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This Week at YC

February 9th, 2024
Last week I mentioned how the new office gives us room for lots of new traditions. It means the return of some old traditions, as well.

If you’ve been paying attention to YC for a while, you’ve probably heard stories about the chili. You can find articles pairing YC and chili going back decades. In the earliest days of YC, the entire batch (plus a guest speaker) would come together and PG — with the help of multiple crock pots — would make chili for everyone.
Though the chef would vary over the years, this tradition of huge group dinners would continue on across many of the batches — stopped only, as with too many things, by the pandemic.

YC is back in person, and so are the big dinners. And this week, so was the chili. Here’s Pete Koomen opening way too many cans (“For the first time in my life I have strong opinions about can opener design,” he says.) while prepping the chili for his group before a talk from Rippling co-founder Parker Conrad. 

As Jessica Livingston wrote when she saw these pics: long live the crock pots!

- Greg 

📺 The Latest

Featured content from the YC Library

💸 Should Your Startup Bootstrap or Raise Venture Capital?

Is it better to raise money from VCs or bootstrap your startup? It's a common debate in the startup Twitter world — but does it really need to be? In this episode of Dalton + Michael, the pair dig in.

🤖 The Truth About Building AI Startups Today

New podcast alert! Yesterday we shipped the first ever episode of Lightcone, an unscripted, twice-a-month podcast where YC’s Group Partners dig into the newest tech and the impact it’ll have on the world.

This debut episode features Garry, Harj, Jared, and Diana, and their first topic is a great one: AI, LLMs, and what it all means for startups. Where are the opportunities here? What are the ideas that already seem like potential tarpits? What have we learned from the best AI startups so far? They dive into all that and more.

🌎 YC Community

Highlights and news from around YC
Daedalus (W20) is building precision-manufacturing factories powered by AI
TechCrunch
"Could there be a company worth $10B managed and run by a team of 10 people or less? 

More possible now than ever."

- YC President Garry Tan on Twitter
How Humanloop (S20) is "providing picks and shovels for the AI gold rush"
Silicon Republic
Stellar Sleep (S23) battles the
"root cause of chronic insomnia"
TechCrunch

🚀 The Launchpad

Some of the most recent YC companies and product launches 
Our immune system acts locally to combat disease, why don’t our medicines?
W2024
Stop spending hours making ugly documents, and start creating a dynamic experience now!
W2024
We develop cancer drugs that only become active inside solid tumors. By delivering active drug only to the tumor site, we localize the effects of the drug to the tumor and minimize systemic toxicity.
W2024
We help companies like dating apps, ad platforms, news sites, and marketplaces distinguish human-authored materials from AI-generated content.
W2024
We provide an industry-leading and developer-friendly API to combat survey fraud and bot detection.
S2023
Find more YC companies and discover new products

🔥 Hacker News

Top posts from this week
  1. Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll (scrollprize.org)
    1363 points by amrrs | 212 comments

  2. FCC rules AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal (www.fcc.gov)
    1100 points by ortusdux | 638 comments

  3. Relativistic Spaceship (dmytry.github.io)
    1079 points by thunderbong | 481 comments

  4. John Walker, founder of Autodesk, has died (scanalyst.fourmilab.ch)
    1016 points by jdougan | 204 comments

  5. Pkl, a Programming Language for Configuration (pkl-lang.org)
    923 points by bioballer | 562 comments

  6. Mozilla names new CEO as it pivots to data privacy (fortune.com)
    814 points by jacooper | 643 comments

  7. SQL for data scientists in 100 queries (gvwilson.github.io)
    800 points by Anon84 | 157 comments

  8. Show HN: Improve cognitive focus in 1 minute (oneminutefocus.com)
    696 points by junetic | 273 comments

  9. TSMC to build second Japan chip factory (finance.yahoo.com)
    631 points by ytch | 459 comments

  10. The Ladybird browser project (ladybird.dev)
    620 points by defied | 278 comments

    11.  
Read more on Hacker News
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