EXPLAINED: Yc | Rare Historical Photos

Sam Altman learned at Y Combinator that powerful leaders can govern—but they can’t rule

The OpenAI CEO says his years running the startup accelerator prepared him to balance pressure from investors, governments and the wider AI industry.

Fortune · Sep 14

Harmeet Dhillon reacts to Ankit Gupta-YC controversy: American employers cannot discriminate against US citizens

President Donald Trump' aide Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for Civil Rightys at the US Department of Justice, has reacted to the controversy triggered by Y Combinator partnet Ankit Gupta and said that American employers won't be allowed to discriminate against US citizens. Dhillon also made it clear that…

The Times of India · Aug 28

Tech founder responds to backlash after tattooing company logo on potential employees

‘I messed up,’ the San Francisco-based founder said

The Independent UK · Jul 30

Meet 'Chad: The Brainrot IDE,' The Product People Dismissed as a Prank Is Solving One Problem 'Nobody's Talking About': 'This Isn't a Joke'

A new Y Combinator–backed product that people initially thought was deliberately unserious and gimmicky, dubbing it "rage bait" rather than a real tool, has big ambitions for helping developers increase productivity.

Benzinga · Dec 6, 2025

Tech CEO Garry Tan slams college entrepreneurship programs for 'teaching you to lie'—he warns Gen Z students that it could land them in jail

Y Combinator boss Garry Tan warns against the “dangerous” embrace of Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes by some education programs.

Fortune · Jul 10, 2025

An engineer was caught secretly working for multiple Silicon Valley startups at once

The saga began on Wednesday when the engineer started going viral on social media as startup founders discovered he had worked for multiple companies.

Fortune · Jul 4, 2025

Soham Parekh Accused Of Fooling YC Startups While Working 4 Jobs At Once: Suhail Doshi Says He Faked His Resume, Lied About His Location

Suhail Doshi, founder of Playground AI and analytics platform Mixpanel Inc., publicly accused an Indian software engineer of simultaneously working at multiple startups while allegedly defrauding Y Combinator portfolio companies.

Benzinga · Jul 3, 2025

Infisical raises $16 million Series A led by Elad Gil to safeguard secrets

Infisical, secrets management startup, has raised a $16 million Series A, led by Elad Gil.

Fortune · Jun 6, 2025

This YC-Backed AI Assistant Makes Excel Way Easier

Excel is one of the most used tools and a source of frustration for many professionals. However, this tool from Y Combinator, Carousel, aims to tackle

Geekflare · May 15, 2025

For AI agent startups, deal count is up 81.4% year over year, says PitchBook

Per PitchBook, YC is the leading investor in LLM agents, by all-time number of investments. In the trailing 12 months, there have been 156 deals in the space.

Fortune · Sep 24, 2024