The age of AI agents is here. Models can read, see, talk, and now, even use a computer all by themselves. One of the first out of the gates is Anthropic’s Claude Computer Use. In this episode of YC Decoded, President and CEO Garry Tan dives into how Claude Computer Use works, what it can do, and how it may change AI forever. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/YCDecoded-apply Work at a startup: https://yc.link/YCDecoded-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 00:00 - Intro 01:35 - Computer Use 03:50 - Demo 04:50 - Tools 05:40 - WIP 07:05 - The future
When it comes to your startup's website, you probably have a lot to say, but not a lot of time to say it. For this episode of Design Review, Group Partner Aaron Epstein invited YC President and CEO Garry Tan to break down what’s working (and what’s not) on the websites of five different AI startups. Watch along as they provide concrete advice that will help you improve your own site designs, regardless of what type of company you’re building. And if you'd like to have your startup's website reviewed, please submit your info here: https://shorturl.at/wIJS0. We’re especially interested in checking out mobile site designs for an upcoming episode. Thank you to these companies for volunteering: Rosebud (https://www.rosebud.ai/) Magicflow (https://www.magicflow.ai/) Reality Defender (https://realitydefender.com/) Pump (https://www.pump.co/) Voiceflow (https://www.voiceflow.com/) Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DesignReview-apply Work at a startup: https://yc.link/DesignReview-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 00:00 - Intro 01:01 - Rosebud 05:51 - Magicflow 10:41 - Reality Defender 15:44 - Pump 20:09 - Voiceflow 23:35 - Outro
Former YC partner Garry Tan, the cofounder of Initialized Capital and a design expert describes how to effectively integrate design into a product development process. You can find the lecture transcript and slides here: https://www.startupschool.org/videos/57 Learn more at https://www.startupschool.org/
Former YC partner Garry Tan, the cofounder of Initialized Capital and a design expert describes how to effectively integrate design into a product development process. You can find the lecture transcript and slides here: https://www.startupschool.org/videos/41 Learn more at https://www.startupschool.org/
In the past few years, AI labs have adopted a “more is more” approach to scaling LLMs. By introducing more parameters, data and compute, they’ve been able to predictably improve model performance. But recently, there’s been plenty of debate within the AI community as to whether or not we may have finally reached the limits of scaling laws. In this episode of YC Decoded, President and CEO Garry Tan looks into both sides of the scaling laws debate and how a brand-new paradigm could potentially forecast the future of AI. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/YCDecoded-apply Work at a startup: https://yc.link/YCDecoded-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 00:00 - Intro 01:17 - Scaling law decoded 04:10 - Data and compute 05:33 - Chinchilla 06:00 - Larger models and scaling 07:12 - Training 08:40 - Compute 09:42 - Robotics
It can be very easy for founders to fall into a trap of denial in the early stages of a startup’s life. But in order for your company to really take off, it’s critical to be honest with yourself and to build a community of friends and collaborators who are willing to challenge groupthink. In the first episode of our new series “The Main Function,” YC President and CEO Garry Tan explains how founders must face hard truths in order to take their company from dream to reality. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/MainFunction-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/MainFunction-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 00:00 - Intro 00:14 - Encanto Movie 00:53 - Don't Live a Lie 02:06 - The Truman Show Scene 03:10 - Dreamland 03:53 - Reality 05:26 - Surround Yourself With People Who Tell The Truth 06:43 - Outro
GStack is an open-source toolkit built by YC President & CEO Garry Tan that turns Claude Code into an AI engineering team — with skills for office hours, design, code review, QA, and browser testing. Use it with Claude Code or Codex or Cursor. It's free and open source: https://github.com/garrytan/gstack In this video, Garry walks through how GStack works, starting with Office Hours, a skill modeled after real YC partner sessions that pressure-tests your idea before you write a line of code. He demos it live, going from idea through adversarial review, design mockups, and automated QA in a single session. 00:00 – AI Just Changed Coding Forever 00:09 – From YC to Building With AI 01:07 – Why AI Coding Feels So Different 02:45 – Turning AI Into a Real Team (GStack) 03:45 – Let’s Build an App Live 05:23 – The Question That Kills Most Ideas 07:13 – This Idea Just Got Way Bigger 08:38 – The “Feels Illegal” AI Hack 10:50 – Upgrading the Idea in Real Time 12:44 – Breaking + Fixing the Plan 14:25 – AI Designs the App 16:59 – The Full System Explained 18:00 – Running Multiple AI Engineers 20:00 – Shipping 10x Faster 21:20 – The Only Thing That Matters Now Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs https://www.conductor.build/
For the past 15 years, tech policies and agendas in Washington D.C. have been predominantly influenced by the biggest technology companies (i.e., Big Tech). However, as D.C. and Silicon Valley experience increasing interactions and friction over rapidly evolving technologies, it's crucial for startups (i.e., Little Tech, the emerging tech keeping our economy dynamic) to have their voices heard in policy and regulatory discussions. In this episode of The Main Function, Y Combinator’s new Head of Public Policy, Luther Lowe, sits down with President and CEO Garry Tan to discuss why YC is advocating for the startup community and which policy issues are most important to founders. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/MainFunction-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/MainFunction-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 0:00 Intro 1:26 What is YC doing in D.C.? 2:29 Defining “Little Tech” 3:06 What policy issues is YC fighting for? 5:16 The problem with special interests and Big Tech 6:43 What is astroturf and how can it be defeated? 8:52 Silicon Valley and D.C. need more bridges 11:32 Outro
In recent months, AI agents have gone from experimental to increasingly useful, with platforms like DeepSeek and OpenAI's Deep Research redefining what’s possible. Now, a new contender has entered the field—Manus, a general purpose AI agent that’s managed to capture global attention. In this episode of YC Decoded, President and CEO Garry Tan dives into how Manus' unique architecture sets it apart, what its launch says about the broader debate around GPT "wrappers," and why they might actually be more valuable than they first appear. Apply to attend our upcoming AI Startup School in SF: https://events.ycombinator.com/ai-sus Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/YCDecoded-apply Work at a startup: https://yc.link/YCDecoded-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://chapterme.co/) - 00:00 - Will Manus Change How AI Agents Work? 01:32 - What Is Manus And How Does it Work? 02:05 - What Sets Manus Apart 03:40 - What Can Manus Accomplish? 04:45 - The "Wrapper" critique 06:20 - The Pros of Manus 07:00 - The Cons of Manus 07:50 - What This Means For Founders
For years, we've heard two major narratives about AI. One predicting the end of human work, the other dismissing it as hype. The truth is more nuanced, and more hopeful. From radiology to software engineering, the pattern repeats: as technology makes tasks cheaper and faster, demand for human creativity and judgment grows. YC's Garry Tan explores what history, economics, and real companies show us— that technology doesn't replace people, it redefines what we can do.
Learn how the CEO of Y Combinator Garry Tan wrote his way to success in the startup world — and how you can, too. Writing is (and has always been) Garry’s #1 tool to excavate his identity and discover his purpose. In his own words, “Writing is the most potent form of representing your own experience.” TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 Intro 00:00:40 Garry's early days on the internet 00:01:40 Garry's underground newspaper 00:04:40 X / Twitter 00:05:00 Early childhood and education 00:08:30 Finding identity 00:12:00 Internet obsession 00:15:00 YouTube scripts 00:17:00 Shilling, marketing, and zero cringe 00:20:00 Online forums like Reddit and Hacker News 00:22:00 Garry's design background 00:24:45 Garry's web development background 00:26:30 Human attention and Reddit 00:27:25 Advice for Y Combinator applications 00:29:20 School 00:30:30 Documentation 00:32:10 Influencers and Y Combinator 00:33:20 Effective Communication 00:34:45 Peter Thiel 00:36:30 Vulnerability and Novelty 00:38:00 Stanford University 00:41:20 Novelty 00:42:45 Building a brand 00:44:55 YouTube 00:48:45 Writing at Y Combinator 00:49:45 Y Combinator writers like Paul Graham and Sam Altman 00:50:55 Learn from successful founders 00:54:45 Human-computer interactions 00:56:30 Writing online SPEAKER LINKS: Website: https://www.ycombinator.com/people/garry-tan Twitter: https://twitter.com/garrytan Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garrytan/ Blog: https://blog.garrytan.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GarryTan Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrytan WRITE OF PASSAGE: Want to learn more about the next class Write of Passage? Click here: https://take.writeofpassage.school/writing-sprints PODCAST LINKS: Website: https://writeofpassage.school/how-i-write/ Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv ABOUT THE HOST: I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. How I Write is a podcast by Write of Passage // Production by Adam Soccolich