Podcast · 148 episodes
Y Combinator Startup Podcast, page 2
by Y Combinator · English
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.
All episodes, page 2
Why Domain Experts Are Winning In The Age Of AIBryant Cho argues that in the age of AI, domain expertise and “harnessing” models matter more than raw model capability.19 Jun 2026 · 43 min · 22 chapters
How To Pick A Startup IdeaHow YC partner Jon explains a rubric to stop overthinking startup ideas, commit to one, “go deep,” and validate quickly with real customer data.17 Jun 2026 · 12 min · 5 chapters
"The CEO Must Be the Chief AI Officer"Pedro Franceschi argues the CEO must act as the “chief AI officer,” because only top leadership can understand AI’s real bounds and redesign the company’s self-identity, processes, and…10 Jun 2026 · 54 min · 26 chapters
How to Build an AI-Native Services CompanyHow to start an “AI-native services” company (e.g., tax, audit, insurance, law, parts of healthcare) where AI delivers customer outcomes, not a user-facing copilot.3 Jun 2026 · 11 min · 6 chapters
How To Build Superintelligence Inside Your CompanyHow YC builds “superintelligence” inside a company by using AI as an infrastructure layer (not a co-pilot), recording artifacts, and creating a shared “organizational brain” via common context, an…27 May 2026 · 46 min · 24 chapters
How The Best Companies Defend Against Mediocrity And RotEric Ries argues that many “best practices” (shareholder primacy, investor control, short-term governance) enable “mediocrity and rot,” causing successful founders to be removed and missions to be…25 May 2026 · 50 min · 32 chapters
Paul Graham: Should you move to Silicon Valley?Whether founders should move to Silicon Valley, and how Sweden/Stockholm can thrive as a startup hub by doing a “go there briefly, then return” strategy.13 May 2026 · 22 min · 12 chapters
Tokenmaxxing: How Top Builders Use AI To Do The Work Of 400 EngineersPersonal AI as a “platform shift” toward user-controlled tools, using agentic coding/research to “token max” knowledge work while keeping humans in the loop for agency and taste.8 May 2026 · 41 min · 15 chapters
Beyond Bigger Models: Recursion As The Next Scaling Law In AIHow recursion at inference/training time can improve AI reasoning without scaling model size, contrasting hierarchical reasoning models (HRM) and tiny recursive models (TRM) as “next scaling laws”…1 May 2026 · 38 min · 17 chapters
How to Build the Future: Demis HassabisDemis Hassabis discusses what’s needed for AGI and how DeepMind/Google DeepMind is building toward it via agents, continual learning, reasoning, memory, and efficient multimodal models; he also…29 Apr 2026 · 41 min · 19 chapters
The $9B Startup That Wants to Create a Billion New DevelopersReplit’s mission to create “a billion new developers” by letting non-traditional builders create real, secure, scalable software via AI “live coding” and agents.25 Apr 2026 · 39 min · 20 chapters
The Playbook For Building An AI Native CompanyHow to build an “AI-native” startup where AI is the company’s operating system, using closed-loop internal processes, making the org queryable, and adopting AI “software factories” (specs/tests →…24 Apr 2026 · 10 min · 6 chapters
Stripe Head of Design Katie Dill Breaks Down Their New WebsiteStripe’s new homepage redesign (launched Jan; replacing a 2020 site) and how AI is changing Stripe Head of Design Katie Dill’s design process.22 Apr 2026 · 44 min · 20 chapters
The GPT Moment for Robotics Is HereThe episode argues that robotics is approaching a “GPT-1 moment” because (1) upfront costs to start robotics companies are falling, (2) foundation models can handle semantics/planning, and (3)…16 Apr 2026 · 49 min · 27 chapters
This Startup Wants To Catch Cancer Before It SpreadsBillion to One’s blood-based genetic testing platform that detects rare DNA fragments in maternal blood and liquid biopsies, aiming to catch cancer before it spreads by measuring minimal residual…6 Apr 2026 · 21 min · 13 chapters
This Startup Secretly Detects Fraud For Fortune 500sVariance (co-founder Karine) announces coming out of stealth with a $21M Series A, building purpose-built AI agents for risk and compliance that automate fraud, identity, and content review for…31 Mar 2026 · 31 min · 15 chapters
How François Chollet Is Building A New Path To AGIFrançois Chollet discusses why AI progress should “ride the wave” toward AGI, and argues for a new foundation beyond LLM scaling: symbolic program synthesis and “symbolic descent,” plus the ARK AGI…27 Mar 2026 · 57 min · 27 chapters
Inside The Startup Reinventing America’s Trillion Dollar Chemical IndustryInside The Startup Reinventing America’s Trillion Dollar Chemical Industry20 Mar 2026 · 13 min · 6 chapters
Building A Global AI Startup From IndiaBuilding A Global AI Startup From India16 Mar 2026 · 40 min · 22 chapters
The Future Of Brain-Computer Interfaces with Science's Max HodakIn this episode, Garry Tan interviews Max Hodak, co-founder of Neuralink and founder of Science, a pioneering brain-computer interface (BCI) company.9 Mar 2026 · 53 min · 34 chapters
How To Avoid AI Design SlopIn this episode of the Y Combinator Startup Podcast, hosts Aaron Epstein and visiting partner Raphael Schaad discuss the increasing prevalence of AI-assisted design tools.6 Mar 2026 · 37 min · 16 chapters
The Fastest Path To Super IntelligenceIn this episode, Ian Fischer, co-founder and CEO of Poetiq, discusses the groundbreaking advancements in AI through recursive self-improvement systems.27 Feb 2026 · 20 min · 10 chapters
The AI Agent Economy Is HereThe emergence of an agent-driven economy with advancements in AI, specifically through tools like OpenClaw and MaltBook.21 Feb 2026 · 23 min · 12 chapters
Inside Claude Code With Its Creator Boris ChernyIn this episode of the Y Combinator Startup Podcast, host Boris Cherny discusses the development of Claude Code, a transformative coding tool in the AI era.17 Feb 2026 · 50 min · 28 chapters