The foundation of Y Combinator was based on the idea that it was becoming easier to build startups without needing massive capital or large teams, a trend that has accelerated with AI.

The core of Y Combinator remains the same despite its growth and brand evolution; if it ain't broke, don't change it.

When we started Y Combinator, many thought we were crazy, but we focused on helping a few founders and expanded from there.

It's critical to have a clear vision and culture when scaling an organization; YC aims to produce the most innovation in a way that benefits everyone.

The early days of Y Combinator were magical and pure; we focused on helping a small group of founders without distractions or negative scrutiny from the press.

Y Combinator has never offered office space to founders because the culture of individual startups needs to grow organically in their own space, and its culture was largely my creation, and I didn't want to seem to be bragging about it.

Co-founders typically collaborate to develop ideas together, sharing excitement and inspiration, which is vital for a successful partnership. If you're applying to Y Combinator, it's better to have a co-founder because single founders are disproportionately unlikely to get accepted.

After Y Combinator, we raised a Series A and had to adapt our processes as we hired more people, which is an ongoing challenge as we grow. Building a distributed team wasn't intentional at first; it was a necessity to find engineers, which led to organic growth and advantages like hiring from anywhere in the world.

At YC, we followed the principle of treating founders like family, which was easier in the early days when there were fewer founders to manage.