Y Combinator Startup Podcast

Latest Episodes:

#112 - Ryan Hoover and Dalton Caldwell Feb 15, 2019

Show notes

Ryan Hoover is the founder of Product Hunt which was in the Summer 2014 YC batch and was acquired by AngelList. He also invests in startups through his Weekend Fund.
Dalton Caldwell is a Partner at YC where he runs admissions.
Ryan is on Twitter at @rrhoover and Dalton is at @daltonc.
The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.

***
Topics
00:27 - Ryan's intro
00:52 - Dalton's intro
1:27 - Forming Product Hunt and applying to YC
5:17 - Product Hunt's growth rate when they applied to YC
6:27 - Raising money for the right reasons
9:42 - Maker communities
11:27 - Why raise money for Product Hunt?
13:12 - Having buzz during the batch
18:12 - Brex changing their idea during YC
20:17 - Pivoting into something you know well
21:32 - In retrospect, how would Ryan have advised himself around monetization?
28:27 - Trying to build out other verticals
34:27 - Don't act like you have infinite runway
35:57 - Creating urgency and developing products within AngelList
40:17 - Tips to launch on Product Hunt
45:07 - What Dalton looks for in applications
46:57 - Giving people the opportunity to start
48:47- What motivated Ryan to leave his job before Product Hunt

#111 - Jake Klamka and Kevin Hale Feb 06, 2019

Show notes

Jake Klamka founded Insight. Insight provides intensive 7 week professional training fellowships in fields such as data science and data engineering. Insight was in the YC Winter 2011 batch.
Kevin Hale is a Visiting Partner at YC. Before YC Kevin was the cofounder of Wufoo, which was funded by YC in 2006 and acquired by SurveyMonkey in 2011.
You can find Jake on Twitter at @jakeklamka and Kevin at @ilikevests.
The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.
***
Topics
00:37 - Kevin's intro
01:07 - Jake's intro
1:42 - Applying to YC with one product then changing it
4:07 - How Insight started
4:57 - Jake's first students and initial coursework
8:37 - Finding out what companies want from data scientists
10:37 - Picking the first class of students
12:07 - Common pitfalls for people transitioning into data science
15:07 - Types of data science roles
17:22 - What data scientists should look out for in companies
18:17 - Chuck Grimmett asks - When do you know you need to bring in seasoned data scientists?
20:37 - How Insight has scaled and changed
22:37 - What happens in the program
23:57 - Examples of a good project for a data science resume
26:27 - Will more data scientists be founders in the future?
28:37 - Teaching product
29:37 - Cleaning data
32:07 - Tools for tracking data
32:57 - Track what are you trying to optimize
35:57 - Churn and conversion
39:37 - Is there an ideal background for a data scientist?
41:37 - Which startups recruit well at Insight?
43:37 - Contracting
46:17 - Fields Jake is excited about

#110 - Avni Patel Thompson and Kat Manalac Jan 30, 2019

Show notes

Avni Patel Thompson founded Poppy, which helped parents book the best caregivers. They went through the YC Winter 2016 batch and recently shut down. Avni asked to come on the podcast to talk about what the process of shutting down was like.
Kat Manalac is a partner at YC.
You can find Avni on Twitter at @APatelThompson and Kat at @KatManalac.
The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon - @CraigCannon.
***

Topics
00:35 - Kat’s intro
01:15 - Avni’s intro
2:15 - When did it become clear that scaling Poppy wasn’t working?
5:50 - Experiments Avni tried with Poppy
9:55 - The last six months of runway
13:25 - Choosing to shut Poppy down
17:25 - Pivot or shut down?
20:10 - Who did Avni have these hard conversations with?
24:35 - Communicating with investors during the process of shutting down
31:20 - How does Avni feel since shutting down Poppy?
38:30 - Tying self-worth to your accomplishments and how it feels after shutting down
39:30 - “This is what trying looks like.”
44:00 - The effects of having raised money
46:00 - Starting to think about what’s next
49:00 - Struggling with unstructured nothing
49:45 - Kindness

#109 - Samantha Bradshaw Jan 23, 2019

Show notes

Samantha Bradshaw is a researcher at the Computational Propaganda Project and a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute. She’s been tracking the phenomenon of political manipulation through social media.
You can find Samantha on Twitter at @sbradshaww.
The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.
***
Topics
:53 - What is a bot?
2:53 - When computational propaganda began
3:53 - Changes in bot tactics since 2016
5:53 - Using bots for content creation
7:28 - WhatsApp and the upcoming Indian election
9:23 - Trends in computational propaganda
10:53 - How bots integrate into platforms
13:23 - Responsibilities of platforms to remove fake accounts
14:53 - The role of governments in media manipulation
18:18 - Fake news and selecting news that aligns with your beliefs
19:53 - Are platforms getting better or worse?
21:33 - Samantha's personal internet habits
23:03 - Sentiment around tracking in the UK vs the US
24:23 - The Mueller report and US midterms
29:18 - Canadian elections
30:18 - 2020 US elections
30:53 - Deepfakes
31:48 - Optimistic thoughts for the future
33:08 - How to help against computational propaganda

#108 - Cindy Mi and Qi Lu Jan 16, 2019

Show notes

Cindy Mi is the founder and CEO of VIPKID. VIPKID is a 1-on-1 teaching platform where children in China learn english from North American teachers.
Qi Lu is the CEO of YC China and Head of YC Research.
***
Topics
00:23 - Qi's intro
00:38 - Cindy's intro
1:38 - Moving to a new province as a teenager
4:38 - Being an educator and an entrepreneur
8:23 - Starting VIPKid in a hyper-competitive market
14:53 - Metrics for measuring product market fit
21:43 - How did she find the business model?
26:53 - What things did she try that didn't work?
30:38 - Strategy for product expansion
33:03 - Content expansion for Mandarin learning
34:53 - Building global companies
41:23 - Creating a global culture
44:13 - The future of education
48:08 - How should engineers and product managers think about edtech?
51:33 - Thoughts on AI
54:33 - Advice for entrepreneurs

#107 - Vinod Khosla and Sam Altman Jan 09, 2019

Show notes

Vinod Khosla is the founder of Khosla Ventures, a firm focused on assisting entrepreneurs to build impactful new energy and technology companies. Previously he was the founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors.
How to Build the Future is hosted by Sam Altman.
***
Topics
00:30 - Vinod’s intro
01:20 - A zero-million-dollar company vs a zero-billion-dollar company
4:20 - What percentage of investors in Silicon Valley are good long-term company builders?
4:50 - Who has earned the right to advise an entrepreneur?
6:50 - Which risk to take when
7:20 - Helpful board members
8:15 - Who to trust for what advice
11:00 - First principles thinking and rate of change
13:00 - Evaluating a candidate in an interview
14:15 - How much should a founder have planned and how ambitious should a founder be?
16:30 - Recruiting great people
19:00 - Building a phenomenal early team
20:20 - Being generous with early employee equity
27:00 - Gene pool engineering
27:18 - The art, science, and labor of recruiting
28:20 - How founders should think about investors
31:00 - Doers vs pontificators
32:00 - What does Vinod want to do in the next ten years?
32:10 - Reinventing Societal Infrastructure with Technology

#106 - Frank Lantz Dec 20, 2018

Show notes

Frank Lantz is a game designer and Director of the NYU Game Center. He cofounded Area/Code Games and most recently released a game called Universal Paperclips in which you’re an AI that makes paperclips.
Frank’s on Twitter @flantz and his site is franklantz.net.
The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.
***
Topics
00:27 - "Games are the aesthetic form of thinking and doing"
6:57 - VR skepticism
9:42 - Universal Paperclips
14:27 - Explaining games to non-gamers
20:12 - Competitive gaming
22:57 - Building life lessons into games
31:42 - Teaching game design
36:17 - Inspiration, hard work, and taste
39:17 - Darker sides of gaming culture
43:07 - The indie game market
45:27 - Unexpected trends in gaming
49:17 - Benedict Fritz asks - Frank you seem much more interested in chess, go, poker, and other games with a long history than most game designers. Where do you think this comes from?
52:12 - Esports
55:37 - Inventing sports
57:27 - Pokemon Go
1:00:32 - Difficulty in predicting successes in entertainment
1:03:17 - Frank's game recommendations
1:05:47 - @fakebalenciaga asks - Why Tonto?

#105 - Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis Dec 14, 2018

Show notes

Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis are the founders of AptDeco, where you can buy and sell used furniture. They were in the YC Winter 2014 batch and you can find them at AptDeco.com.
The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.
***
Topics
0:21 - What is AptDeco?
1:06 - Why did Reham and Kalam start it?
2:51 - Were they considering other ideas?
5:06 - How did they prepare to start AptDeco after business school/the corporate world?
6:21 - Getting over the fear of starting
9:21 - Communicating that they're starting something to friends and family
14:21 - Starting a startup after business school
17:21 - Helpful learnings from a more traditional business education
27:21 - Early models of AptDeco vs today
31:51 - AptDeco's customers
34:06 - Brands and customer acquisition
38:46 - Learning how to do delivery
42:06 - Deciding not to warehouse furniture
43:51 - Ideas that didn't work and some that worked on the second attempt
48:21 - Analytics
50:51 - Being a NYC company in YC
52:11 - How to make the most of YC

#104 - Leonard Susskind Dec 06, 2018

Show notes

Leonard Susskind is a professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University and he’s regarded as one of the fathers of string theory.
He’s written several books including: The Black Hole War, The Cosmic Landscape, and the Theoretical Minimum series.
He also has over 100 lectures on YouTube.
The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.
***
Topics
0:26 - Being perceived as an outsider physicist
4:26 - The perils of becoming too mainstream
6:11 - Where his ideas come from
7:26 - Claudio asks - Do you think the graviton can be experimentally found?
10:11 - The origins of String Theory
15:41 - Why should there be a grand unified theory?
16:56 - Quantum mechanics and gravity
20:16 - Large unanswered questions in physics
27:56 - Holographic principle
38:26 - Simulation hypothesis
40:41 - Richard Feynman on philosophy
42:26 - Feynman and the bomb
46:26 - Improving the world by discovering what the world is
49:26 - ER and EPR - Black holes and entanglement
56:26 - Noah Hammer asks - Could quantum teleportation be used in the future as a means of intergalactic communication?
58:26 - rokkodigi asks - How do you think quantum theory will shape technology in the future?
1:01:56 - Why teach physics for the public?

#103 - Michael Seibel Nov 28, 2018

Show notes

Michael Seibel is a partner and the CEO of YC. He cofounded Justin.tv, which was in the winter 2007 batch and Socialcam, which was in the winter 2012 batch.
In this episode Michael comments on five of his essays. The essays are: Why Should I Start a Startup?, One Order of Operations for Starting a Startup, The Real Product Market Fit, Users You Don’t Want, and Why Does Your Company Deserve More Money?
Michael’s on Twitter @mwseibel.
The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.
***
Topics
0:00 - Intro
0:42 - Why Should I Start a Startup?
2:00 - Three types of people: people highly motivated when working for themselves, people that could succeed starting a startup or within a big company, and people that could succeed within a big company.
6:00 - How do you decide what type of person you are?
7:30 - Identify bias in advice givers
10:30 - Peer advice becomes less valuable during college
14:40 - One Order of Operations for Starting a Startup
15:40 - People aren’t taught how to find ideas
17:20 - Find a particular problem that you’re passionate about
20:55 - Find some friends and brainstorm a solution
23:20 - Build an MVP
25:55 - Two failed orders of operations for starting a startup
29:57 - The Real Product Market Fit
30:57 - Why do many founders think they have product market fit when they don’t?
35:42 - Building a successful company is not a single variable problem
37:27 - Socialcam didn’t hit product market fit
38:37 - Justin.tv had $1M in profit before reaching product market fit
42:27 - Some companies take a long time
42:55 - Users You Don’t Want
44:25 - The spectrum of how users are using your product
45:55 - Users that take a lot of customer support time
48:50 - Don’t let the hijack users control the product roadmap
49:31 - Why Does Your Company Deserve More Money?
50:31 - A team, a product, and an office are all just a means to an end
51:31 - If you don’t really deserve money, what is an alternate path to create leverage?
53:16 - Breaking even at Justin.tv was a moment of infinite clarity
55:31 - Series A program and leverage

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