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Artwork for Y Combinator Startup Podcast

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

Y Combinator
Artificial Intelligence
Y Combinator
Startups
Openai
Software Engineering
Cursor
Entrepreneurship
Artificial General Intelligence
Openclaw
Airbnb
Design
Claude Code
Nothing
Natural Language Processing
Chatgpt
AGI
Cloud Computing
Perplexity
Consumer Marketing
Google

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 weeklyEpisodes336Founded9 years ago
Number of ListenersCategory
Technology

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Artwork for Y Combinator Startup Podcast

Latest Episodes

Today, more than 3% of the world’s lawyers use Legora, and the company has grown from $1 million to $100 million in ARR since launching in October 2024.At Startup School 2026, Legora co-founder and CEO Max Junestrand shares how they built one of the ... more

Susan Kare joined Apple as an art history PhD who barely knew anything about computers. She went on to design many of the icons, typefaces, and symbols that helped make the original Macintosh feel understandable and human, defining a visual language ... more

Robots can already fold laundry, make espresso, clean kitchens, and assemble things. The harder problem is getting them to do those tasks reliably, for long periods of time, without a human babysitting them.

At Startup School 2026, Physical Intellig... more

Last November, Peter Steinberger was annoyed that there was no good way to talk to his coding agents from his phone, so he built one himself. A few months later, OpenClaw had exploded into one of the biggest open source AI projects in the world, with... more

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Recent Guests

Chelsea Finn
AI/robotics researcher and speaker
Not explicitly stated in transcript
Episode: Chelsea Finn: This is the State of the Art in Robotics
Peter Steinberger
Open-source software developer and creator of OpenClaw/Claude/related tooling; founder involved in early AI agent workflows and security-conscious open-source governance.
OpenClaw / related projects
Episode: Peter Steinberger: "Fun Is Velocity"
Stephen Haney
Founder of Paper, an AI-native design tool
Paper
Episode: How To Design In The Agent Era
Philip Johnston
Co-founder and CEO of Starcloud
Starcloud
Episode: Building the First Data Centers in Space
Dmitri Dolgov
Waymo Co-CEO
Waymo
Episode: Waymo Co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov: "Move Fast And Ship Safely"
Patrick Collison
CEO of Stripe
Stripe
Episode: Patrick Collison: "What If You Succeed?"
Jeff Dean
AI researcher and software engineer known for MapReduce, Bigtable, TensorFlow, TPU, Gemini; co-architect of foundational AI infrastructure at Google
Google
Episode: Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AI
Alexandr Wang
Founder, Scale AI (and speaker on entrepreneurial journey)
Scale AI
Episode: Alexandr Wang: “This is a Once-in-a-Civilization Opportunity”
Blake Scholl
Founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic
Boom Supersonic
Episode: Blake Scholl: Breaking the Supersonic Ban

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 States7 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.

Chelsea Finn: This is the State of the Art in Robotics
Q: When should a small team switch from site-specific models to a generalist policy, and what signals indicate timing?
Start with a generalist policy early, since open-source options like Pi0 and Pi0.5 are available, and use them as a baseline before considering constrained environments that may require local inference.
Chelsea Finn: This is the State of the Art in Robotics
Q: How far away are we from a chat GBT moment for robotics, and what will that look like?
The speaker expects a slower distribution for robotics moments due to the need for physical robots, but believes the capabilities of such models are rapidly approaching real-world usefulness in the coming years, even if the distribution is slower than software-only AI.
Max Hodak: How Startups Build Speed
Q: How do you approach regulation and quality systems in a highly regulated field like biotech, and how does AI fit into that?
Regulation and quality are essential but burdensome; the key is to use AI to quickly identify applicable standards and generate evidence tables, not to replace human compliance. AI helps manage complexity, speed up documentation, and maintain rigorous traceability without sacrificing safety.
How To Design In The Agent Era
Q: What safeguards or guidelines do you use to prevent models from producing low-quality design elements?
We implement guardrails and explicit design guidelines baked into the model prompts, focusing on typography, contrast, and layout decisions that seasoned designers know to apply. This helps avoid generic, vibe-coded outputs and keeps the resulting designs intentional and trustworthy.
How To Design In The Agent Era
Q: How does Paper change the design-to-code workflow for teams?
Paper makes the design-to-code workflow more fluid by treating the codebase as the source of truth, enabling agents to read and modify live code and CSS directly. Designers can push changes via components or direct edits, and developers can pull the resulting code into their IDEs, reducing misinterpretation and speeding up iteration.

Audience Metrics

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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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How many listeners does Y Combinator Startup Podcast get?

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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
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3. Training Data
4. The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
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How many episodes of Y Combinator Startup Podcast are there?

Y Combinator Startup Podcast launched 9 years ago and published 336 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. Chelsea Finn
2. Peter Steinberger
3. Stephen Haney
4. Philip Johnston
5. Dmitri Dolgov
6. Patrick Collison
7. Jeff Dean
8. Alexandr Wang

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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