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- Jessica Livingston, co-founder of Y Combinator, spoke at the Female Founders Conference in New York.
- Y Combinator was the first accelerator and has since funded over 1,800 startups with a total value of over $100 billion.
- Livingston shared her personal story, including her upbringing with her independent grandmother and supportive father.
- She discussed her defining characteristics, including being perceptive, independent, and straightforward.
- Livingston talked about her various jobs before meeting her husband, Paul Graham, and becoming interested in startups.
- She started working on a book of interviews with startup founders called "Founders at Work."
- As she became less interested in her job, Livingston applied for a position at a venture capital firm but decided to start her own startup accelerator with Graham instead.
- The initial plan was to provide small amounts of money and a lot of help to early-stage startups, focusing on programmers.

- Y Combinator initially targeted programmers who were clueless about non-technical aspects of startups
- They funded multiple startups at once to learn how to be investors
- Funding in batches was beneficial for founders and efficient for Y Combinator
- YC's core program has remained similar since its launch in 2005
- The non-technical founder's role involved organizing logistics, advising on legal matters, and assessing founders' qualities
- YC focused on funding earnest people and creating an asshole-free culture
- YC's approach to investing was different, relying on technical judgment and understanding founder characters
- The non-technical founder's event planning experience was well-suited for YC's event-centric approach
- YC felt like a family, with the non-technical founder playing a supportive and caring role
- YC's motivation was to help startups and promote entrepreneurship, rather than being driven by money.

- The speaker discusses how Y Combinator (YC) was able to take risks in funding startups because they didn't have any LPs and were not constrained by fiduciary responsibility.
- They share a story of funding a failing startup and helping the founders secure jobs, which caused conflict with an investor.
- The speaker emphasizes that successful startups often grow organically out of the founders' lives and unique qualities.
- They provide advice for aspiring startup founders, including focusing on their natural strengths, not caring about mainstream opinions, and being intrepid in pursuing ideas.
- The speaker concludes by encouraging individuals to embrace their unique qualities and create their own path in the startup world.

- The speaker believes that culture and values alignment is more important than ratings when it comes to building a successful company.
- When hiring, it is important to know what you are looking for in terms of skills and values, and to have a structured hiring process.
- The speaker shares two hiring mistakes made at their company, one involving hiring someone attracted to the company's reputation rather than the mission, and another involving hiring someone passionate about the mission but not the actual job.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of diversity and inclusion in the hiring process and suggests avoiding biases related to "culture fit" during interviews.
- It is important for external partners, such as investors and clients, to also align with the company's values.

- The speaker shares their experience of firing a client who did not treat people well and did not adhere to their values.
- They discuss the importance of shared values with investors and the challenges of finding the right investors for their company.
- The speaker also shares a personal experience of facing inappropriate behavior from an investor and the decision to walk away from their investment.
- They emphasize the importance of standing up against inappropriate behavior and sharing these stories to bring about change in the industry.
- The speaker advises early stage founders to be aware of their own weaknesses and how they can impact the culture of their company as it grows.
- They encourage founders to build a company that reflects their own values and not conform to what others believe is the "right" way.
- The speaker introduces Shanlin Ma, CEO of Zola, a wedding registry company that has reinvented the wedding planning experience for couples.

- Jessica Livingston, co-founder of Y Combinator, spoke at the Female Founders Conference in New York.
- Y Combinator is the first accelerator and has funded over 1,800 startups with a total value of over $100 billion.
- Livingston shared her personal story and discussed her defining characteristics.
- She talked about her various jobs before becoming interested in startups.
- Livingston started working on a book of interviews with startup founders called "Founders at Work."
- She decided to start her own startup accelerator with her husband, Paul Graham.
- Y Combinator initially focused on funding programmers who were clueless about non-technical aspects of startups.
- They funded multiple startups at once to learn how to be investors.
- YC's core program has remained similar since its launch in 2005.
- YC focused on funding earnest people and creating an asshole-free culture.
- The speaker discusses how Y Combinator was able to take risks in funding startups because they didn't have any LPs and were not constrained by fiduciary responsibility.
- They share a story of funding a failing startup and helping the founders secure jobs, which caused conflict with an investor.
- The speaker emphasizes that successful startups often grow organically out of the founders' lives and unique qualities.
- They provide advice for aspiring startup founders, including focusing on their natural strengths and being intrepid in pursuing ideas.
- The speaker believes that culture and values alignment is more important than ratings when it comes to building a successful company.
- It is important for external partners, such as investors and clients, to also align with the company's values.
- The speaker shares their experience of firing a client who did not treat people well and did not adhere to their values.
- They discuss the importance of shared values with investors and the challenges of finding the right investors for their company.
- The speaker also shares a personal experience of facing inappropriate behavior from an investor and the decision to walk away from their investment.
- They emphasize the importance of standing up against inappropriate behavior and sharing these stories to bring about change in the industry.
- The speaker advises early stage founders to be aware of their own weaknesses and how they can impact the culture of their company as it grows.
- They encourage founders to build a company that reflects their own values and not conform to what others believe is the "right" way.
- The speaker introduces Shanlin Ma, CEO of Zola, a wedding registry company that has reinvented the wedding planning experience for couples.

- Zola is a platform that allows couples to register for wedding gifts they truly want, regardless of their location or device.
- The founders started Zola in 2013 after experiencing frustration with traditional wedding registries.
- They wanted to create a registry that allowed couples to register for products, experiences, and cash, personalize their registry, and control when gifts were sent to them.
- The success of Zola can be attributed to its unique business model that addresses common e-commerce challenges such as returns and inventory management.
- The wedding registry business model provides a predictable and manageable demand, allowing for better forecasting and inventory management.
- The founders have crazy stories about their first seed round, but every seed round is unique.

- The founder of Zola, Shan-Lyn Ma, secured seed funding from Kevin Ryan, the founder of Gilt Group, Business Insider, and Mongo, after working with him for four years at Gilt.
- Shan-Lyn negotiated the seed round while in Ireland, on a hike, in the rain, and on the phone with Kevin Ryan.
- Kevin Ryan has been a mentor and active investor in Zola, providing valuable guidance from an operator and entrepreneur perspective.
- Shan-Lyn realized that male founders tend to pitch more aggressively and confidently, while women, including herself, tend to be more modest and factual in their pitches. She has since learned to verbalize her conviction and confidence during pitches.
- Shan-Lyn's co-founder, Nobu, is the chief design officer of Zola and they have a strong working relationship based on trust and complementary skills.
- Shan-Lyn's advice to founders is to consider how they want to invest the next 10 years of their lives before committing to a startup idea, as it requires a significant amount of time and dedication.

- Bulletin is a retail space for direct-to-consumer brands, specifically female-led brands.
- They initially started as an Etsy competitor but realized they needed to provide access to retail space for their users.
- The Human Utility is a non-profit organization that pays water bills for those who can't afford it.
- They started by crowdfunding the money and sending postcards to those in need.
- Both companies found success by doing things that weren't scalable, such as manually listing products and visiting customers' homes.
- They also emphasized the importance of finding customers who love their product and getting referrals.
- Competitors should be ignored and focus should be on delighting customers and executing well.

- The speaker uses Google Alerts to keep track of their competition and market positioning.
- The non-profit sector is competitive, and the speaker has faced challenges from other organizations.
- The speaker's first important hire was in customer service, which helped them scale their business.
- Product-market fit was achieved when the speaker brought delivery in-house and saw an increase in referrals and customer satisfaction.
- The speaker is still working on building a recurring giving program for their non-profit.
- Staying sane while running a startup is a work in progress, and the speakers mention exercise, therapy, and acupuncture as methods they use.
- The relationship with co-founders is important, and the speaker emphasizes the need for clear roles and decision-making processes.

- The speaker discusses the importance of finding a co-founder with complementary skills and personalities.
- They share their experience with their co-founder and customer service person, highlighting their different strengths.
- The speaker then introduces their company, Scentbird, a fragrance subscription service.
- They describe the challenges they faced in the early stages of the company and the mistakes they made.
- The speaker explains how they eventually found success by shifting their business model to a fragrance rental subscription.
- They share their initial success and the hard work they put in to fulfill the orders.
- The speaker concludes by referring to the darkest hour before dawn, indicating that despite the challenges, they were able to overcome and find success.

- The speaker discusses the challenges faced during the early stages of their business and the need for funding.
- They share their experience of pitching to investors who were not interested in giving them money.
- The speaker highlights the frustration of receiving low offers and unfavorable terms from investors.
- They eventually secure funding from an angel investor and discuss the importance of creating a sense of scarcity to attract more investors.
- The speaker talks about their decision to apply for Y Combinator for the third time and the positive impact it had on their company.
- They emphasize the importance of surrounding oneself with talented individuals and having audacious dreams.
- The speaker advises against taking advice from people who do not have what you want in life.
- They conclude by sharing the growth and success of their company, thanks in part to their experience with Y Combinator.

- Zola is a platform that allows couples to register for wedding gifts, regardless of location or device.
- The founders started Zola in 2013 to create a personalized registry that includes products, experiences, and cash gifts.
- Zola's success is attributed to its unique business model that addresses e-commerce challenges.
- Shan-Lyn Ma, the founder of Zola, secured seed funding from Kevin Ryan and learned to pitch with conviction.
- Zola's co-founder, Nobu, is the chief design officer and they have a strong working relationship.
- Bulletin is a retail space for female-led brands and The Human Utility is a non-profit organization that pays water bills for those in need.
- Both companies found success by doing things that weren't scalable and focusing on customer satisfaction.
- The speaker from Scentbird shares their challenges and eventual success in the fragrance subscription service industry.
- They discuss the challenges of funding and the importance of surrounding oneself with talented individuals.

- Stephanie makes announcements before a short break
- YC is accepting applications for winter 2019
- Workatastartup.com was launched for engineers to browse jobs at YC companies
- A live hiring event will take place on July 28th
- Questions for the YC partner Q&A can be submitted at slido.com/FFC
- The deadline for winter 2019 program applications is October 2nd
- The program runs from January to March of next year
- Stephanie can be found during the break for any application questions
- Stephanie's email is steph@ycombinator.com

- Reshma Shetty of Ginkgo Bioworks, the first female-founded YC company to be a unicorn, speaks about designing organisms using biology.
- She explains that biology is a powerful technology that can self-replicate, self-repair, and self-assemble.
- Ginkgo Bioworks programs biology by sequencing DNA and programming the A's, T's, G's, and C's.
- Shetty discusses the challenge of scaling a startup and advises raising lots of money but being smart about how it is spent.
- After raising money, there is a temptation to spend it on unnecessary things, which should be avoided to maintain efficiency.

- It is important for startups to operate efficiently and outsource tasks that are not important.
- However, if a startup becomes too bloated in terms of headcount and spending, it can be detrimental to its success.
- Having someone in the organization who focuses on key metrics and efficiency is crucial.
- Female founders may face additional challenges in taking on this role due to stereotypes.
- Scaling a startup without scaling headcount and spending is a difficult challenge.
- Mapping out the mission, strategy, and metrics of the organization is essential for alignment and success.
- Including an efficiency metric in the overall mission to metrics is important.
- The role of a "Scrooge" in pushing for efficiency is crucial for long-term success.
- Ginkgo has focused on their mission of making biology easier to engineer and driving efficiency in genetic engineering.

- The speaker pretends to be an investor and asks the founder about their company, Frontier 7.
- Frontier 7 is a virtual data scientist platform that allows non-statisticians to understand and make data-driven decisions.
- The platform uses automation of deep statistics, including machine learning and natural language processing.
- The target customers for Frontier 7 are B2B companies, particularly those in the consumer goods and entertainment industries.
- The platform helps companies understand their potential customers and why they choose their products over others.
- Frontier 7 focuses on customer analytics and offers a customizable BI dashboard.
- The platform has been launched and currently has 10 paying clients.
- One of the key insights provided by Frontier 7 is the ability to challenge assumptions and understand how data is behaving.

- The company, Frontier 7, builds software for automated customer segmentation analysis
- They clean and organize data, analyze it, and provide insights about customers to companies
- They can segment customers based on attributes like LTV and CAC, and even more specific attributes like gender or interests
- Their goal is to provide data science services in a box, eliminating the need for companies to hire data science teams
- Their product has already seen cost savings and increased revenue for customers
- They primarily sell to companies with data science teams and startups
- The market for their product is potentially worth billions of dollars
- The team behind Frontier 7 includes a professor with 15 years of experience in the field
- They are currently raising a million dollars in funding and have already raised half of that amount
- They are open to providing a customer reference and further information to interested parties.

- Stephanie makes announcements before a short break
- YC is accepting applications for winter 2019
- Workatastartup.com was launched for engineers to browse jobs at YC companies
- A live hiring event will take place on July 28th
- Questions for the YC partner Q&A can be submitted at slido.com/FFC
- The deadline for winter 2019 program applications is October 2nd
- The program runs from January to March of next year
- Stephanie can be found during the break for any application questions
- Stephanie's email is steph@ycombinator.com
- Reshma Shetty of Ginkgo Bioworks, the first female-founded YC company to be a unicorn, speaks about designing organisms using biology.
- Ginkgo Bioworks programs biology by sequencing DNA and programming the A's, T's, G's, and C's.
- Shetty discusses the challenge of scaling a startup and advises raising lots of money but being smart about how it is spent.
- It is important for startups to operate efficiently and outsource tasks that are not important.
- Having someone in the organization who focuses on key metrics and efficiency is crucial.
- Female founders may face additional challenges in taking on this role due to stereotypes.
- Scaling a startup without scaling headcount and spending is a difficult challenge.
- Frontier 7 is a virtual data scientist platform that allows non-statisticians to understand and make data-driven decisions.
- The platform uses automation of deep statistics, including machine learning and natural language processing.
- The target customers for Frontier 7 are B2B companies, particularly those in the consumer goods and entertainment industries.
- Frontier 7 focuses on customer analytics and offers a customizable BI dashboard.
- The platform has been launched and currently has 10 paying clients.
- The company, Frontier 7, builds software for automated customer segmentation analysis
- Their goal is to provide data science services in a box, eliminating the need for companies to hire data science teams
- They are currently raising a million dollars in funding and have already raised half of that amount.

- Y Combinator partners discuss various topics during a Q&A session
- There are no immediate plans to open a YC office in New York City, but they are open to experimentation
- Spending time in the Bay Area is still beneficial for founders to build networks and raise funds
- Building a network of excellent people involves working on interesting projects and being insightful
- It is recommended to reach out to people with specific questions rather than just asking for a general meeting
- Finding a co-founder is best done within your own network, such as college friends or former colleagues
- YC is interested in funding a diverse range of startups and has a "Request for Startups" page for specific areas of interest
- YC can be helpful to startups at various stages, from idea stage to series A
- It is encouraged to reapply to YC if you have previously been rejected
- YC is actively working to increase diversity among its founder population, with efforts such as the Female Founders Conference and office hours for underrepresented founders.

- The speaker connects women in their program to female investors for advice before they raise money
- They emphasize the importance of raising money before running out of runway
- The timing and approach to fundraising depends on the stage of the company and the type of investors being approached
- Traction for B2C companies can be measured by user growth, revenue growth, retention, and engagement
- It is recommended to launch a product as early as possible to gather feedback and determine if there is demand
- Having children while pursuing a career is a personal decision, but it is possible to balance both responsibilities

- The speaker discusses the personal decision of whether or not to have a child and the impact it has on one's life.
- They mention the importance for women to consider their biological clock and the availability of fertility treatments.
- The speaker compares starting a startup to having a child and emphasizes the need for support and communication.
- They advise against agreeing to suspend options during maternity leave and discuss the importance of having a product plan in place to convince investors of scalability.
- The speaker thanks the YC team and announces a reception and free hosting credits from Google Cloud and AWS.

- Y Combinator partners discussed various topics during a Q&A session, including the possibility of opening a YC office in New York City.
- Spending time in the Bay Area is still beneficial for founders to build networks and raise funds.
- Building a network of excellent people involves working on interesting projects and being insightful.
- It is recommended to reach out to people with specific questions rather than just asking for a general meeting.
- Finding a co-founder is best done within your own network, such as college friends or former colleagues.
- YC is interested in funding a diverse range of startups and has a "Request for Startups" page for specific areas of interest.
- YC can be helpful to startups at various stages, from idea stage to series A.
- It is encouraged to reapply to YC if previously rejected.
- YC is actively working to increase diversity among its founder population, with efforts such as the Female Founders Conference and office hours for underrepresented founders.
- The speaker connects women in their program to female investors for advice before they raise money.
- The importance of raising money before running out of runway is emphasized.
- The timing and approach to fundraising depends on the stage of the company and the type of investors being approached.
- Traction for B2C companies can be measured by user growth, revenue growth, retention, and engagement.
- Launching a product early is recommended to gather feedback and determine demand.
- Balancing a career and having children is a personal decision, but it is possible to do both.
- The speaker discusses the personal decision of whether or not to have a child and the impact it has on one's life.
- The importance of considering one's biological clock and the availability of fertility treatments is mentioned.
- Starting a startup is compared to having a child, emphasizing the need for support and communication.
- Agreeing to suspend options during maternity leave is advised against, and having a product plan in place is important to convince investors of scalability.
- The speaker thanks the YC team and announces a reception and free hosting credits from Google Cloud and AWS.

Talks begin at 16:15.

On Saturday we hosted our New York edition of the Female Founders Conference - http://www.femalefoundersconference.org/

Speakers included: Jessica Livingston, Founder, Y Combinator; Kathryn Minshew and Alex Cavoulacos, Co-Founders, The Muse; Mariya Nurislamova, Founder, Scentbird; Reshma Shetty, Founder, Ginkgo Bioworks; Shan-Lyn Ma, Founder, Zola; Reham Fagiri, Founder, AptDeco; Tiffani Ashley Bell, Founder, The Human Utility; Alana Branston, Founder, Bulletin.

I lived in New York more than 20 years ago at this point, and this is bringing back the summers in New York on the subway.

But thank you all for braving this heat wave and coming here on a Saturday afternoon.

This is actually the fifth year we've done the Female Founders Conference, and our first time in New York.

So I'm Very happy to be here and have you all here.

I cofounded Y Combinator, which was the first accelerator.

Today there are thousands all over the world, At least hundreds all over the world.

But in 2005, what we were doing was so unusual that people in Silicon Valley just regarded us as very irrelevant.

Y combinator began the same way as most other start-ups, with a hypothesis about something we thought people wanted.

And it turns out they did want it, and we grew and grew.

Now we funded more than 1,800 start-ups with a total value of over $100 billion.

So, having myself been through the kind of startup journey that many of you are hoping to, I wanted to tell you my own story.

Now, if you only know me through the media, you might get the impression that my contribution to Y Combinator is that I'm Paul Graham's wife.

And while I love being his wife, there is a little bit more to the story than that.

Later that year my mother left home, leaving my father alone with a small baby.

So he took me back to Boston where my grandmother lived and I lived with my grandmother during the week while my dad worked, and I lived with my dad on weekends.

My grandmother was the most important female role model in my life.

And the term anyone who knew her would use to describe her is free-spirited.

For example, in the wintertime after putting me to bed, she'd go out and work till late in the evening on these giant ice sculptures that she'd build in our front yard.

She did what she wanted and she didn't care if people thought she was unconventional.

So despite growing up without a mother, My childhood was really happy.

My dad made a lot of sacrifices so I could get a great education, and he constantly encouraged me.

I played soccer when I was younger, and when I was In the ninth grade, we had an away game at a school called Phillips Academy in Andover Mass.

And the place seemed so unbelievably fabulous that I decided right there on the spot that I was going to go to school there.

Little did I know, though, that this decision would have bittersweet consequences.

In my old school, I'd been a big fish in a small pond.

I was a straight-A student and good at sports.

And when I got to Andover in the fall of 1986, it seemed like everyone was straight A students and good at sports.

So I got really discouraged and basically gave up.

I defaulted to being a mediocre student and did nothing impressive or noteworthy for the next decade.

And it's a bit embarrassing to reflect on, to be honest with you, but I think it's important to mention because when journalists and biographers write about successful founders, they often focus on early predictors of success in people's formative years.

And for me, you know, I didn't have these things and I didn't at least have any of the conventional kind of predictors, and no 1 would have voted me most likely to succeed.

But while I had no achievements, I did have 3 defining characteristics when I was younger that were critical in making Y Combinator work.

The first was the quality that caused my YC co-founders to nickname me the social radar.

I was 1 of those kids you just couldn't get anything past.

If something seemed off or out of character, I noticed and made inquiries.

I was always trying to figure things out based on subtle social cues.

The second was that I never liked being at the mercy of anyone else.

I hated anyone telling me what to do or not to do.

Parents, teachers, bosses, people I had to collaborate with but disagreed with, anyone.

And the third distinctive thing about me was that I've pretty much always been a straight shooter.

My grandmother and my father were both like that.

The day after I graduated from college, my beloved grandmother died.

And it was a really sad and lonely time in my life.

And now I was supposed to find a job with a degree in English and absolutely no clue what I wanted to do.

I wound up getting a job at Fidelity Investments in their customer service group, answering calls from 3.30 until midnight every day.

Basically talking to retail investors about why their Magellan account was down that day.

I didn't love the job, but I did love having a job.

Working hard and getting paid for it, and not having homework hanging over my head.

And after Fidelity, I worked in investor relations in New York City, then at Food & Wine Magazine, and at an automotive consulting firm.

And I even worked briefly for a wedding planner.

In 2003, I was working in the marketing department at an investment bank in Boston when I first met Paul Graham at a party at his house 1 night.

We started dating and I felt like I finally had met Mr.

Despite having quite different backgrounds, we were really similar.

If I thought I never wanted to be at the mercy of someone else, Paul was that dialed up to 11.

He moved back to Cambridge after selling his start-up via web to Yahoo, and he was at the time writing essays, working on programming languages, publishing a book, and curing his debilitating fear of flying by learning to hang glide, of all things.

Paul is the best problem solver I've ever met.

He's also a genius at expanding ideas and making radical improvements to things.

1 of his defining characteristics is telling people, you know what you should do.

If you know him, you'd find that very funny.

Paul and his circle of friends exposed me to this new world of startups and it felt much more exciting than the later stage of publicly traded companies that I was involved with at the investment bank.

I read the book Startup by Jerry Kaplan about his pen computing company called Go and I was just immediately hooked.

It was like some light shining down from the heavens.

And I wanted to hear more stories about the early days of startups.

So I started working on a book of interviews with startup founders, and the book was called Founders at Work, and it was published in 2007.

At the same time I was becoming more interested in startups, I was becoming less interested in my job.

The bubble had burst a few years back and the investment bank was making some pretty drastic cutbacks.

And working there just had become boring and unpleasant.

So I applied for a job at a venture capital firm where I felt like I might be 1 step closer to this exciting world of startups.

And while I was interviewing at the VC firm, Paul would, you know what you should do me each night at dinner, telling me how I should change the VC business once I got into it.

We talked for hours about how broken early stage funding was and most importantly, how more people would start startups if it could be made easier for them.

So as the VC firm took longer and longer to decide to hire me, the ideas grew more and more compelling until 1 night Paul just said, let's just start our own.

The next day we convinced Paul's co-founders from VIAweb, Robert and Trevor, to join us part-time.

And the initial plan was that they would pick and advise the startups and I would do everything else.

Instead of giving large amounts of money to small numbers of established companies, like traditional VCs did, we'd give small amounts of money to large numbers of earlier stage startups and then we'd give them a lot of help.

And our initial target audience was programmers who we felt could handle the technical aspects of a startup but were clueless about everything else, just like Paul, Robert, and Trevor had been.

We also had more faith in young founders than most investors did back then.

This was back in the days when Google's VCs had insisted that the founders hire an outside CEO as a condition of their series A round.

So none of us had any experience angel investing, though.

And that's where the idea of funding startups in batches came from.

We decided to fund a whole bunch of startups at once during the summer so that we could Learn how to be investors.

In March 2005, we launched Y Combinator's website and invited people to apply for what we called the Summer Founders Program.

We funded 8 startups that summer, And we recognized almost immediately the power of investing in batches.

They had colleagues to help them during a time that had previously been a very lonely process.

But it was also a much more efficient way for us to help the startups, because we could do things for them all at once.

Every Tuesday night, Paul cooked dinner for them, and at each dinner, we brought in a guest speaker to teach the founders about startups.

Paul talked to all the startups about what they were building, and I helped get them all incorporated as C corporations.

And this was a really big deal in those days, actually, because back then, to become a C corp, you had to pay a lawyer, like, $15,000 to do this for you.

The first summer we gave the startups $6,000 per founder, which was based on the stipend that MIT gave students, gave their grad students during the summer.

At the end of the summer, we hosted Demo Day for an audience of about 15 investors, which we were very excited about.

Reddit was in that first batch, and the founders of Twitch, although they were working on a different idea, and Sam Altman's geolocation startup.

And though we only had tried funding a batch of startups as a way to learn how to be investors, we realized within a couple of weeks that we were on to something promising.

So we decided to do all of our investing in batches.

And we also decided that we'd fund the next batch in Silicon Valley.

We knew that a lot of people would copy us, and we didn't want someone else to be the Y Combinator of Silicon Valley.

So despite the fact that we've grown significantly over the past 13 years, and we've expanded in a lot of different ways, YC's core program is remarkably similar to what it was in 2005.

So the question I always used to get over the years from people was, so what is your role at YC?

And it used to really bug me because no 1 ever asked Paul, Robert or Trevor that question.

But now I think it's kind of an interesting question to think about.

What was my role as the only non-technical founder of Y Combinator?

Well, at the beginning there were tons of errands like with any startup that just had to get done and there was no 1 else to do them.

Paul and I divided up responsibilities perfectly, which I think is very important if you happen to start a startup with your spouse or your partner.

He made our website an application, and I got all the other stuff set up for the first summer.

I worked with the lawyers to set up Y Combinator, the entity, and to help create all kinds of template legal paperwork for our standard investments and everything the founders would need to set up their companies and assign stock properly.

And if you've ever done that, you know it's a lot of paperwork to do.

And I had to learn quickly about how to advise them on filling everything out so that they wouldn't have to pay the legal fees.

I had to set up Paul's small office building in Cambridge to be our weekly dinner gathering space for 25 people.

I set up our bank account and I contacted people to speak at our dinners every week.

I bought the groceries that Paul cooked for the dinners.

I even delivered air conditioners that I bought at Home Depot to the founders.

I mean I was really the only 1 of us organized enough to make all this kind of stuff happen.

When it came to investing, I had something that my co-founders didn't have.

I couldn't judge our applicants' technical ability, or even most of their ideas.

My co-founders were experts at those things.

I looked at qualities of the applicants that my co-founders couldn't see.

And most importantly, what was the relationship between the co-founders like?

While my partners discussed the idea with the applicants, I usually sat observing silently.

And afterward, they'd turn to me and ask, should we fund them?

From the beginning, I was very careful about only funding earnest people.

Back then, I never envisioned that the people we funded would grow into this community of thousands of YC alumni, but I always tried to create an asshole-free culture.

If I could tell someone was a conceited asshole, we did not fund them.

And I'm sure we've since funded some conceited assholes, but early on I was pretty rigid about this.

And I think that's the basis of the culture of our alumni community.

So far, this stuff might sound a bit different than you'd expect in a successful investor.

But when you get to an extreme in something, things get qualitatively different.

Y Combinator was a new extreme in the venture funding business.

So what made someone a good investor was different.

VCs relied on growth figures and estimates of market sizes, but those didn't exist at the stage that we were investing.

What YC needed was deeply technical people to judge the potential of an idea, and then someone like me to understand the founder's characters and the relationships between them.

And to do that well, you needed abilities that had previously not been considered important as an investor.

It was doubly hard, too, because some of the applicants were so young.

We had to judge the founders not by what they were, but what they could turn into.

I mean, imagine Mark Zuckerberg back in his dorm room in 2004 with his website that let college students see what other students at the school were doing.

Not super impressive seeming to traditional investors.

Another secret weapon of mine that was strangely well suited to Y Combinator was that I was a very experienced event planner.

Events are a crucial part of what YC does.

When you fund startups in batches, everything's an event.

As the alumni network crew, we started doing events for alumni, too.

And from the very first year, we did big events like startup school.

I'd been doing events for years in my marketing job, so I could plan these things with 1 hand behind my back.

Probably the thing that was most different about YC as an investment firm, though, was that it felt like a family, and I was its mom.

I was soft and sensitive at a time when investors tended to be hardened and aggressive.

And I'll throw in ruthless, too, for a couple of them that I know.

I cared about how founders were feeling, if they were overwhelmed, if they were eating properly.

I'd counsel them on relationships that were under strain due to the pressure of a startup.

And I'd listen at length and help them with their co-founder disputes and breakups.

Starting a startup is emotionally draining for founders, especially in the beginning.

Sometimes they just needed someone to listen.

And luckily, my entire college career had trained me on listening to people's social problems.

And I tried to always be a straight shooter with my advice.

Paul is the straightest shooter I know, which is why his advice is so valuable.

He doesn't bury it in euphemisms or worse, withhold the truth in order to preserve people's feelings.

And as tough as they might have found his advice at the time, founders always thank him for his candor.

1 thing Paul and I had in common was that we were not driven by money.

We were interested in startups and we wanted to help people start more of them.

And that was the basis for everything we did at YC.

And it was what allowed us to do something as weird as YC in the first place.

And because YC didn't have any LPs at the time, we weren't even constrained by a vague fiduciary responsibility to anyone.

And that allowed us to take more risks with who we chose to fund.

And it also allowed us to be benevolent to failing startups.

And that often brought us into conflict with investors who had different priorities.

Early on we had funded a husband and wife team who had a baby.

And they worked hard on their startup, but it was clearly failing.

1 of their investors tried to get them acquired by a big company in the valley who ultimately passed.

Paul talked to the founders and learned that they just wanted the security of jobs, you know, so they could take a break from the constant stress of a startup.

So we talked to the big company and got 1 of them hired there.

The investor, on the other hand, was livid.

He ripped into Paul harder than almost anyone I've ever seen, you know, before Twitter.

Saying that Paul had blown any chance of an acqui-hire.

And, you know, to this day, I still don't get why investors squeeze founders over small outcomes like this.

I also never cared much about fame or my own personal brand.

1 thing I've learned from Y Combinator is that the most successful startups grow organically out of the founders lives And this is true in my case, too I was almost uncannily well suited for the kind of work that it took to make YC successful But the things that made me well suited for it were so far from the qualities that most people associate with startup founders.

I'm going to list them so you can see for yourself.

I was a social radar, a good event planner, maternal, empathetic, a straight shooter, and not driven by money or fame.

Think how far that is from the profile of the typical startup founder you read in the press.

Since when was that an important quality in a startup founder?

See all Y Combinator transcripts on Youtube

Female Founders Conference - New York