Y Combinator Startup podcast

16:39

AI can't yet one-shot an entire product—but with the rise of vibe coding, it's getting close. YC's Tom Blomfield has spent the last month building side projects with tools like Claude Code, Windsurf, and Aqua, seeing just how far you can push modern LLMs. From writing full-stack apps to debugging with a single paste of an error message, AI is becoming a legit collaborator in the dev process. This is a playbook for anyone who wants to get the most out of vibe coding and build faster.…

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How Zepto Became India’s Fastest Growing Startup 38:23

for 7 dage siden38:23

38:23

Imagine ordering groceries and having them show up at your doorstep in just 10 minutes. That’s the promise of Zepto, the fastest-growing e-commerce company in India. In this episode of How To Build The Future, Garry sits down with Aadit Palicha, the co-founder and CEO of Zepto, to discuss how they got started in a Whatsapp group, what it’s like going up against incumbents like Amazon and Zomato and how the future of e-commerce is changing in the age of intelligence.…

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Why America Stopped Innovating - And How We Can Start Again 34:12

for 21 dage siden34:12

34:12

Not long ago, America led the world in building and innovation. But over the past 50 years, bureaucracy and red tape have made it nearly impossible to get big things done. Still, there’s a growing movement to turn that around — to build faster, smarter, and better than ever before. In this episode of The Main Function, Garry sits down with Atlantic staff writer and Plain English podcast host Derek Thompson to discuss his new book Abundance (co-authored with Ezra Klein). They discuss how we got here, what needs fixing, and what a bold, more prosperous 2050 could look like.…

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What Founders Can Do To Improve Their Design Game 20:43

for 28 dage siden20:43

20:43

In this special episode of Design Review, Aaron sits down with Raphael Schaad, the Head of Calendar at Notion to discuss his leap from designer to founder, why illustration is an important first step when building a new product, and what ultimately makes designers uniquely qualified to start a company today.…

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How to Build the Future: Tony Xu 31:32

for 4 weeks siden31:32

31:32

12 years after starting DoorDash, co-founder & CEO Tony Xu and his employees still do deliveries every year, staying true to their core value: customer obsession. Today, DoorDash is the largest food delivery platform in the US. In this episode of How to Build the Future, Tony explains how their unwavering long-term vision won — helping create a new market while surviving near death and a global pandemic along the way.…

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Customer Obsession Made Gusto A $9.6 Billion Company 24:58

for 5 weeks siden24:58

24:58

Gusto (https://gusto.com) made payroll and HR painless for small businesses, growing into a $9.6B company along the way. Co-founder & CEO Josh Reeves joined YC's Harj Taggar to share how they built a payroll company from scratch and their customer-first approach to product design and culture.

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The Future Of Design With Figma's Dylan Field 37:41

for 6 weeks siden37:41

37:41

Design isn’t just about making things work—it’s about how they work, says Dylan Field, the co-founder & CEO of Figma. As AI transforms tech, he believes a designer's judgment, taste, and agency will matter more than ever. Dylan sat down with YC's Garry Tan to discuss the evolving world of design in the age of AI, the challenging early days at Figma, and how his team forever changed the way designers and engineers collaborate.…

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How To Build The Future: Aravind Srinivas 34:38

for 9 weeks siden34:38

34:38

YC General Partner David Lieb sits down with Aravind Srinivas, the co-founder and CEO of Perplexity, to discuss his origins in Silicon Valley, what it's like to compete with Google, and what the future of search could look like. Apply to Y Combinator: https://ycombinator.com/apply

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Building A Supersonic Plane Company From The Ground Up 13:45

for 10 weeks siden13:45

13:45

Imagine flying from NY to London in just a few hours. That’s the future that Blake Scholl and his team at Boom Supersonic are working towards. Blake started as a software engineer and pivoted mid-career to aviation. Now, he’s at the forefront of trying to bring back supersonic travel for all of us. In this episode of Hard Tech, YC’s Jared Friedman visited Blake in the Mojave desert to find out how someone who didn’t have a background in aerospace engineering was able to build the first-ever independently developed supersonic plane.…

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The Right (And Wrong) Way To Spend Money At Your Startup 29:06

for 10 weeks siden29:06

29:06

Many startups fail because they run out of money. So how should you think about how to spend the money you raise? In this episode of Office Hours, YC General Partners Brad Flora, Pete Koomen, Nicolas Dessaigne, and Gustaf Alströmer discuss how to spend responsibly at each stage of a startup— including advice on when to hire, whether to invest in marketing and what spending mistakes to avoid. Apply to Y Combinator: https://ycombinator.com/apply…

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How To Build The AGI Future: Bob McGrew 30:44

for 12 weeks siden30:44

30:44

According to OpenAI's former Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, reasoning and test-time compute will unlock more reliable and capable AI agents— and a path to scale to AGI. In this episode of How to Build the Future, YC's @garrytan sits down with Bob to discuss the lessons learned from his time at OpenAI, scaling laws, his advice for startups, and what all of this means for the jobs of the future.…

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How To Use AI In Your Startup 14:02

for 14 weeks siden14:02

14:02

AI continues to improve at an exponential pace. So what can you do as a founder to take advantage of it? In this episode of Office Hours, YC Partners discuss what you should consider if you’re thinking about pivoting to or incorporating AI as part of your startup.

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How To Build The Future: Parker Conrad 43:28

for 15 weeks siden43:28

43:28

In this episode of How to Build the Future, Garry sits down with Parker Conrad, Co-founder & CEO of Rippling, the all-in-one HR, Finance, and IT software company that’s valued at $13.5 billion. Parker is the co-founder of two unicorns and has one of the more dramatic startup journeys in recent years. In this interview, he shares his origin story, the lessons learned from his first two companies, how AI is changing the game, and why he thinks the future will be defined by "compound" software startups.…

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Building A $2 Billion SaaS Company: Lessons From A Two Time Founder 24:31

for 15 weeks siden24:31

24:31

Two-time founder Rujul Zaparde knows a thing or two about resilience and learning from failure. After dropping out of college to build FlightCar, he worked as a PM at Airbnb, and later as a visiting partner at YC. In 2020, he co-founded Zip, a procurement software company that has since raised $370 million and reached a $2.2 billion valuation. In this conversation with YC's Dalton Caldwell, Rujul demystifies the world of enterprise sales, shares his hard-earned lessons about scaling a business from zero, and explains how founders can use first-principles thinking to better approach the challenges of building a startup.…

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How David Lieb Turned A Failed Startup Into Google Photos | Backstory 19:32

for 18 weeks siden19:32