 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:04.679 Picking just a few hundred people out of thousands, forty thousand, 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:07.320 forty it has to be more than that, like how 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:09.600 do I make my application stand out? 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.600 One of the most common questions we ask around at 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:16.680 YC is what's the most interesting thing about X? And 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.120 it might be or what is the most surprising thing? 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:24.280 So I remember reading Brian Armstrong's application when the coinbase 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.440 and so he had read the Satoshi Nakamoto white paper 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:32.839 and he painted in us meeting him this idea that well, 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.360 bitcoin is this fringe thing, but what if it wasn't. 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:38.960 And that's sort of the core of early stage investing 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:43.880 periods that you know, if you can suspend disbelief and 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.880 listen to someone truly and listen to what they're seeing 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.960 in the market and understand, hey, what if they're right? 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:53.880 There are a billion reasons why this might not work. 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.280 But if it does happen, why and could we believe 0:12:57.360 --> 0:12:58.520 that that could happen? 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:00.280 And is this the person to do it? 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.520 And what is the actual process like, like how do 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:04.360 you decide? 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:09.160 Well, you know, honestly, the craziest thing is we'll actually 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:12.599 meet people for ten minutes, and in those ten minutes. 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.560 We will try to figure out do we believe. 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:19.560 In this market, this person and what they've built and 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:20.560 what they can build. 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.280 So in ten minutes you decide whether to give someone 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:24.080 a golden ticket. 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:24.560 That's right? 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.960 I mean, is that even possible? 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.119 Well, you know, are you making all the right decisions? 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:31.959 Well, we hope so. 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.920 And the thing is the numbers sort of speak for themselves. 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:39.520 That's why Demo Day exists. You know, those thousand investors 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.720 come back year after year after year because you could 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.600 go to three hundred rooms, fly all around the world 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:51.199 and not be in that room where you'll never find 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:55.760 a congregation of hundreds of startups in which you know 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.400 a dozen of them will probably go on to be 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.000 worth a billion dollars more. And so that's why when 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.360 you go up and down sand Hill Road or in 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:06.680 the portfolios of investors anywhere in the world, often you 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.480 will find a fund returner in a YC company. 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:11.560 So what do you say to the folks who want 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:13.680 you know, how do I stand out in ten minutes? 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:15.160 What's the secret? 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.160 I mean, the hard part is it's not really about 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:20.640 what happens in that ten minutes. It's about the ten 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:24.880 thousand hours that goes in beforehand, right, Like can people 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:29.760 become the best at their field? In software engineering or management, 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:34.040 or design or product or sales. The best CEOs in 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:35.880 the world are sort of jack of all trades, but 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.600 master of one or two. And that isn't something that 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.359 is in that ten minutes or in those twelve questions. 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.000 That's something in someone's life, like how. 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:45.800 Do they live their life? 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.800 How do they prioritize One of the coolest stories is 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:52.080 actually from one of our group partners at YC. Her 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:56.280 name's Sir b Sarna, and she actually had a pain 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.600 in her side. It turned out she had a women's 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.640 health iss you, and when she was sixteen or seventeen, 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.880 she decided, I'm going to orient my life around solving 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.440 a problem in that space. And that's really what we want. 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:13.480 I mean, I think that that large is happening, will 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.000 continue to happen, and that's sort of the big blessing 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:19.280 of that we get to work in tech, that we 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:22.680 get to teach people, Hey, you. 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:24.440 Weren't meant to have a boss. 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.400 If you're a practitioner, if you're an engineer, if you're 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.640 a designer, if you're technical and you're able to understand 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:34.120 the world at that level, you know you don't have 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:36.360 to know about business, will teach you business. 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:37.680 The community will teach you that. 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.840 Just build the thing that nobody else has that everyone 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.200 wants and come do YC and this will be the 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:47.800 community for you, for us to help you. 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.520 Well continue this conversation after this quick break. The vast 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.320 majority of companies in the BASH are still from the 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:58.480 Bay Area, right. 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.320 So eighty six percent of people have moved moved to 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.640 San Francisco, but they honestly sort of come from all 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:06.640 around the country and all around the world. 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:07.960 So that's my next question. 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:09.920 You know, are you really looking for people from around 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.080 the world or do people who are here have an advantage? 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:17.680 Well, San Francisco is interesting because it turns out that 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.640 a lot of people have already moved here, already work 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.440 in tech or already work you. 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:24.320 Know, in the Bay Area. 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.960 But that being said, you know, there's as much interesting 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.200 stuff happening on YouTube, you know, in all of the 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:35.480 other major centers. And so that's why YC is sort 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.840 of this very concentrated form of Silicon Valley. Lots of 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:41.960 people come here just for the batch, they raise money, 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:44.440 they build their community, and then they go back and 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:49.840 become the best company in Mumbai, the best company in London, 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.720 the best company in Eastern Europe, you know, sort of 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:53.600 all around the world. 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:54.320 There are just so. 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:58.080 Many examples of that culture sort of bringing together. So, 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:00.640 you know, I think that this is a story that 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.159 is San Francisco Bay Area based, but also one that 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:06.320 radiates out into the entire world. 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:08.960 We don't have enough women. We haven't had enough women 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:12.080 for a couple of decades. Now when you look at 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.040 the numbers, what are you seeing in the numbers now? 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:17.119 Because it's hard to see it's hard to know what 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:19.359 the data actually is, but when you look at the 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.480 founders who present on double day's still pretty dismal in 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.439 terms of the representation of women and people of color. 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.879 Absolutely, I mean, and I think representation matters a lot. 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.000 At the end of the day, the types of problems 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.720 that people solve kind of come out of their own stories. 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.240 It is important to us. It's important to me. 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:38.760 You know, at YC we have more than eight hundred 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.160 and fifty women founders who have gone through the program, 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:43.640 and you're right, that's not enough, and we're always looking 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:44.560 for ways to do more. 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:46.560 So what more can you do? 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:48.320 And I know you've thought about this a lot at 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:50.399 INITIALIZED What have you learned? 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.240 What are you doing to make to change the ratio? 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:54.520 Right? 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.000 Because I think a lot of people look at YC 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.720 and see all of these, you know, iconic founders. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.639 Who are all men and think they can't do that. 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:03.160 Yeah. 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:03.480 Right. 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:06.200 We want the process to be something that is as 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:10.080 open and inclusive as possible, and less and less about 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.400 what neighborhood did you grow in, grow up in, what 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.399 school you went to. I think it's incredibly important, you know, 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:19.000 what is the quality of your work and what is 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.159 the quality of the thinking, And that's very important. You know, 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.720 I think that going to half a million dollars per 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.320 company opens it up financially to so many more people 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:31.720 from all kinds of backgrounds, and so you know, there's 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:33.920 a lot to be done, and you know we're not done. 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:36.399 Do you think why, I see it all helped perpetuate 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.199 the you know, sort of white bail nerd stereotype of 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:42.600 what a founder or an engineer is supposed to look like. 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.399 Gosh, I hope not. I certainly don't look like that. 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.879 But I think that we're seeing so much more happening 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.960 at the earlier, earlier and earlier stages. That's why we 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.760 spend so much time, for instance, on YouTube, because you know, 0:18:56.800 --> 0:18:59.000 I want that message to be out there, like you 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.119 don't have to be a particular place, you don't have 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.600 to look a certain way. You know, this should be 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.560