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class="retro ycdc2 blog blog"><div id="ycdc_new/pages/BlogList-react-component-7be6a792-2176-4217-a85c-7f32cbcc75a9" data-page="{"component":"ycdc_new/pages/BlogList","props":{"posts":[{"id":"66ff5635d896210001baba89","uuid":"ae197cbd-0aea-40c8-9798-aa35106e1c40","title":"Correcting the record for Continue and PearAI","slug":"correcting-the-record","html":"<p>YC is at our best when backing founders with an ethos of building for others, including strong open source developers like the founders of <a href=\"https://continue.dev\">Continue</a> and many others. </p><p>Earlier this week, a startup in the current batch, PearAI, was criticized online for an inappropriate approach to open source, particularly in how it approached forking <a href=\"https://continue.dev\">Continue</a>. Out of instinct to defend YC companies, I supported PearAI without knowing all the facts. In this case the criticism did have merit, and I worked with PearAI’s group partner and the founders to fix this situation. </p><p>Ty Dunn and Nate Sesti, co-founders of <a href=\"https://continue.dev\">Continue</a>, have had the grace to light a path forward for PearAI and all developers through their clear communication and commitment to open source. PearAI has apologized, removed the offending repositories, and is working to correct all their mistakes.</p><p>Still, I want to personally apologize to the founders of Continue, the YC community and the open source community for not responding more thoughtfully. </p><p>I also want to clear up some important facts:</p><ul><li><a href=\"https://continue.dev\">Continue</a> is not a fork of VS Code, which was misinformation reported in TechCrunch. Continue is a standalone project, built from scratch as an extension to VS Code and JetBrains, which can be easily installed by anyone in their respective marketplaces.<br></li><li><a href=\"https://continue.dev\">Continue</a> itself is the center of a vibrant open source community that is rallying around <a href=\"http://amplified.dev/\">amplified.dev</a>, which believes that the tools used to code with LLMs will be critical infrastructure, that an ecosystem is key to supporting all developer workflows, and that this will only work if developers work together. </li></ul><p>Open source is the life blood of tech startups, and everyone in our industry owes a debt to open source builders. </p><p>Thank you for making what we do possible. </p><p>Garry Tan<br>President &amp; CEO, Y Combinator</p>","comment_id":"66ff5635d896210001baba89","feature_image":null,"featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-10-03T19:43:01.000-07:00","updated_at":"2024-10-03T19:51:51.000-07:00","published_at":"2024-10-03T19:49:44.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d2","name":"Garry Tan","slug":"garry","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/03/Instagram-Image-Template--Square---21-.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Garry is the President & CEO of Y Combinator. Previously, he was the co-founder & Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Before that, he co-founded Posterous (YC S08) which was acquired by Twitter.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":"@garrytan","meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/garry/"}],"tags":[],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d2","name":"Garry Tan","slug":"garry","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2023/03/Instagram-Image-Template--Square---21-.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Garry is the President & CEO of Y Combinator. Previously, he was the co-founder & Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Before that, he co-founded Posterous (YC S08) which was acquired by Twitter.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":"@garrytan","meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/garry/"},"primary_tag":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/correcting-the-record/","excerpt":"YC is at our best when backing founders with an ethos of building for others, including strong open source developers like the founders of Continue and many others. ","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"66fed3c0d896210001baba58","uuid":"9744fe1c-686a-4276-90c3-5fea6f663027","title":"Join us at Startup School Europe in London - November 23","slug":"startup-school-europe-2024","html":"<p>Applications for Startup School Europe are now open! Apply <a href=\"https://events.ycombinator.com/suseurope\">here</a>.<br><br><strong><a href=\"https://events.ycombinator.com/suseurope\">STARTUP SCHOOL</a></strong><br>Saturday, November 23, 2024<br>10am-4:00pm<br>London, UK<br><br>Startup School is <a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Y Combinator’s</a> free-to-attend, one-day conference for college students and recent grads, where you’ll hear stories and practical advice from founders and YC partners. For the first time in YC history, we’ll be hosting this event in London!</p><p>If you're a student or recent grad who has been thinking about starting a startup one day (or are in the very earliest stages of building one), we hope to meet you there!</p><p><strong>This year’s speakers include:</strong></p><ul><li><a href=\"https://www.paulgraham.com/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Paul Graham, Co-Founder of Y Combinator</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/people/tom-blomfield\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Tom Blomfield, Co-Founder of Monzo and Y Combinator Group Partner</a></li><li><a href=\"https://posthog.com/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">James Hawkins, Posthog</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.photoroom.com/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Matt Rouif, Photoroom</a></li><li>and more!</li></ul><!--kg-card-begin: html--><center>\n<a href=\"https://events.ycombinator.com/suseurope\" class=\"ycdc-btn mt-2 ml-[13px] mt-[-10px] items-center justify-center\">Apply To Attend</a>\n</center><!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"66fed3c0d896210001baba58","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/10/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--9-.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-10-03T10:26:24.000-07:00","updated_at":"2024-10-03T11:30:00.000-07:00","published_at":"2024-10-03T11:30:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Applications for Startup School Europe are now open!","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a7106f","name":"Y Combinator","slug":"yc","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/yc.png","cover_image":null,"bio":null,"website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/yc/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117f","name":"Startup School","slug":"startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/startup-school/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71179","name":"YC Events","slug":"yc-events","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-events/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a7106f","name":"Y Combinator","slug":"yc","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/yc.png","cover_image":null,"bio":null,"website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/yc/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117f","name":"Startup School","slug":"startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/startup-school/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/startup-school-europe-2024/","excerpt":"Applications for Startup School Europe are now open! Apply here.STARTUP SCHOOLSaturday, November 23, 202410am-4:00pmLondon, UKStartup School is Y Combinator’s free-to-attend, one-day conference for college students and recent grads, where you’ll hear stories and practical advice from founders and YC partners. For the first time in YC history, we’ll be hosting this event in London!","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"66b268d9cd7d5f0001aee231","uuid":"3ad8026a-2c1e-4af7-8930-1ef0cded7ba8","title":"YC Fall 2024 batch applications due by 8/27","slug":"yc-fall-2024","html":"<p>In response to overwhelming demand, we are running a YC batch this fall. Applications are <a href=\"https://ycombinator.com/apply\">now open</a>. The Fall 2024 batch will begin in San Francisco on Sunday, 9/29, and Demo Day will be in early December. We are excited to work with founders who want to begin YC right away rather than wait for the W25 batch.</p><p>In addition to YC’s standard deal investment of $500,000, YC companies have access to dedicated GPU clusters from <a href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/01/google-cloud-now-has-a-dedicated-cluster-of-nvidia-gpus-for-y-combinator-startups/\">Google Cloud Platform</a> and <a href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/07/microsoft-partners-with-vcs-to-give-startups-free-ai-chip-access/\">Microsoft Azure</a> along with exclusive credits worth over $1M from:</p><ul><li>Microsoft for startups</li><li>AWS AI/ML</li><li>Google Cloud</li><li>Open AI</li><li>Replicate</li><li>Scale AI</li><li>and many more</li></ul><figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><iframe width=\"200\" height=\"113\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/9jOYX2pgTZk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen title=\"Apply To The F24 Batch!\"></iframe></figure><p>This is a special moment to start a startup, and we want to be here to serve founders who know today is the day to take the plunge. To apply, please <a href=\"https://ycombinator.com/apply\">submit an application</a> by Tuesday, 8/27 @ 8PM PT. <br><br>---</p><h2 id=\"faq\">FAQ<br></h2><p><strong>Why is YC doing a fall batch?</strong><br>The opportunity for new startups is only growing, especially given the latest results we are seeing from the most recent YC batches where in aggregate companies are growing revenue by 4X or more in a single quarter during the YC batch itself.<br><br>The group partners got together and agreed it was time to grow the pie and do our first-ever Fall batch.</p><p><strong>Who is this for?</strong><br>There’s no special vertical focus or requirement for this batch. Like any other YC batch, we’re looking for great founders working on technology of all kinds that solve real problems for every market in the world. </p><p><strong>What are the terms of YC's investment?</strong><br>We invest on standard terms as described <a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/deal\">here</a>.</p><p><strong>Will the fall batch be different from the summer or winter batches?</strong><br>The fall batch is likely to have fewer companies than our Summer and Winter batches, but in every other respect it will be a “normal” batch.</p><p><strong>If I don't get selected for F24, will I be able to apply for W25?</strong><br>Yes, you will be able to apply for W25! Applications for the winter batch will open in early October and will be due late October. </p><p><strong>Will you do a new fall batch next year?</strong><br>YC is always updating how we do things because we want to serve founders to the best of our ability. We are considering adding new batches during the year and expect to have more to announce later in the year.</p>","comment_id":"66b268d9cd7d5f0001aee231","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/08/PBS_6793.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-08-06T11:18:01.000-07:00","updated_at":"2024-08-19T12:35:53.000-07:00","published_at":"2024-08-06T12:00:15.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"In response to overwhelming demand, we are running a YC batch this fall. Applications are now open.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71085","name":"Dalton Caldwell","slug":"dalton-caldwell","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Dalton.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Dalton is Managing Director, Architect and Group Partner at YC. He was the cofounder and CEO of imeem (acquired by MySpace in 2009), and the cofounder and CEO of App.net.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/dalton-caldwell/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71085","name":"Dalton Caldwell","slug":"dalton-caldwell","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Dalton.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Dalton is Managing Director, Architect and Group Partner at YC. He was the cofounder and CEO of imeem (acquired by MySpace in 2009), and the cofounder and CEO of App.net.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/dalton-caldwell/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/yc-fall-2024/","excerpt":"In response to overwhelming demand, we are running a YC batch this fall. Applications are now open. The Fall 2024 batch will begin in San Francisco on Sunday, 9/29, and Demo Day will be in early December. We are excited to work with founders who want to begin YC right away rather than wait for the W25 batch.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"665737d05df3e40001fdc6ba","uuid":"fcb14982-b5aa-49ca-8fc6-5af133de4168","title":"Join us at Startup School 2024 in San Francisco - July 27","slug":"startup-school-2024","html":"<p>Applications for Startup School 2024 are now open! Apply <a href=\"https://events.ycombinator.com/startupschool24\">here</a>. <br><br><a href=\"https://events.ycombinator.com/startupschool24\"><strong>STARTUP SCHOOL</strong></a><br>Saturday, July 27, 2024<br>1pm-7:30pm<br>San Francisco, CA <br><br>Startup School is <a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Y Combinator’s</a> free-to-attend, one-day conference for college students and recent grads, where you’ll hear stories and practical advice from founders and YC partners. They’ll tell you how they got started, what went wrong, what surprised them, and what happened as their companies grew. <br><br>If you're a student or recent grad and have been thinking about starting a startup one day (or are in the very earliest stages of building one) we hope to meet you there!<br><br><strong>This year’s speakers include:</strong></p><ul><li><a href=\"https://x.com/paulg\">Paul Graham, Y Combinator</a></li><li><a href=\"https://openai.com/\">Sam Altman, OpenAI</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.vanta.com/\">Christina Caccioppo, Vanta</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.getlago.com/\">Anh-Tho Chuong, Lago</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.silimate.com/\">Ann Wu, Silimate</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.metriport.com/\">Dima Goncharov, Metriport</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/mantlebio\">Emily Damato, MantleBio</a></li><li><a href=\"https://canofsoup.com/\">Gabriel Birnbaum, Can of Soup</a></li><li><a href=\"https://mintlify.com/\">Han Wang, Mintlify</a></li><li><a href=\"https://posthog.com/\">James Hawkins, Posthog</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.luminai.com/\">Kesava Kirupa Dinakaran, Luminai</a></li><li><a href=\"https://usepylon.com/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marty Kausas, Pylon</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.collectpure.com/\">Trey Benedict, Pure</a></li><li><a href=\"https://infisical.com/\">Vlad Matsiiako, Infisical</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/people/\">YC partners Dalton Caldwell, Nicolas Dessiagne, Diana Hu, Jared Friedman, Michael Seibel, Harj Taggar, Garry Tan</a></li><li>and more!</li></ul>","comment_id":"665737d05df3e40001fdc6ba","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/05/startup-school.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-05-29T07:12:32.000-07:00","updated_at":"2024-08-06T11:26:59.000-07:00","published_at":"2024-07-08T09:00:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Applications for Startup School 2024 are now open!","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d1","name":"Y Combinator","slug":"y-combinator","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/1200px-Y_Combinator_logo.svg.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Y Combinator created a new model for funding early stage startups. Twice a year we invest a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200).\r\n\r\nThe startups move to Silicon","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/y-combinator/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117f","name":"Startup School","slug":"startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/startup-school/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71180","name":"#startup-school","slug":"hash-startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d1","name":"Y Combinator","slug":"y-combinator","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/1200px-Y_Combinator_logo.svg.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Y Combinator created a new model for funding early stage startups. Twice a year we invest a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200).\r\n\r\nThe startups move to Silicon","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/y-combinator/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117f","name":"Startup School","slug":"startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/startup-school/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/startup-school-2024/","excerpt":"Applications for Startup School 2024 are now open! Apply here. STARTUP SCHOOLSaturday, July 27, 20241pm-7:30pmSan Francisco, CA Startup School is Y Combinator’s free-to-attend, one-day conference for college students and recent grads, where you’ll hear stories and practical advice from founders and YC partners. They’ll tell you how they got started, what went wrong, what surprised them, and what happened as their companies grew. If you're a student or recent grad and have been thinking about starting a startup one day (or are in the very earliest stages of building one) we hope to meet you there!This year’s speakers include:","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":"Image with text \"Startup School West 2024, July 27\" ","feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"66719a7d3f7d4200014a7258","uuid":"581e718a-9a36-4f27-8152-5bec812f87c6","title":"Female Founders Conference applications are open now","slug":"female-founders-conference-2024","html":"<p>We’re bringing the <a href=\"https://events.ycombinator.com/ffc2024\">Female Founders Conference</a> back in person, and we’ll be hosting it on August 2 at our office in the Dogpatch in San Francisco.</p><p>For the first time since 2018, we’ll gather current and future founders who identify as women together to share their stories, give advice, and make connections. </p><p>If you are an engineer or scientist and you’re thinking about starting a startup, we hope hearing stories from women founders will inspire you to take the leap yourself. </p><p>Throughout the day, you’ll meet YC partners and alumni, and other smart builders who want to solve problems and start impactful companies. We’ll be joined by eminent founders like <a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/tracy-young-tigereye-interview\">Tracy Young</a> (Plangrid, TigerEye), <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/profile/maddie-hall/\">Maddie Hall</a>, who is growing super trees for carbon removal, and many more YC alumni.</p><p>The half-day event will feature talks and panels, followed by a reception.</p><p>Learn more and <a href=\"https://events.ycombinator.com/ffc2024\">apply here</a>.</p>","comment_id":"66719a7d3f7d4200014a7258","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/06/FFC5.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-06-18T07:32:29.000-07:00","updated_at":"2024-06-18T08:59:00.000-07:00","published_at":"2024-06-18T08:59:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"We’re bringing the Female Founders Conference back in-person, and we’ll be hosting it on August 2 at our office in the Dogpatch in San Francisco.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71072","name":"Surbhi Sarna","slug":"surbhi-sarna","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/09/1563221214332.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Surbhi is a group partner at Y Combinator. Prior to YC, Surbhi was CEO of nVision Medical, which was acquired by Boston Scientific.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/surbhi-sarna/"},{"id":"66058c2beba13d0001fb303b","name":"Diana Hu","slug":"diana","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/03/diana.jpeg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Diana Hu is a Group Partner at YC. She was co-founder/CTO of Escher Reality (YC S17), an AR Backend company acquired by Niantic (makers of Pokémon Go). At Niantic, she was the head of the AR platform.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/diana/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71183","name":"Event","slug":"event","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/event/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7116f","name":"Female Founders","slug":"female-founders","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/female-founders/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71072","name":"Surbhi Sarna","slug":"surbhi-sarna","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/09/1563221214332.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Surbhi is a group partner at Y Combinator. Prior to YC, Surbhi was CEO of nVision Medical, which was acquired by Boston Scientific.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/surbhi-sarna/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71183","name":"Event","slug":"event","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/event/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/female-founders-conference-2024/","excerpt":"We’re bringing the Female Founders Conference back in person, and we’ll be hosting it on August 2 at our office in the Dogpatch in San Francisco.","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"6669d02f5df3e40001fdc874","uuid":"57968021-b5aa-49be-8998-40df98cb033a","title":"Dissecting the past to predict the future: Tracy Young on building TigerEye","slug":"tracy-young-tigereye-interview","html":"<p>Tracy Young is unstoppable.</p><p>In 2018, Tracy and her co-founders sold their company <a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/plangrid\">PlanGrid</a> for $875 million. By 2021, she was ready to jump back in and do it all over again with a brand new startup: <a href=\"https://www.tigereye.com/\">TigerEye</a>.</p><p>TigerEye builds AI-powered planning and revenue management software for businesses, combining AI and machine learning with a company’s own historical data to help them predict their future. It’s “Moneyball but for business,” as Tracy puts it. </p><p><strong>I recently sat down with Tracy to find out more about her, what drives her, and some of what she has learned along the way. We talked about:</strong></p><ul><li>Why she wanted to jump back in as a founder/CEO, and what sparked the idea for TigerEye</li><li>The YC interview that inspired her to focus on enterprise software</li><li>Why she and her co-founder spent months “dissecting the past” before starting another company, and what they’re doing differently this time.</li><li>The hard parts of joining a big company following an acquisition, her advice for new founders going through YC, and more!</li></ul><p><em>Find our conversation below, lightly edited for clarity and length.</em></p><hr><p><strong>You had a massive exit with PlanGrid. You took a couple of years and then jumped right back in to do it again with TigerEye. What drives you?</strong></p><p>That’s a really good question.</p><p>I think my kids drive me. I always need a project to work on; I’m a busybody that way. I like working, and I like working with really smart, talented people.</p><p>But I also have a lot of energy and intensity, and my kids don’t need me all over them all the time. They have their own life, they don’t need founder-mom on top of them — because then I’m nitpicking every little thing. “Why are your toys out? Go pick that up!” <em>[laugh]</em></p><p>They don’t need that energy on them 24/7. So I output it into a startup.</p><p>But more than anything, I watched my parents work incredibly hard to give my siblings and me the life we have. They were refugees of the Vietnam War. They worked seven days a week for many years; they worked two jobs a piece just to make things work for our family. <a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/library/JF-the-immigrant-journey-behind-a-silicon-valley-success-story\">It absolutely made me who I am today</a>, and I want my kids to see that you can dream, you can work hard, and you can do whatever you want as long as you’re passionate about it.</p><p><strong>What came first: the idea for TigerEye or the desire to keep building [after PlanGrid]?</strong></p><p>The desire to keep building.</p><p>[My co-founder] Ralph and I were actually working at YC in between PlanGrid and TigerEye — we were both Visiting Group Partners. We saw a lot of really cool technology come through during interviews, and while reading thousands of applications from all of these ambitious, talented founders.</p><p>It was really clear to us there was so much low-hanging fruit in enterprise, but the only people who would build solutions there… let me tell you a quick story: I remember interviewing a really, <em>really</em> talented engineer. He must’ve been only 18 years old, and he was building.. I don’t even remember, some kind of vague thing around video. We were looking at him and asked: you can build anything! Why don’t you solve real problems for real people’s jobs?</p><p>He looked at us and said: enterprise software is for old people. </p><p><strong>Oh jeez. What was your response?</strong></p><p>I laughed, but it got me thinking that the only people who would build great solutions in the enterprise world are the people who saw it firsthand. </p><p>We had this unfair advantage of having built a startup for almost 10 years, seeing it grow the whole time, and deploying every solution under the sun to make our company scale and work.</p><p>Then we got the privilege to be acquired into a public company, and to form a new construction business unit [within that company], where we then replaced all of our startup tools with the [big brand] winners — we were paying millions of dollars to buy the software each year, and then another several hundred thousand to deploy it and administer it.</p><p>It was so clear to us: we could take any category [of Enterprise software] between CRMs and ERPs and there were ten good startup ideas in there, right? But the only people who would build that type of software are people who saw it fail them for years.</p><p><strong>For those who don’t know, can you explain what TigerEye does? What was the pitch?</strong></p><p>When Ralph pitched me the idea of TigerEye, he said, “Remember all of those spreadsheets we’d have people make [when building PlanGrid], and they’d never actually answer our questions? I think I can build a business simulator — and automatically generate that data through simulation theory.”</p><p>In a past life he worked at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory using simulation theory and he felt strongly that it could be applied to business. That was really interesting to me.</p><p><strong>Can you give me examples of what TigerEye is simulating, and what it bases its simulations on?</strong></p><p>Something that’s interesting about, say, Salesforce, is that it’s a flat database. When a sales rep hits save on an opportunity, it overrides the history. There’s no version control.</p><p>But that history is interesting! Especially if you have a lot of it, because now we can understand rep behavior over time. So we go into the CRM and snapshot everything every 15 minutes. We pick up every minor change that’s happening over time and use a bunch of AI, machine learning, and advanced statistics to use their historical [data] to predict their future. We’re like Moneyball but for business.</p><p>It gets even more important at public companies, where you’re trying to figure out: where are we going to clock out this quarter, or this month? Where’s our business going to be? </p><p>You constantly have really smart people munging numbers on a spreadsheet to try to predict the future, and these spreadsheets don’t work.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><iframe width=\"200\" height=\"113\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/5eYN7-l6d_A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen title=\"Introducing TigerEye\"></iframe></figure><p><strong>What was it like for you to go from running your own startup for 10 years, moving at your own pace, to being within a larger corporate environment?</strong></p><p>It really sucked for me. I think everyone knew this.</p><p>Startups move at such a velocity. To get inserted into a 40+ year old public company… there’s a cultural difference. There’s definitely decision-making differences, and I think that was the hardest part. I felt like I couldn’t sneeze without asking permission from five head-of-somethings.</p><p><strong>Between your experiences with PlanGrid and then at a bigger company — how retrospective did you get about all of this before diving back in?</strong></p><p>We left Autodesk in March 2020 — and then, as you recall, went right into a worldwide lockdown. </p><p>I’m married to my co-founder [Ralph], so we ended up spending most of shelter-in-place and that COVID period dissecting the past. We suddenly didn’t have a job, we’d left Autodesk, we’re used to moving at such a velocity, and then we came to a complete standstill. </p><p>What we ended up doing is dissecting everything we felt we did wrong, and everything we did right. Everyone we thought we wanted to work with again, and everyone we for sure were not going to work with again. We mapped out the differences between those that we’d want to work with again, and those we didn’t. The first 24 or 25 people [at TigerEye] were people we’d worked with before.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=\"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2024/06/tracy-and-ralph.png\" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1388\" height=\"913\" srcset=\"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/size/w600/2024/06/tracy-and-ralph.png 600w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/size/w1000/2024/06/tracy-and-ralph.png 1000w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2024/06/tracy-and-ralph.png 1388w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 720px) 720px\"><figcaption><em>TigerEye co-founders Tracy Young and Ralph Gootee</em></figcaption></figure><p><strong>What determined whether or not you wanted to work with someone again?</strong></p><p>It was the people we thought were incredibly talented, and that we had a fun time building with. It’s as simple as that: looking back, yes, I would love to work with that person again. We had that core value in place before we even narrowed in on a product idea.</p><p><strong>Can you tell me a bit about what you’re doing differently as a founder this time, day-to-day?</strong></p><p>It’s a little bit different this time around; when I first started PlanGrid, I was in my mid-to-late 20s. I’m approaching 40 this year, and I have 3 young kids.</p><p>Getting the luxury of doing it a second time around, I know the things that are a higher value — the things that only I can do as a CEO and founder. There are certain decisions only I can make, and there are decisions that are better off made by someone else at the company.</p><h3 id=\"it-makes-people-feel-like-they-suck-at-their-job-when-the-ceo-jumps-in-and-does-it-for-them\"><em>\"It makes people feel like they suck at their job when the CEO jumps in and does it for them.\"</em><br></h3><p>I think in my 20s, as a founder and a first-time CEO, I honestly didn’t know what my job was. I always jumped onto support tickets; if customers had an issue, I’d be the first one to jump in. Companies get to a point where that’s not the best use of your time. We had really great support people on the team — and it feels really bad when the CEO is jumping in to do your job! It makes people feel like they suck at their job when the CEO jumps in and does it for them.</p><p>So this time I’m really deliberate in how I spend my time.</p><p><strong>What does that look like?</strong></p><p>These days it’s mostly product and sales. But it’s also about having really heavily protected family time, and really heavily protected work time.</p><p><strong>That dedicated family time… I generally don’t ask questions about founders being married to each other because it feels too personal, but since you mentioned it earlier: does that make it easier or harder to separate life and work? Easier because your partner already understands the things that are going on in your life, or harder because, in some way, work is always in the air?</strong></p><p>We’ve been doing this together for so long that it’s hard for me to even know what it’s like on the other side. We worked together [on PlanGrid] starting in 2011; we got married in 2013. With three kids, and now two startups — yeah, it’s hard.</p><p>It’s funny, but we often get founders who are thinking about starting a company with their partners, and the advice we give is: don’t do it. And the reason for that is that startups are hard. And marriage is hard. And having children is hard! So it’s this combinatorial explosion of problems that could come up.</p><p>But we’re also a good example that it can work, but we’ve done a lot of work on personal growth, and practicing patience, and practicing forgiveness to be able to do what we do. </p><p><strong>Last question here, but: you have an incredibly rare perspective on YC. You went through it as a founder multiple times, you were a Visiting Group Partner... for anyone going through the incoming YC batch, or applying in the future, what would you tell them to really maximize their time?</strong></p><p>It’s easy to get a bit obsessive — the goal is to make as much progress as you can in three months, so that you have a great Demo Day with as much revenue and progress as you can.</p><p>But I would encourage everyone to look at the people around them [in the batch], and the startups around them, and put in the effort to get to know them. Learn what they’re building.</p><p>I think back to YC Winter 2012 and Summer 2022, and it’s the people that really are the best part of YC. It’s the friendships I made; the partners that I got to work with. It’s really easy to be 100% heads down and obsessive over your thing — of course, talk to customers, make something people want! — but don’t forget that you are getting an incredible opportunity to meet people who are going through the exact same journey you are.</p><hr><p><em>Find out more <a href=\"https://www.tigereye.com/\">about TigerEye here</a>, and <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/predictable-growth-7018963257554046976/\">find Tracy's newsletter \"Predictable Growth\" here</a>.</em></p>","comment_id":"6669d02f5df3e40001fdc874","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/06/tracy.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-06-12T09:43:27.000-07:00","updated_at":"2024-06-12T11:07:13.000-07:00","published_at":"2024-06-12T11:00:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"In 2018, Tracy Young and her co-founders sold PlanGrid for $875 million. By 2021, she was ready to jump back in and do it all over again with a brand new startup. I chatted with Tracy about what drives her and some of what she's learned along the way.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"645000ebb09be6000165fbad","name":"Greg Kumparak","slug":"greg","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/05/greg.jpeg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Greg oversees editorial content at Y Combinator. He was previously an editor at TechCrunch for nearly 15 years.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/greg/"}],"tags":[{"id":"63d1aa7a466acf0001099b6a","name":"#25267","slug":"hash-25267","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"63d1aa7a466acf0001099b6b","name":"#8","slug":"hash-8","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71152","name":"Founder Stories","slug":"founder-stories","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/founder-stories/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71174","name":"Advice","slug":"advice","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/advice/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"645000ebb09be6000165fbad","name":"Greg Kumparak","slug":"greg","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2023/05/greg.jpeg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Greg oversees editorial content at Y Combinator. He was previously an editor at TechCrunch for nearly 15 years.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/greg/"},"primary_tag":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tracy-young-tigereye-interview/","excerpt":"Tracy Young is unstoppable.","reading_time":8,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"665fad1c5df3e40001fdc835","uuid":"ef354f76-c084-4ee6-bfc8-934b90b943ce","title":"Last chance to apply for YC’s S24 batch","slug":"apply-ycs24","html":"<p>We’ve almost finished selecting the S24 batch, but we’ve still got time to accept a few more companies.</p><p>Usually by June we would be done with selecting the batch, but starting this year, we’ve pushed the summer batch a month later so it runs from July to September. With the new schedule, we have a couple of extra weeks to read last-minute applications before the batch starts.</p><p>So, if you were interested in applying for S24 but thought it was too late, it’s not. If you apply <strong>by June 13</strong>, we’ll still have time to look at your application. If you apply by June 13, we’ll get back to you by June 20.<br></p><!--kg-card-begin: html--><center>\n<a href=\"https://ycombinator.com/apply\" class=\"ycdc-btn mt-2 ml-[13px] mt-[-10px] items-center justify-center\">Apply Now</a>\n</center><!--kg-card-end: html--><h3 id=\"faq\">FAQ<br></h3><p><strong>What if I’ve already applied for S24, should I reapply?</strong></p><p>Probably not. If you think something radical has changed since you last applied, use your best judgment.<br></p><p><strong>Are there special instructions for these applications?</strong></p><p>No, just go to the <a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/apply\">website</a> and apply.<br></p><p><strong>I’ve already applied for YC and am waiting to hear back. What do I need to do?</strong></p><p>Nothing. We’re working through all late applications now, and you’ll hear back by June 20. If in doubt, you can always check the status of your application at <a href=\"https://apply.ycombinator.com\">https://apply.ycombinator.com</a>. <br></p><p><strong>Why did YC move the summer batch a month later?</strong></p><p>If you’re curious, here’s the story. YC has typically had the winter batch run from January to March and the summer batch run from June to August. The problem with that schedule is that it’s asymmetric. Because we use the time between batches to select the next batch, this gave us only 2 months to select the summer batch, versus 4 months to select the winter batch. Moving the summer batch one month later equalizes it.<br></p>","comment_id":"665fad1c5df3e40001fdc835","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/06/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--9-.jpg","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-06-04T17:11:08.000-07:00","updated_at":"2024-11-08T09:29:36.000-08:00","published_at":"2024-06-05T08:00:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"If you were interested in applying for S24 but thought it was too late, it’s not. If you apply by June 13, we’ll still have time to look at your application.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a7106f","name":"Y Combinator","slug":"yc","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/yc.png","cover_image":null,"bio":null,"website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/yc/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a7106f","name":"Y Combinator","slug":"yc","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/yc.png","cover_image":null,"bio":null,"website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/yc/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/apply-ycs24/","excerpt":"We’ve almost finished selecting the S24 batch, but we’ve still got time to accept a few more companies.","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"665f5c5c5df3e40001fdc7fb","uuid":"73c659ae-8921-4102-af3c-f0e339f2a9e2","title":"Humanloop CEO Raza Habib shares 5 common mistakes teams make when building with LLMs","slug":"raza-habib-building-better-ai-products-with-llms","html":"<p>When <a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/humanloop\">Humanloop</a> started out in 2020, they were working on a better way to train the state-of-the-art language models of that time. These models needed lots of manually annotated data to work best; Humanloop’s first product made it easier for anyone to do this annotation work, while drastically reducing the overall amount of manual work required.</p><p>But they sensed a shifting tide.</p><p>“About two years ago we were watching what was happening with large language models,” says Humanloop co-founder Raza Habib, “and we realized that the biggest risk to us as a business was that these large language models would get really good — the paradigm for how people build AI would change substantially, and you wouldn’t need this annotation any more.”</p><p>In what would prove to be a prescient move, they started exploring a pivot just months before ChatGPT would debut. Instead of helping people annotate their training data, Humanloop would give teams the tools to evaluate how well their LLM-based AI applications were working, and help team members — technical or not — collaborate on building them.</p><p>“Pivoting your company… it’s a scary thing to do,” says Raza. “So we gave ourselves two weeks; we’d make some mockups and go out to the people we know are building with these [large language models] and see if anyone would pay for this. If we could get ten paying customers in two weeks, that’d be a strong enough signal that it’s worth pivoting the company. “</p><p>“In the end, it took us two days,” he says. Today Humanloop counts companies like Gusto, Vanta, and Duolingo as customers — effectively serving as their collaborative LLM playground to find the best prompts, evaluate different models, and track changes over time.</p><p>This week Humanloop is launching a podcast series called <strong>High Agency</strong> (on <a href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/high-agency-the-podcast-for-ai-builders/id1747605459\">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href=\"https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gl6eoYBldXNveJh0DZKrY?si=d40eded314574e1a\">Spotify</a>, and <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/@builtwithhumanloop\">YouTube</a>) where Raza will talk to others building at the forefront of AI to compare notes on what works and what doesn’t in this still-early field. The first episodes will feature interviews with the CTOs at Ironclad, Zapier, Sourcegraph and Hex; all companies that have built great things with LLMs in production — but as Raza puts it, \"nobody is an expert yet, and everyone is learning by doing.\"</p><p>With that in mind, I asked Raza to break down some of the most common mistakes he sees teams making when building on top of LLMs. Here’s what he told me:</p><p><strong>Not having consistent, systematic evaluation in place:</strong></p><p>Figure out what “good” looks like for your AI product’s output, then figure out how to measure against that as you build. </p><p>“If teams don’t have a good way of measuring what ‘good’ looks like,” says Raza, “they’ll spin their wheels for a long time changing things and not really knowing if they’re making any progress.” </p><p>“Everyone wants things that are fast; everyone wants things that are cheap, and accurate. But you’re going to have [criteria] that are really use-case specific to you.”</p><p>If you’re building an AI chat bot for helping someone practice a new language, maybe that means checking the output to ensure it only uses words appropriate for the user’s skill level. If you’re building an AI coach, perhaps that means double checking that each of your user’s stated goals gets mentioned and addressed. </p><p>But there’s more to it than just running the prompt a few times and making sure it all looks reasonable; the systems have to be in place to check the output regularly, as prompts change and the underlying models evolve. </p><p>“For [traditional software development], you write a piece of code, and every time you run it, it does the same thing. Same inputs, same outputs. But with an LLM? Same input, multiple outputs — every time you run it, you’ll get something slightly different.”</p><p>“One of the biggest mistakes people make is just eyeballing [one-off] examples,” he notes. “It doesn’t give them a rigorous enough sense of whether or not they’re making things better.”</p><p><strong>Not paying attention to (sometimes silent) user feedback:</strong></p><p>“What ‘good’ looks like is very subjective!” notes Raza. “What is a good summary for this call? What is a good sales email? There isn’t just one single correct answer.”</p><p>“What your customer says is good is the ultimate answer,” says Raza. But they don’t always say those things out loud.</p><p>“You want to be capturing different sources of end-user feedback,” he notes. “That can be explicit things, like votes — those little thumbs up/thumbs down buttons. But it’s also implicit things that users do within your application that correlate well with whether or not it’s working. If you helped them generate that sales email, did they actually send it?”</p><p>“Plan ahead, when you’re designing an application, to capture the user signals that tell you if it’s working; you want to design that in from the beginning.”</p><p><strong>Not closely tracking prompt history:</strong></p><p>“Another error is not treating prompt management with the same rigor you treat code management,” says Raza.</p><p>The prompts you’re using will change over time; it’s key to track those changes and know why they were made.</p><p>“People start off doing this and they use [shared docs], they’re copying &amp; pasting things in Slack, and they’re losing the history of their experimentation. New people join the team and it’s hard to know what was tried before. Something will be in production for months and you’ll make a change; is this better or worse than what we had before? They don’t know!”</p><p><strong>Not fine-tuning the model:</strong></p><p>For most purposes and when proving your idea works, you can probably get pretty far with the popular base models. But eventually, Raza suggests, you’ll want to fine-tune them for your needs. Good fine-tuning will give you better results, lower latency, and reduce costs in the long run.</p><p>“We recommend to everyone that prompt engineering is where they should start, because it’s the easiest, fastest, and most powerful thing,” says Raza. “but you can get order-of-magnitude cost savings if you fine-tune your models later.” </p><p>“The best way to think about fine-tuning is as an optimization,” he notes. “You want to avoid optimizing prematurely, but once you’ve validated that there’s demand for your product then it should become a focus.”</p><p><strong>Not having domain experts write the prompts:</strong></p><p>If you’re building LLM products for a specific vertical or industry, bring in people who really <em>know </em>the topic to help write the prompts and evaluate the output — don’t rely on engineers to do it alone. Large language models are, clearly, all about language. Language is nuanced, and the lexicons of different industries are deep.</p><p>“This is work that’s best done by domain experts,” says Raza. “It’s one of those things that’s obvious in retrospect, but wasn��t obvious at the start.”</p><!--kg-card-begin: html--><hr /><!--kg-card-end: html--><p><em>If you’re building with LLMs, be sure to <a href=\"https://humanloop.com/\">check out Humanloop here</a>, and find Raza’s new podcast for AI builders, High Authority, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlKEdulzAc0\">on YouTube here</a>.</em></p>","comment_id":"665f5c5c5df3e40001fdc7fb","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/06/raza-2.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-06-04T11:26:36.000-07:00","updated_at":"2024-06-04T12:45:09.000-07:00","published_at":"2024-06-04T11:57:49.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"After working with hundreds of teams to make better products with LLMs, Humanloop CEO Raza Habib shares some of the most common mistakes he's seen.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"645000ebb09be6000165fbad","name":"Greg Kumparak","slug":"greg","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/05/greg.jpeg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Greg oversees editorial content at Y Combinator. He was previously an editor at TechCrunch for nearly 15 years.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/greg/"}],"tags":[{"id":"665f5d8b5df3e40001fdc812","name":"#21894","slug":"hash-21894","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"645000ebb09be6000165fbad","name":"Greg Kumparak","slug":"greg","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2023/05/greg.jpeg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Greg oversees editorial content at Y Combinator. He was previously an editor at TechCrunch for nearly 15 years.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/greg/"},"primary_tag":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/raza-habib-building-better-ai-products-with-llms/","excerpt":"When Humanloop started out in 2020, they were working on a better way to train the state-of-the-art language models of that time. These models needed lots of manually annotated data to work best; Humanloop’s first product made it easier for anyone to do this annotation work, while drastically reducing the overall amount of manual work required.","reading_time":5,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"665ddd035df3e40001fdc7c0","uuid":"145a5d77-aaea-431d-95de-04e89ad5f301","title":"Why YC went to DC","slug":"why-yc-went-to-dc","html":"<p>For most of this century, Big Tech has been allowed to operate with little scrutiny or oversight — to disastrous effects, in the form of social media harms, anti competitive practices, and more. Despite recent efforts to rein them in, a small handful of mega companies continue to wield enormous power in our economy and in Washington — and now, Washington is at risk of repeating the mistakes of the past when it comes to artificial intelligence. </p><p>A few weeks ago, I went to DC to start engaging policymakers and be the voice of <a href=\"https://x.com/garrytan/status/1595232588255309824?s=46&amp;t=t0fy922SkI6eb4WhJHKTSQ\">little tech</a> — the emerging tech keeping our economy dynamic. We met with leaders from both parties and White House officials who oversee tech policy, and spoke to them about the importance of open source AI, talent access through immigration, market access through antitrust action, and the elimination of noncompetes.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><iframe width=\"200\" height=\"113\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/6WtdFqgsEY0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen title=\"Standing Up For Little Tech - YC Goes To D.C.\"></iframe></figure><p>While we should listen to what the biggest names from the biggest companies have to say on AI and other areas of tech, we also need to also make room for the thousands of startups that can help ensure the benefits of AI are shared widely and that American leadership in the technology space continues. The founders of these companies have important perspectives on critical issues like open source versus closed source development, national security concerns, threats to innovation, and more.</p><p>I see their value firsthand. The YC community is now made up of 11,000 founders and 5,000 startups from nearly every state in the US. This year, we’ll fund more than 500 companies out of 50,000 applications, and almost all of them are related to AI in some way. We’re determined to help grow the next generation of great companies, as these innovators are critical to pushing the boundaries of what's possible and ensuring the benefits of AI are widely distributed.</p><p>There are many reasons to be optimistic about AI and its ability to improve our lives – from helping us find new ways to tackle climate change to <a href=\"https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/oct/high-us-health-care-spending-where-is-it-all-going\">cutting costs</a> in healthcare. Unlocking those benefits will require acknowledging that there are big ideas at little companies that need to be given the space to take off. We need smart policy to ensure that happens — and they need to be at the table to be heard. </p><p>This is a once-in-a-generation moment, and ignoring the perspective and interests of startups by writing policy that kills them before they ever have a chance to get off the ground would be one of the most damning mistakes lawmakers can make. </p><p>That’s why we need AI policy that promotes fair, open, and competitive markets. In other words, we need policies that can help little tech thrive. Here’s what we shared with senior government officials: </p><ul><li>First, let’s prioritize open source models and more tailored AI applications to shape the competitive landscape and create real opportunities for startups. Open source AI models allow for greater transparency, collaboration, and innovation by making the underlying code publicly accessible and modifiable. In contrast, closed source models, often favored by large tech companies, can limit competition and concentrate power. But how open should we be? <br><br>While there are certainly safety concerns about open source technology getting into the hands of bad actors, those concerns have so far proven to be overblown. It would be far more dangerous for lawmakers to cave to Big Tech <a href=\"https://time.com/6972134/ai-lobbying-tech-policy-surge/\">lobbying</a> and craft policy that closes off AI development. Doing so would put more power in fewer hands, and stunt innovation by clipping the wings on a dazzling array of world-changing startups before they have a chance to compete.<br></li><li>Second, we need to <a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/content/files/2024/06/RemedyFest-Final-Report.pdf\">prioritize forceful remedies to foster competition</a> in the market and ensure new entrants can make inroads without fear of retaliation. We need decisive action to compel more interoperability by the largest firms and curb self-preferencing so we restore competition and innovation, similar to measures called for in the American Innovation and Choice Online Act that Big Tech lobbying <a href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-20/big-tech-divided-and-conquered-to-block-key-bipartisan-bills\">killed</a> at the eleventh hour in 2021. At the end of the day, we need an open and neutral app ecosystem where consumers and developers can maintain a direct relationship. <br></li><li>And finally, we need more steps like the FTC’s recent move to ban all employee noncompetes (no carve outs, no limitations, no exceptions). That kind of common sense policy helps founders build strong, new companies and disrupt the status quo.</li></ul><p>This country is built on the idea of rugged individualism, ingenuity, and grit. It’s also built on the idea of equal opportunity. As we approach a new age of innovation, where the rules of the road are being written as we speak, we need to give little tech a chance to succeed. All of us will benefit as a result.</p>","comment_id":"665ddd035df3e40001fdc7c0","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/06/YCDC.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-06-03T08:10:59.000-07:00","updated_at":"2024-06-13T10:24:31.000-07:00","published_at":"2024-06-03T10:00:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"A few weeks ago, I went to DC to start engaging policymakers and be the voice of little tech. Here's why.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d2","name":"Garry Tan","slug":"garry","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/03/Instagram-Image-Template--Square---21-.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Garry is the President & CEO of Y Combinator. Previously, he was the co-founder & Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Before that, he co-founded Posterous (YC S08) which was acquired by Twitter.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":"@garrytan","meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/garry/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d2","name":"Garry Tan","slug":"garry","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2023/03/Instagram-Image-Template--Square---21-.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Garry is the President & CEO of Y Combinator. Previously, he was the co-founder & Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Before that, he co-founded Posterous (YC S08) which was acquired by Twitter.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":"@garrytan","meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/garry/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/why-yc-went-to-dc/","excerpt":"For most of this century, Big Tech has been allowed to operate with little scrutiny or oversight — to disastrous effects, in the form of social media harms, anti competitive practices, and more. Despite recent efforts to rein them in, a small handful of mega companies continue to wield enormous power in our economy and in Washington — and now, Washington is at risk of repeating the mistakes of the past when it comes to artificial intelligence. ","reading_time":3,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null}],"filter":null,"featured":{"id":"672905a1d4414200016d141e","uuid":"cb6cab8c-006f-4413-9392-f1b5d8dbe99d","title":"YC Winter 2025 batch applications due by Tuesday, November 12, 2024","slug":"yc-winter-2025-applications","html":"<p>At YC's Startup School conference this year with Paul Graham and Sam Altman, one of the consistent themes was that this is the best time in the last 20 years to start a company.</p><p>To better serve founders given the rapid rate of technological change, YC recently switched from two to four batches per year.</p><p>The Winter 2025 batch will run from January to March, and <a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/apply\">applications</a> are due on November 12.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><iframe width=\"200\" height=\"113\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/y8gYw5Z85-A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen title=\"Apply to the YC W25 Batch!\"></iframe></figure><p>Many of the famous YC companies applied last minute, right before the deadline, with little more than an idea. So if you think you're \"too early\", you're probably not, and you have nothing to lose by applying.</p><p>To apply, please <a href=\"https://www.ycombinator.com/apply\">submit an application</a> by Tuesday, 11/12 @ 8PM PT.</p>","comment_id":"672905a1d4414200016d141e","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/11/Screenshot-2024-11-04-at-11.36.14-AM.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-11-04T09:34:25.000-08:00","updated_at":"2024-11-05T09:00:00.000-08:00","published_at":"2024-11-05T09:00:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"To better serve founders given the rapid rate of technological change, YC recently switched from two to four batches per year.\nThe winter 2025 batch will run from January to March, and applications are due on November 12.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71097","name":"Jared Friedman","slug":"jared-friedman","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Jared.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was cofounder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/jared-friedman/"},{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71070","name":"Aaron Epstein","slug":"aaron-epstein","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Aaron-E-2.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Aaron is a Group Partner at YC. He was the co-founder and CEO of Creative Market (YC W10), a marketplace for graphic design assets, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2014.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/aaron-epstein/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71097","name":"Jared Friedman","slug":"jared-friedman","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Jared.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was cofounder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/jared-friedman/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/yc-winter-2025-applications/","excerpt":"At YC's Startup School conference this year with Paul Graham and Sam Altman, one of the consistent themes was that this is the best time in the last 20 years to start a company.","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},"pagination":{"page":1,"limit":10,"pages":267,"total":2663,"next":2,"prev":null}},"url":"/blog/","version":null,"rails_context":{"railsEnv":"production","inMailer":false,"i18nLocale":"en","i18nDefaultLocale":"en","href":"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/","location":"/blog/","scheme":"https","host":"www.ycombinator.com","port":null,"pathname":"/blog/","search":null,"httpAcceptLanguage":null,"applyBatchLong":"Winter 2025","applyBatchShort":"W2025","applyDeadlineShort":"November 12","ycdcRetroMode":true,"currentUser":null,"serverSide":true},"id":"ycdc_new/pages/BlogList-react-component-7be6a792-2176-4217-a85c-7f32cbcc75a9","server_side":true}" data-reactroot=""><div class="no-scroll-behind 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Applications are now open.</p></a></div><div class="mt-2"><p class="text-sm font-medium text-indigo-600"><a href="/blog/tag/yc-news"><span class="mb-2 mr-4 inline-flex items-center rounded bg-gray-200 px-2 py-0.5 text-xs font-medium text-gray-800">YC News</span></a><a href="/blog/tag/admissions"><span class="mb-2 mr-4 inline-flex items-center rounded bg-gray-200 px-2 py-0.5 text-xs font-medium text-gray-800">Admissions</span></a></p></div><div class="mt-6 flex items-center"><div class="shrink-0"><a href="/blog/author/dalton-caldwell"><span class="sr-only">Dalton Caldwell</span><img width="40" class="h-10 w-10 rounded-full" src="/blog/content/images/2022/02/Dalton.jpg" alt=""/></a></div><div class="ml-4"><p class="text-sm font-medium text-gray-800"><a href="/blog/author/dalton-caldwell" class="hover:underline">Dalton Caldwell</a></p><div class="flex space-x-1 text-sm text-gray-500"><span>8/6/2024</span></div></div></div></div></div></div></section><section class="relative isolate z-0 border-retro-sectionBorder sm:pr-[13px] ycdcPlus:pr-0 pt-6 lg:pt-9 pb-6 lg:pb-9"><div class="mt-2 grid max-w-lg gap-5 lg:max-w-none lg:grid-cols-3"><div class="col-span-2"><h3 class="text-xl font-semibold uppercase tracking-wider text-yellow-600">All Posts</h3><div class="flex flex-col overflow-hidden rounded-lg"><div class="mb-6 mr-6 flex flex-1 flex-col justify-between"><div class="flex-1"><a href="/blog/startup-school-2024" class="mt-2 block"><p class="text-3xl font-semibold text-gray-900">Join us at Startup School 2024 in San Francisco - July 27</p></a><p class="text-md py-2 text-gray-500">by <a href="/blog/author/y-combinator" class="text-blue-500 hover:underline"><span class="">Y Combinator</span></a><span class="ml-4 text-sm font-normal">7/8/2024</span></p><p class="mt-3 text-base text-gray-800">Applications for Startup School 2024 are now open!</p><div class="mt-4"><a class="inline-flex text-sm font-medium text-blue-500 md:text-base" href="/blog/startup-school-2024">Read More<!-- --> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" fill="none" viewBox="0 0 24 24" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" aria-hidden="true" class="mx-1 h-6 w-6" width="1.25em" height="1.25em"><path stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" d="M13 9l3 3m0 0l-3 3m3-3H8m13 0a9 9 0 11-18 0 9 9 0 0118 0z"></path></svg></a></div></div></div></div><div class="flex flex-col overflow-hidden rounded-lg"><div class="mb-6 mr-6 flex flex-1 flex-col justify-between"><div class="flex-1"><a href="/blog/female-founders-conference-2024" class="mt-2 block"><p class="text-3xl font-semibold text-gray-900">Female Founders Conference applications are open now</p></a><p class="text-md py-2 text-gray-500">by <a href="/blog/author/surbhi-sarna" class="text-blue-500 hover:underline"><span class="">Surbhi Sarna</span></a>, <a href="/blog/author/diana" class="text-blue-500 hover:underline"><span class="">Diana Hu</span></a><span class="ml-4 text-sm font-normal">6/18/2024</span></p><p class="mt-3 text-base text-gray-800">We’re bringing the Female Founders Conference back in-person, and we’ll be hosting it on August 2 at our office in the Dogpatch in San Francisco.</p><div class="mt-4"><a class="inline-flex text-sm font-medium text-blue-500 md:text-base" href="/blog/female-founders-conference-2024">Read More<!-- --> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" fill="none" viewBox="0 0 24 24" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" aria-hidden="true" class="mx-1 h-6 w-6" width="1.25em" height="1.25em"><path stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" d="M13 9l3 3m0 0l-3 3m3-3H8m13 0a9 9 0 11-18 0 9 9 0 0118 0z"></path></svg></a></div></div></div></div><div class="flex flex-col overflow-hidden rounded-lg"><div class="mb-6 mr-6 flex flex-1 flex-col justify-between"><div class="flex-1"><a href="/blog/tracy-young-tigereye-interview" class="mt-2 block"><p class="text-3xl font-semibold text-gray-900">Dissecting the past to predict the future: Tracy Young on building TigerEye</p></a><p class="text-md py-2 text-gray-500">by <a href="/blog/author/greg" class="text-blue-500 hover:underline"><span class="">Greg Kumparak</span></a><span class="ml-4 text-sm font-normal">6/12/2024</span></p><p class="mt-3 text-base text-gray-800">In 2018, Tracy Young and her co-founders sold PlanGrid for $875 million. By 2021, she was ready to jump back in and do it all over again with a brand new startup. I chatted with Tracy about what drives her and some of what she's learned along the way.</p><div class="mt-4"><a class="inline-flex text-sm font-medium text-blue-500 md:text-base" href="/blog/tracy-young-tigereye-interview">Read More<!-- --> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" fill="none" viewBox="0 0 24 24" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" aria-hidden="true" class="mx-1 h-6 w-6" width="1.25em" height="1.25em"><path stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" d="M13 9l3 3m0 0l-3 3m3-3H8m13 0a9 9 0 11-18 0 9 9 0 0118 0z"></path></svg></a></div></div></div></div><div class="flex flex-col overflow-hidden rounded-lg"><div class="mb-6 mr-6 flex flex-1 flex-col justify-between"><div class="flex-1"><a href="/blog/apply-ycs24" class="mt-2 block"><p class="text-3xl font-semibold text-gray-900">Last chance to apply for YC’s S24 batch</p></a><p class="text-md py-2 text-gray-500">by <a href="/blog/author/yc" class="text-blue-500 hover:underline"><span class="">Y Combinator</span></a><span class="ml-4 text-sm font-normal">6/5/2024</span></p><p class="mt-3 text-base text-gray-800">If you were interested in applying for S24 but thought it was too late, it’s not. If you apply by June 13, we’ll still have time to look at your application.</p><div class="mt-4"><a class="inline-flex text-sm font-medium text-blue-500 md:text-base" href="/blog/apply-ycs24">Read More<!-- --> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" fill="none" viewBox="0 0 24 24" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" aria-hidden="true" class="mx-1 h-6 w-6" width="1.25em" height="1.25em"><path stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" d="M13 9l3 3m0 0l-3 3m3-3H8m13 0a9 9 0 11-18 0 9 9 0 0118 0z"></path></svg></a></div></div></div></div><div class="flex flex-col overflow-hidden rounded-lg"><div class="mb-6 mr-6 flex flex-1 flex-col justify-between"><div class="flex-1"><a href="/blog/raza-habib-building-better-ai-products-with-llms" class="mt-2 block"><p class="text-3xl font-semibold text-gray-900">Humanloop CEO Raza Habib shares 5 common mistakes teams make when building with LLMs</p></a><p class="text-md py-2 text-gray-500">by <a href="/blog/author/greg" class="text-blue-500 hover:underline"><span class="">Greg Kumparak</span></a><span class="ml-4 text-sm font-normal">6/4/2024</span></p><p class="mt-3 text-base text-gray-800">After working with hundreds of teams to make better products with LLMs, Humanloop CEO Raza Habib shares some of the most common mistakes he's seen.</p><div class="mt-4"><a class="inline-flex text-sm font-medium text-blue-500 md:text-base" href="/blog/raza-habib-building-better-ai-products-with-llms">Read More<!-- --> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" fill="none" viewBox="0 0 24 24" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" aria-hidden="true" class="mx-1 h-6 w-6" width="1.25em" height="1.25em"><path stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" d="M13 9l3 3m0 0l-3 3m3-3H8m13 0a9 9 0 11-18 0 9 9 0 0118 0z"></path></svg></a></div></div></div></div><div class="flex flex-col overflow-hidden rounded-lg"><div class="mb-6 mr-6 flex flex-1 flex-col justify-between"><div class="flex-1"><a href="/blog/why-yc-went-to-dc" class="mt-2 block"><p class="text-3xl font-semibold text-gray-900">Why YC went to DC</p></a><p class="text-md py-2 text-gray-500">by <a href="/blog/author/garry" class="text-blue-500 hover:underline"><span class="">Garry Tan</span></a><span class="ml-4 text-sm font-normal">6/3/2024</span></p><p class="mt-3 text-base text-gray-800">A few weeks ago, I went to DC to start engaging policymakers and be the voice of little tech. Here's why.</p><div class="mt-4"><a class="inline-flex text-sm font-medium text-blue-500 md:text-base" href="/blog/why-yc-went-to-dc">Read More<!-- --> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" fill="none" viewBox="0 0 24 24" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" aria-hidden="true" class="mx-1 h-6 w-6" width="1.25em" height="1.25em"><path stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" d="M13 9l3 3m0 0l-3 3m3-3H8m13 0a9 9 0 11-18 0 9 9 0 0118 0z"></path></svg></a></div></div></div></div><nav class="flex items-center justify-between border-t border-gray-200 py-3" aria-label="Pagination"><div class="hidden sm:block"><p class="text-sm text-gray-700">Showing<!-- --> <span class="font-medium">1</span> <!-- -->to<!-- --> <span class="font-medium">10</span> <!-- -->of <span class="font-medium">2663</span> total posts</p></div><div class="flex flex-1 justify-between sm:justify-end"><a href="" class="relative ml-3 inline-flex items-center rounded-md border border-gray-300 px-4 py-2 text-sm 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