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Founder Stories: Pablo Hansen
Y Combinator· 2025-11-05 23:57
Company Overview - Keystone is building a modern bug triage platform that consolidates bug sources and provides initial fixes [1] - The company has raised over $5 million to develop its platform [1] Founder's Experience - The founder, Pablo Hansen, previously completed a master's degree in AI [1] - The founder turned down acquisition offers worth eight figures (over $10 million) [1] Y Combinator (YC) Impact - YC facilitated the building of a community of founder friends [2] - YC helped set the right tone for building the company [2] - The founder strongly recommends applying to YC, citing zero downside and significant potential upside [2]
From dorm rooms to million-dollar companies
Y Combinator· 2025-11-03 18:04
Just a couple months ago, I was still a CS student at Princeton heading into my senior year. >> I was studying CS and statistics. I was just wrapping up a master's degree in AI. >> I was just like working a regular 9 to5 job. >> I was a student at Stanford University.Now I'm a founder of 11 million company. >> I've turned down acquisition offers worth eight figures and raised more than $5 million. I get to like work directly with the executives of large banks and help them shape their AI journey.>> Pretty d ...
Don't Just Check Off Boxes
Y Combinator· 2025-10-29 23:18
Career Advice - Focus on pursuing interests and collaborating with respected individuals [1] - Prioritize long-term projects over simply "checking boxes," especially for those in school [1]
The Hard Part About Being Contrarian
Y Combinator· 2025-10-24 18:59
When open AI launched, it got mostly negative press. There were some people like a small like group of like techno optimist people who thought it was really cool, but by and large most people especially the AI researcher establishment in academia and in other companies mostly just like was extremely negative on the idea that a bunch of like >> 20 and 30 Yeah. could create AGI.They're like, you know, we're the experts in this. We've been doing this for like 50 years. If there was a way to do it, we would hav ...
The Line Between Software and Service
Y Combinator· 2025-10-20 20:31
Industry Trends - The legal software industry is experiencing a blurring line between software and service offerings [1] - Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly evolving, necessitating continuous adaptation within the legal software sector [1] Strategic Direction - Category leaders in the legal software space should serve as strategic partners to large firms, guiding them through significant transitions [2] - The company has scaled headcount rapidly while maintaining culture, urgency, and velocity [2]
How To Be Contrarian — And Right
Y Combinator· 2025-10-17 14:00
Startup Strategy & Competition in AI - The AI industry is seeing increased competition, making it crucial for startups to differentiate themselves through unique insights and contrarian bets [1] - New technology platforms typically offer a two-year window of opportunity before the market becomes saturated with obvious ideas [2] - Startups should focus on identifying and addressing genuine human needs rather than pursuing trendy or derivative ideas [1] - Founders should re-examine conventional wisdom and challenge established playbooks to discover innovative approaches [25] Contrarian Thinking & Identifying Opportunities - Discovering a "secret," or a belief that is not yet widely accepted, is key to standing out from the competition [1] - Great startup ideas often exist in a legal "gray area" where laws may not be clearly defined or up-to-date with technological advancements [4][16] - Founders should focus on first principles thinking to identify user needs and societal benefits, even if it means challenging existing regulations [13][15] Case Studies & Examples - DoorDash succeeded by focusing solely on delivery, a contrarian approach to the "full-stack startup" trend of the time [25] - Coinbase initially faced criticism for working with banks and regulators, a contrarian approach to the cypherpunk ethos of early Bitcoin adopters [9] - Flock Safety, now valued at $75 billion, initially faced skepticism due to its hardware focus and small target market [53] Emerging Trends & Potential Shifts - The "forward-deployed engineer" model, while currently popular, may be ripe for disruption by AI-powered solutions [35] - Code generation is reducing switching costs for enterprise software, enabling startups to compete with established players like NetSuite [30] - AI-powered solutions can transform customer data and business logic in minutes, offering a significant advantage over human-driven approaches [36]
What Everyone Is Getting Wrong About AI And Jobs
Y Combinator· 2025-10-14 14:00
AI 对就业市场的影响 - 行业普遍认为 AI 将会变革经济,但不会摧毁它 [3] - AI 可能会在 5 年内导致 10% 到 20% 的失业率 [1] - 效率的提高实际上意味着对服务的需求会更多,而不是更少 [11] - AI 将首先改变那些重复性的、需要较少背景知识且容错率高的工作,例如客服和数据录入 [12] Jevans 悖论的应用 - 当使用技术降低资源成本时,对该资源及其相关服务的需求会急剧增加,这就是 Jevans 悖论 [7] - 1960 年代,集装箱化使航运成本降低了 90%,全球贸易因此蓬勃发展,催生了货运、物流和仓库配送领域的数十亿美元帝国 [9] - 2010 年代,云计算使基础设施成本降低了 10 倍,服务器管理员转变为 DevOps 工程师和云架构师 [10] 行业应对策略 - 企业应该预料到,随着 AI 降低成本,对放射科医生治疗计划、律师咨询和工程师专业知识的需求将会广泛增加,而不是减少 [11] - 许多以前需要人工参与的角色可能会转变为监督 AI 团队 [12] - 公司应该认识到 AI 转型是真实存在的,不要低估这种变化 [15][16]
The World's First Commercial Mobile Carbon Capture Device
Y Combinator· 2025-10-09 14:00
Company Overview - Remora is developing carbon capture technology for vehicles, focusing on semi-trucks and locomotives, retrofitting them to extract and purify CO2 from exhaust to produce beverage-grade CO2 [6] - The company aims to reduce vehicle emissions by at least 80% [16] - Remora has raised $17 million in venture backing and signed evaluation agreements with major freight companies [33] Technology and Innovation - The system captures CO2 using pellets that trap CO2 molecules while allowing other gases to pass through [7] - Captured CO2 is offloaded as a liquid and sold to end users like food and beverage companies, greenhouses, and water treatment facilities [8] - Remora is building a modular system for different locomotives and trucks, aiming for vertical integration in the production process [27][28] - The company uses a simulator with a real truck engine to model device performance under various conditions [29][30][31] Market and Industry - Transportation accounts for 29% of all emissions in the US, making it the largest sector of emissions [3] - Remora targets the long-haul trucking and freight train industries, which are difficult to electrify [3] - The company aims to capture a billion tons of CO2 per year and sees potential in retrofitting generators, oil and gas production, container ships, cement plants, refineries, and natural gas turbines [33][34] Strategy and Operations - Remora chose to locate its headquarters outside of Detroit due to the high concentration of mechanical and electrical engineers [19] - The company emphasizes building a team of experts and iterating quickly through in-house manufacturing [12][22][23]
The Shortcut Rule
Y Combinator· 2025-10-08 21:43
Engineering & AI Pitfalls - Focusing on a single measure of success in engineering can lead to neglecting other important aspects [1] - Achieving targets without considering the broader context results in missing the points [1][2] - AI's success in chess, exemplified by Deep Blue beating Kasparov, did not advance the understanding of human intelligence [2]
Every AI Founder Should Be Asking These Questions
Y Combinator· 2025-10-07 14:00
Welcome to this this talk. I'm extremely confused. Uh I think maybe more confused than I've ever been in my entire life. Probably definitely more confused than I've ever been in my entire life. Uh and I want to talk about that because I think I don't know when you're confused. That's the start of something interesting. If you're trained as a scientist, that's like the thing you want to pay most attention to is that moment where you're confused like, "Oh, this is interesting. I don't know what's about to hap ...