The early days of Y Combinator were marked by a lack of distractions, allowing founders to work hard and focus on their startups without the pressures of social media.

The first batch of Y Combinator was magical, filled with people who genuinely wanted to start startups, making it one of the most enjoyable times of my life.

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

Despite starting Y Combinator with the goal of helping a few entrepreneurs, we never anticipated funding a thousand startups, many of which have become very successful.

The Y Combinator experience was invaluable; the community of motivated individuals and guidance from partners like Paul Graham helped us stay on course and saved us years of effort.

Joining Y Combinator turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made, especially as we faced severe financial challenges before receiving their support. Starting and running a company as a founder can be a very lonely experience, where you often feel responsible for everyone's future and only you know the reality of the low times.

During Y Combinator, we focused on building strong relationships with our first 100 customers, doing things that don't scale to ensure they loved our service.

I co-founded Y Combinator, the first startup accelerator, which began with a hypothesis about what people wanted, and it turned out they did want it, leading us to fund over 1,800 startups valued at over a hundred billion dollars.

Many successful founders funded by Y Combinator had little to no online presence in the early stages of their companies, and focusing too much on establishing thought leadership can distract from what truly matters: making your company work.