This Week at YC

April 21st, 2024

First: the deadline to apply for the Summer 2024 batch is tomorrow (April 22nd). If you're on the fence about applying, remember what Dalton says about luck.

Second: YC got a new Group Partner this week! Now joining us full-time is David Lieb, creator of Google Photos and Bump.

(What does "Group Partner" mean at YC? tl;dr: they’re the ones steering this thing. They pick the companies that YC invests in; they design and fine-tune what it's like to be in YC; they’re the ones supporting YC startup founders for years to come.)

I’ve been lucky enough to know David for years now, and I’m ecstatic that he’s joining the team long-term.

How many people can say they built a product with a billion users? David can! And not in the "he was one of a dozen managers on it" sense of the word "built". After Google bought his company Bump — largely because of an unreleased photo app the Bump team was working on — he had a huge vision for where it should go and he led the charge to make it happen. The end result: Google Photos, one of the most successful consumer apps of all time.

He’s also just a really good person.

I recently interviewed David to hear his story straight from him, and I expect that to run on the YC blog in the next few days. He’ll tell us a bit about the unique reason he applied to YC as a founder back in Summer 2009, the origins of Bump (and why, even after it had many millions of users, he decided to pivot), and how he learned to trust his gut.

Watch for that soon!

- Greg

📺 The Latest

🧠 When Should You Trust Your Gut?

Speaking of trusting your gut... that's the topic on Dalton & Michael this week!

When should you follow your gut instinct on a big idea, and when should you seek out more validation?

Dalton & Michael say that founders tend to get this one backwards, so for this episode they'll break down how they look at it.

🌎 YC Community

Highlights and news from around YC

This solar-building robot is designed to solve one of the industry’s biggest problems
Fast Company

"2 years ago, only 10% of the YC batch was college students or new grads. The last batch was 30%.

Because of AI, it's the best time in a decade for college students to start startups.

That's why all 14 YC partners came to Boston today to talk to undergrads."

- Jared Friedman on X/Twitter