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Y Combinator Startup Podcast

Y Combinator
Artificial Intelligence
Y Combinator
Startups
Openai
Software Engineering
Cursor
Entrepreneurship
Artificial General Intelligence
Airbnb
Design
Nothing
Natural Language Processing
Chatgpt
Cloud Computing
Perplexity
Consumer Marketing
Claude Code
AI Agents
Smartphones
B2B Startups

We help founders make something people want. The Y Combinator Podcast is where builders talk about building. From the earliest days of an idea to scaling a company that changes the world, YC partners and founders share real stories, lessons, and tactics from the frontlines.

PublishesTwice weeklyEpisodes318Founded9 years ago
Number of ListenersCategory
Technology

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Artwork for Y Combinator Startup Podcast

Latest Episodes

Bryant Chou co-founded Webflow, which today powers around 1% of all websites on the internet. Now he's back in the current YC batch with Ploy, an AI-powered website and marketing platform that doesn't just build your site — it connects to your analyt... more

Many founders get stuck trying to find the perfect startup idea before they commit. But the perfect idea doesn't exist in the abstract. The only way to find what works is to pick one, go deep, and get feedback from real customers.

In this episode of... more

Brex co-founder and CEO Pedro Franceschi believes most people still underestimate how much AI will change the way companies are built. AI isn't just another tool, it's a new foundation for building products, teams, and companies.In this episode of Li... more

Some of the biggest companies of the next decade won't be software businesses, they'll be services companies like insurance carriers, law firms, and tax practices rebuilt from scratch with AI doing most of the work. In this episode of Startup School,... more

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Recent Guests

Bryant Chou
Co-founder and CTO of Webflow; founder of Ploy
Ploy (YC batch)
Episode: Why Domain Experts Are Winning In The Age Of AI
Pedro Franceschi
Co-founder and CEO of Brex
Brex
Episode: "The CEO Must Be the Chief AI Officer"
Pete Koomen
General Partner at YC; former founder of Optimizely
Y Combinator
Episode: How To Build Superintelligence Inside Your Company
Eric Ries
Author of The Lean Startup and Incorruptible, discussing governance and longevity of companies
Author, Speaker
Episode: How The Best Companies Defend Against Mediocrity And Rot
Gary Tan
Builder and tech entrepreneur discussed on Lightcone; co-host and OpenAI/tooling advocate
YC/Lightcone
Episode: Tokenmaxxing: How Top Builders Use AI To Do The Work Of 400 Engineers
Francois Chaubard
YC Visiting Partner
Y Combinator
Episode: Beyond Bigger Models: Recursion As The Next Scaling Law In AI
Katie Dill
Head of Design at Stripe
Stripe
Episode: Stripe Head of Design Katie Dill Breaks Down Their New Website
Karine Mellata
Co-founder of Variance
Variance
Episode: This Startup Secretly Detects Fraud For Fortune 500s
François Chollet
Founder of Arc Prize; lead researcher behind India and Endia, advocate of symbolic program synthesis and agentic AI
Arc Prize, Endia
Episode: How François Chollet Is Building A New Path To AGI

Reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars from 1.3k ratings
  • It’s ok

    Some episodes are interesting, but the podcast overall just seems like a bunch of ads for their companies

    Apple Podcasts
    3
    Murphycj
    United States5 months ago
  • Everyone is yc

    Thanks yc i always believe the future is bright, everytime hearing or reading about startups

    Apple Podcasts
    5
    Goldenretrieverr
    Indonesiaa year ago
  • Eh

    YC used to be run by actual builders and founders

    Now it’s run by PM’s who got lucky at some tech startup and write substack articles for a living

    Not much to learn from this podcast

    Apple Podcasts
    1
    JJkollins
    United Statesa year ago
  • Huge ground-based knowledge

    Podcast Addict
    5
    OSCAR ORO
    2 years ago
  • Audio

    Guys your audio sucks. Get new equipment

    Apple Podcasts
    3
    Mavrik19
    Canada2 years ago

Listeners Say

Key themes from listener reviews, highlighting what works and what could be improved about the show.

Listeners praise the actionable founder-focused insights and high-caliber guests.
Many appreciate practical frameworks and real-world examples that can be applied to startups.
Some reviews call audio quality inconsistent and episodes feel promotional at times.

Chart Rankings

How this podcast ranks in the Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube charts.

Talking Points

Recent interactions between the hosts and their guests.

Why Domain Experts Are Winning In The Age Of AI
Q: What is Ploy and what makes it different from other vibe coding tools?
Ploy is a website platform that functions as a marketing platform and company brain, integrating design, memory, and automation to help run ads, find customers, and optimize website copy, all while ensuring design consistency and on-brand output.
Beyond Bigger Models: Recursion As The Next Scaling Law In AI
Q: What is the crux of how these models avoid the traditional backprop through time pitfalls?
They adopt a DEQ/fixed-point iteration approach and use truncation (T=1) for backpropagation through time, which drastically reduces gradient issues and enables stable training across deep recursion, with careful handling of carry states ZL and ZH.
Beyond Bigger Models: Recursion As The Next Scaling Law In AI
Q: Francois, can you tell us a little bit about these two models and what was so interesting about them?
The HRM lineage extends from RNNs and introduces multi-level recursion with two internal loops plus an outer refinement loop, achieving state-of-the-art performance on ARC Prize tasks with a small parameter count. TRM further simplifies the approach by sharing weights and using a single network for both low- and high-level features, while maintaining effective latent state dynamics to perform recursive reasoning.
The $9B Startup That Wants to Create a Billion New Developers
Q: What is Agent 4 and how does it change the way people build software on Replit?
Masad details the evolution to Agent 4, including parallel agents, asynchronous design workflows via a canvas, and teamwork features that let multiple users collaborate in real time. This enables users to plan, design, and deploy software even while the agent works in the background.
The $9B Startup That Wants to Create a Billion New Developers
Q: What impact did YC have on Replit's trajectory and fundraising?
The host asks about YC's influence; Masad describes three months of intense focus, the Demo Day exposure to VCs, and eventually a pivotal intro to Marc Andreessen that helped lead their seed round. He emphasizes how YC expanded their network and validated their momentum.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Y Combinator Startup Podcast

What is Y Combinator Startup Podcast about and what kind of topics does it cover?

A practical, founder-focused show featuring builders and operators from YC-backed and tech-enabled startups. Episodes span AI-first strategies, startup ideation, governance and long-term company health, and design/product thinking, often with real-world demos or frameworks founders can apply right away. Notable this sample includes deep dives into AI-native organizations, AI governance, and front-line tactics for building scalable startups, making it valuable for founders, investors, and engineers seeking actionable insights and vivid industry case studies.

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Which podcasts are similar to Y Combinator Startup Podcast?

These podcasts share a similar audience with Y Combinator Startup Podcast:

1. AI + a16z
2. The a16z Show
3. The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
4. No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups
5. Training Data

How many episodes of Y Combinator Startup Podcast are there?

Y Combinator Startup Podcast launched 9 years ago and published 318 episodes to date. You can find more information about this podcast including rankings, audience demographics and engagement in our podcast database.

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What guests have appeared on Y Combinator Startup Podcast?

Recent guests on Y Combinator Startup Podcast include:

1. Bryant Chou
2. Pedro Franceschi
3. Pete Koomen
4. Eric Ries
5. Gary Tan
6. Francois Chaubard
7. Katie Dill
8. Karine Mellata

To view more recent guests and their details, simply upgrade your Rephonic account. You'll also get access to a typical guest profile to help you decide if the show is worth pitching.

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