After graduating from college, I struggled to find my path, working various jobs until I met Paul Graham, which led to our partnership in founding Y Combinator.

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.

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.

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.

I applied to Y Combinator on a long shot, not expecting to get in, but after interviewing in Palo Alto, I was accepted and dropped out of graduate school to pursue my startup.

I got into Y Combinator in the summer of 2012 after applying on a whim, just minutes before the deadline.

After being encouraged by founders like Drew Houston and Sam Altman, I applied to Y Combinator, despite my initial hesitation about giving up equity.

After being rejected by Y Combinator with their initial idea, we were invited to join the program under the condition that we work on something else, which led to the creation of Reddit.

Getting into Y Combinator was a turning point for us, as it validated our idea and pushed us to fully commit to the startup.