Reading up on Y Combinator
25 deep · digging since nov 18, 25
- Show HN: StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase
StartupWiki is a free, community/AI-driven startup directory that faces widespread criticism over data accuracy and reliability.
- AI eats the world (Spring 26) [pdf]
Ben Evans's Spring 2026 deck argues AI is the next platform shift, with models becoming infrastructure and value moving up-stack to apps, workflows, and proprietary data.
- Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting
An HN commenter argues progressive prosecutors like Boudin and Foxx failed not due to ideology but from poor management and inability to retain experienced staff.
- Young Tech Founders Are Dumping Their Girlfriends and Going Monk Mode - Business Insider
Young founders are ending relationships to focus on their AI startups, driven by the belief that the AI boom demands total dedication.
- Show HN: Hallucinopedia
Hallucinopedia is a site that uses an LLM to generate fake Wikipedia articles about nonexistent things, with a prompt enforcing deadpan humor and internal consistency.
- I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
Immigration attorney Peter Roberts fields Hacker News questions on H-1B, O-1, green cards, and startup hiring amid changing US policy.
- Delve removed from Y Combinator
Y Combinator removed Delve, an AI compliance startup, from its program following allegations of license violations and fraud in its compliance verification service.
- Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
Hacker News updated its guidelines to prohibit posting AI-generated or AI-edited comments, aiming to preserve human conversation.
- Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users
YC companies such as Run Anywhere scrape GitHub commit metadata to send unsolicited marketing emails to developers, violating GDPR and GitHub's terms of service.
- New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes
New accounts on Hacker News are significantly more likely to use em-dashes, suggesting bot or AI-generated content is on the rise.
- Ironclaw — AI CRM, hosted locally on your Mac
DenchClaw is an open-source AI CRM and workflow automation tool that runs locally on a Mac, using a Chrome profile to automate tasks like database queries, lead enrichment, and outreach.
- Show HN: Rowboat – AI coworker that turns your work into a knowledge graph (OSS)
Rowboat is an open-source desktop AI agent that indexes work into a knowledge graph to perform actions like drafting emails and code mods.
- forbes.com
Sam Altman's leadership of OpenAI and his aggressive bets on AI infrastructure and products position him as a transformative but controversial figure in technology.
- New YC homepage
Y Combinator's redesigned homepage foregrounds founder stories and before/after photos of its most successful startups, including Airbnb, Stripe, and OpenAI.
- Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B
Capital One acquires fintech Brex for $5.15 billion, a significant discount from its $12.3 billion peak valuation in 2022.
- Unauthenticated remote code execution in OpenCode
OpenCode's unauthenticated HTTP endpoint allows remote code execution, sparking criticism over its security practices and maintainer responsiveness.
- Eight Software Markets AI That Will Transform Differently
AI coding tools will transform eight distinct software markets differently, with strong Jevons effects in internal tools and gaming but weak or no effects in enterprise SaaS and safety-critical systems.
- RevisionDojo, a YC startup, is running astroturfing campaigns targeting kids?
YC-backed RevisionDojo ran astroturfing campaigns on Reddit using fake accounts, paid posts, and coordinated manipulation to promote its test prep products.
- 2025 Letter | Hacker News
Dan Wang's 2025 annual letter contrasts Silicon Valley's meritocratic growth mindset with deeper cultural narrowness, while comparing US and Chinese capabilities in infrastructure, manufacturing, and long-term planning.
- Show HN: We built an open source, zero webhooks payment processor
Flowglad is an open-source payment processor that eliminates webhooks by providing a stateless, single-source-of-truth abstraction on top of Stripe for managing subscription billing.
- S2, the durable stream API
S2 is a serverless API for unlimited, durable, real-time streams, treating streams as a cloud storage primitive with strong consistency and low latency.
- Hacker News
Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship, run by the investment firm Y Combinator.
Takes
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@garrytan
New RFS's just droppedReminder: These are just ideas, these are not the ONLY ones we will fund. The best ideas invariably will be from YOU, not us. https://t.co/hpnChwre1j
@garrytan
Claude Code creator @bcherny on traits of side projects that take off> Start with automation — it's free leverage. Engineers build it faster than anyone, yet most underuse this superpower. Ask yourself: 'How can I do less of my work?>Track recurring problems & Automate until… https://t.co/2LESCEhDmU pic.twitter.com/c7b3AGvvh8
@rvivek