Y Combinator

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30/05/2025

State-Of-The-Art Prompting For AI Agents

At first, prompting seemed to be a temporary workaround for getting the most out of large language models. But over time, it's become critical to the way we interact with AI. On the Lightcone, Garry, Harj, Diana, and Jared break down what they've learned from working with hundreds of founders building with LLMs: why prompting still matters, where it breaks down, and how teams are making it more reliable in production. They share real examples of prompts that failed, how companies are testing for quality, and what the best teams are doing to make LLM outputs useful and predictable. The prompt from Parahelp (S24) discussed in the episode: https://parahelp.com/blog/prompt-design
18/06/2025

Alexandr Wang: Building Scale AI, Transforming Work with Agents & Competing With China

Alexandr Wang started Scale AI to help machine learning teams label data faster.It started as a simple API for human labor, but behind the scenes, he was tackling a much bigger problem: how to turn messy, real-world data into something AI could learn from. Today, that early idea powers a multi-hundred-million-dollar engine behind America's AI infrastructure—fueling everything from Fortune 500 workflows to real-time military planning. Just last week, Meta agreed to invest over $14 billion in Scale AI, valuing the company at $29 billion.Alexandr joined us on the Lightcone to share how Scale AI evolved from a scrappy YC startup into the backbone of some of the world's most advanced AI systems, how he thinks about competition with Chinese AI labs, and what it takes to build infrastructure that shapes the frontier.
30/04/2024

Where Is The REAL Cerebral Valley?

In this episode of the Lightcone Podcast, YC Group Partners chart the evolution of San Francisco as the center of the startup world and how AI has brought everyone back to the city. They also talk about why YC chose to open our new HQ in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco and share their advice for new founders moving to the city for the first time.
21/03/2025

How To Navigate Co-Founder Disputes

Technical skills build startups—but oftentimes, people skills can save them. So how do you navigate the disagreements and conflict that inevitably arise with a co-founder? In this episode of the Lightcone, our hosts share what they've learned for managing these critical, yet often overlooked challenges, offering advice on how to handle the messy realities that go beyond building.
06/06/2024

Better AI Models, Better Startups

There's been a lot of news lately about the updates to some of the largest foundational AI models. But what does this mean for startups? How will future product releases from the AI giants effect the companies built on top of them? The hosts of Lightcone discuss how founders can take advantage of these developments and avoid being steamrolled by the competition.
03/10/2025

The 7 Most Powerful Moats For AI Startups

In the early days, the only moat that startups have is speed. Once you make something people want, the question becomes what deeper moats can you build on to defend against the competition?Garry, Harj, Diana, and Jared dive into Hamilton Helmer’s Seven Powers framework to find out how these moats show up in practice today in AI startups.
18/10/2024

Now Anyone Can Code: How AI Agents Can Build Your Whole App

With rapid advancements in LLMs, AI can now follow prompts to generate code and build functional custom software. So, how does the tech landscape change when coding becomes accessible to everyone? In this episode of Lightcone, we sat down with Amjad Masad, CEO of Replit—an AI-powered platform for software development and deployment—to explore how anyone can now tap into the power of coding.
11/12/2019

#155 - Laks Srini

Laks Srini is the cofounder and CTO of ZeroDown. Before that he was the cofounder and CTO of Zenefits.You can find him on Twitter at @laks_srini.The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/ ***Topics00:00 - Intro00:30 - What is ZeroDown?1:50 - How did they test the idea?3:50 - What did they learn from companies that failed in the space?8:00 - Breaking down the product11:25 - ZeroDown's customers13:35 - Expanding to other markets15:50 - What if a downturn happens?17:10 - ZeroDown's hiring strategy20:10 - What are their hardest technical challenges?22:05 - ZeroDown's breadth and product strategy26:40 - Customer interviews28:35 - Should everyone own a house?29:50 - Home ownership in the future32:45 - Build something you really want to see in the world34:40 - Working with his cofounders was the most important consideration
13/03/2025

The Future Of Design With Figma's Dylan Field

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.
14/11/2024

Why The Next AI Breakthroughs Will Be In Reasoning, Not Scaling

There's an ongoing debate about whether AI scaling laws will hold or hit a wall in the near future. However, what's clear now is today's models already have the power to increase productivity in ways that would have been unimaginable even a few years ago. In this episode of the Lightcone, we dig into the results of a recent o1 hackathon hosted by YC to find out what can be unlocked when founders leverage a SOTA reasoning model.

Make something people want.