Podcast
Y Combinator Startup Podcast
Hosted by Y Combinator · EN
We help founders make something people want. The Y Combinator Podcast is where builders talk about building. From the earliest days of an idea to scaling a company that changes the world, YC partners and founders share real stories, lessons, and tactics from the frontlines.
72episodes
Episodes
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Inside The Startup Reinventing America’s Trillion Dollar Chemical Industry
Mar 2000:13:07Summary readySolugen is reinventing the trillion-dollar chemical manufacturing industry by combining biology and chemistry in a new way. In this episode of Hard Tech, YC's Jared Friedman visits co-founders Gaurab Chakrabarti and Sean Hunt at their Houston HQ to see how they went from a $7,000 PVC reactor to a billion-dollar company competing with industry giants. They cover the breakthrough behind their enzymatic + catalytic production, how they found their first customers, and why starting small and staying close to customers let them win in a capital-intensive industry.Chapters:00:00 - A New Kind of Chemical Plant01:02 - Fusing Biology + Chemistry In a New Way02:23 - The Eureka Moment: From Pancreatic Cancer to Hydrogen Peroxide03:30 - Using A Sugar Feedstock Over Oil and Gas 04:22 - Proving Enzymes Work at Scale In Chemical Manufacturing05:16 - The $7K PVC Reactor06:44 - Finding First Customers at YC08:12 - What The Co-founders Got Out of YC09:33 - Seed Round to Bio Forge10:32 - Scaling to a Full-Size Plant (Bioforge)11:57 - The Future of American Manufacturing12:29 - The Next Decade of SolugenApply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/applyWork at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs
SummaryBuilding A Global AI Startup From India
Mar 1600:39:32Summary readyIn this episode of The Lightcone, we talk with Mukund and Madhav Jha, the founders of Emergent - an AI platform that lets anyone build and ship production-ready software. In just eight months, users have created more than 7 million apps on Emergent, with the number doubling in just the last 45 days. We discuss how they built one of the most powerful AI coding agents, why they focused on non-technical users and what it's like building in India for a global audience.Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/applyChapters:00:00 - Intro01:06 - What Is Emergent?01:18 - Founder Backstory02:09 - From AI Testing to General Coding Agents02:52 - Getting Ahead of the Market04:18 - The Pivot to Non-Technical Users05:22 - Why Second Movers Can Win in AI09:04 - Building for Production, Not Just Prototypes18:21 - Live Demo: Building Apps with Emergent24:40 - How Emergent Hires and Runs a Lean Team29:04 - Is SaaS Dead? The Rise of Personalized Software34:04 - The Future: Niche Apps, Solo Builders and AI Agency
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The Future Of Brain-Computer Interfaces with Science's Max Hodak
Mar 900:53:20Summary readyYC alum Max Hodak is the co-founder of Neuralink and founder of Science, a company building brain-computer interfaces that can restore sight.Science has developed a tiny retinal implant that stimulates cells in the eye to help blind patients see again. More than 40 patients have already received the treatment in clinical trials, including one who recently read a full novel for the first time in over a decade.In this episode of How to Build the Future, Max joined Garry to discuss how BCIs work, what it takes to engineer the brain, and why brain-computer interfaces may become one of the most important technologies of the next decade.
SummaryHow To Avoid AI Design Slop
Mar 600:37:26Summary readyAs no-code design tools become more common, so do the pitfalls. You know what they look like - the purple gradients, annoying hover effects, sections that fade as you scroll. So how do you avoid a site that feels vibe coded while still taking advantage of these new tools? In this episode of Design Review, YC’s Aaron Epstein is joined by Visiting Partner Raphael Schaad, the founder and designer of Cron (now Notion Calendar). Together they’ll review user submitted sites with an eye for how to leverage these tools and avoid the common vibe coding mistakes.
SummaryThe Fastest Path To Super Intelligence
Feb 2700:19:45Summary readyPoetiq is a new startup founded by former DeepMind researchers that recently achieved a major jump on the ARC-AGI and Humanity's Last Exam benchmark by layering a recursive self-improvement system on top of existing models. In this episode of Lightcone, Poetiq's Founder & CEO Ian Fischer joined us to discuss how small teams can build “reasoning harnesses” that outperform base models, what that means for startups and why automating prompt engineering may be one of the most powerful levers in AI today.Chapters:00:00 – Intro00:40 – What Is Poetiq?01:07 – Recursive Self-Improvement Explained02:07 – The Fine-Tuning Trap02:59 – “Stilts” for LLMs03:14 – Recursive Self-Improvement vs. Fine-Tuning05:05 – Taking the Top Spot on ARC-AGI06:37 – Beating Claude on Humanity’s Last Exam08:40 – How the Meta-System Works10:26 – Beyond RL: A New S-Curve11:32 – Automating Prompt Engineering13:37 – From 5% to 95% Performance14:50 – Early Access & Putting Your Agent on Stilts16:17 – From YC Founder to DeepMind Researcher18:29 – Advice for Engineers in the AI EraApply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/applyWork at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs
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The AI Agent Economy Is Here
Feb 2100:23:21Summary readyWith the takeoff of OpenClaw and MoltBook, a new agent-driven economy is taking shape.In this episode of the Lightcone, we took a look at the explosive growth of AI dev tools and whether the time has come for builders to make something agents want.
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Inside Claude Code With Its Creator Boris Cherny
Feb 1700:50:10Summary readyA very special guest on this episode of the Lightcone! Boris Cherny, the creator of Claude Code, sits down to share the incredible journey of developing one of the most transformative coding tools of the AI era.
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The New Way To Build A Startup
Feb 1400:07:50Summary readyIn the AI era, startups aren't winning by hiring faster — they're winning by automating as many internal functions as possible. In this episode of Main Function, Garry breaks down how tiny teams are beating companies 20x their size by building automations into every workflow, from engineering to ops to customer support.
SummaryOpenClaw And The Future Of Personal AI Agents
Feb 700:22:35Summary readyYou’ve probably already heard all about OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot/Moltbot). The viral sensation is an open-source AI assistant that runs on your own device, connects with messaging apps you already use, and goes beyond chat to actually execute tasks like managing your email, calendars, files, workflows, and more. Now meet the man behind it. YC’s Raphael Schaad sat down with Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, to discuss the “aha” moment behind the viral personal AI agent, why local-first agents could replace many of today’s apps, and how personal agents will reshape the future of software.Chapters:00:00 – OpenClaw takes over the internet00:44 – Life after going viral01:28 – Why OpenClaw took off, what sets it apart02:56 – Bots talking to bots (and hiring humans)04:11 – From “God AI” to swarm intelligence05:07 – Peter’s original “aha” moment06:38 – Rebuilding the agent as a conversation07:38 – The moment it exceeded expectations10:21 – Are apps going to disappear?12:31 – Memory, data silos, and ownership14:39 – The privacy reality of personal agents15:05 – Letting the bot loose in public Discord16:55 – Giving an agent a personality18:19 – Contrarian building philosophy20:09 – CLIs vs MCPs21:28 – Building for humans first21:46 – The road aheadApply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/applyWork at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs
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We're All Addicted To Claude Code
Feb 600:45:59Tap to summarizeWondering why your maker-turned-manager suddenly seems distracted in meetings? Maybe they're addicted to coding agents! In this episode of Lightcone, Calvin French-Owen — a co-founder of Segment and former engineer on OpenAI's Codex team — joins us to talk about why coding agents suddenly feel so powerful, the differences between Codex, Claude Code, and Cursor, and what the future of work will look like.
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