People

Founders

  • Trevor Blackwell
    Founder, Retired

    Trevor Blackwell is a roboticist who in 2007 built the first dynamically balancing biped robot. He has published papers on congestion control in high speed wide area networks, signalling protocol architecture, and file system performance. He has a BEng from Carleton, and a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard.

  • Paul Graham
    Founder, Retired

    Paul Graham is the author of On Lisp (1993), ANSI Common Lisp (1995), and Hackers & Painters (2004). In 1995, he and Robert Morris started Viaweb, the first SaaS company, which in 1998 became Yahoo Store. In 2002 he discovered a simple spam filtering algorithm that inspired the current generation of filters. He has an AB from Cornell and a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard.

  • Jessica Livingston
    Founder, Retired

    Jessica Livingston was previously VP of marketing at investment bank Adams Harkness, where she managed an award-winning rebranding of the company. She is the author of Founders at Work (2007), a book of interviews with startup founders. She has a BA in English from Bucknell.

  • Robert Morris
    Founder, Retired

    Robert Morris is a professor of computer science at MIT, where he is a member of the PDOS group. He has published extensively on wireless networks, distributed operating systems, and peer-to-peer applications. In 1988 his discovery of buffer overflow first brought the Internet to the attention of the general public. He has an AB and PhD in Computer Science from Harvard.

President & CEO

  • Garry Tan
    President & CEO

    Garry Tan is president and CEO of Y Combinator. He was a partner at Y Combinator from 2011 to 2015, where he built key parts of the YC experience for founders including Bookface and the Demo Day website. Garry is the co-founder of Initialized Capital and Posterous (YC S08), a blog platform acquired by Twitter, and prior to that, he was an early designer and engineering manager at Palantir (NYSE:PLTR), where he designed the company logo. Garry holds a BS in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford.

Group Partners

  • Gustaf Alströmer
    Group Partner

    Gustaf Alströmer is a Group Partner at YC. He spent 4.5 years at Airbnb where he worked as a Product Lead on the Growth team, a team he helped start in 2012. Prior to Airbnb, Gustaf was Head of Growth at Voxer, and before that, he was CEO & co-founder of Heysan, which was part of the YC W07 batch.

  • Tom Blomfield
    Group Partner

    Tom Blomfield is a Group Partner at YC. He was co-founder of Monzo, one of the first app-based challenger banks in the UK. Monzo raised more than £500m, counts 10% of the UK population as customers, and was the #1 recommended brand in the UK for two years running. Previously, he founded GoCardless (YC S11), an online payments processor for the Direct Debit system. In 2013, he was nominated as one of the Top 5 Entrepreneurs Under 30 by the European Commission, and in 2019 he was awarded an OBE for increasing competition in the banking sector.

  • Paul Buchheit
    Group Partner

    Paul Buchheit is a Group Partner at YC and the creator of GMail. While at Google he also built the prototype for AdSense and came up with Google’s famous slogan “Don’t be evil.” In 2007 he was one of the founders of Friendfeed, which in 2009 became Facebook’s largest acquisition to date. He has a BS and MS in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University.

  • Dalton Caldwell
    Managing Director, Architect and Group Partner

    Dalton Caldwell is Managing Director, Architect and Group Partner at YC. He was the cofounder and CEO of imeem (acquired by MySpace in 2009), and the cofounder and CEO of App.net. He has a BS in Symbolic Systems and a BA in Psychology from Stanford University.

  • Nicolas Dessaigne
    Group Partner

    Nicolas Dessaigne is a Group Partner at YC. He was the co-founder of Algolia (YC W14), a growth stage Search API used by millions of developers. He led the company as CEO up to 350 people before hiring a successor in 2020. He is still very involved in the success of Algolia as Board Director. Originally from France, he currently lives in Oakland, CA with his wife and 3 kids. He has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Nantes.

  • Aaron Epstein
    Group Partner

    Aaron Epstein is a Group Partner at YC. He was co-founder of Creative Market (YC W10), a marketplace for graphic design assets, which he sold to Autodesk in 2014 and spun out as an independent startup again in 2017. Aaron founded the company to make beautiful design simple and accessible to everyone, and has since helped generate more than $100M in sales for independent creators around the world. He has a BS in Business from the University of Maryland.

  • Brad Flora
    Group Partner

    Brad Flora is a Group Partner at YC. He was co-founder and CEO of Perfect Audience, an ad network funded by Y Combinator in 2011, acquired by Marin Software in 2014 and used by companies like Eventbrite, Atlassian, and New Relic to market to more than a billion people. He is an active angel investor, occasional contributor for Slate.com and lives in San Francisco with his wife and young son. He has a BA from Princeton University in English and an MS in Journalism from Northwestern.

  • Jared Friedman
    Managing Director, Software and Group Partner

    Jared Friedman is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was cofounder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web. Jared previously worked at a pioneering AI company and studied computer science at Harvard.

  • Diana Hu
    Group Partner

    Diana Hu is a Group Partner at YC. She was co-founder and CTO of Escher Reality (YC S17), an Augmented Reality Backend company that was acquired by Niantic (makers of Pokémon Go). At Niantic, she was the head of the AR platform. Previously, she led data science at OnCue TV that was sold to Verizon. Originally from Chile, Diana graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BS and MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a focus in computer vision and machine learning.

  • Surbhi Sarna
    Group Partner

    Surbhi Sarna is a Group Partner at YC. She was the founder and former CEO of nVision Medical, which developed a first-in-kind microcatheter for the detection of ovarian cancer. After raising $17M in venture funding, completing three clinical trials, and obtaining two first-in-class FDA approvals, nVision was acquired by Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) for $275M, more than 15X money-in. Surbhi stayed at Boston Scientific for two years, running the 150+ person commercial organization in preparation for launch. She sits on both private and public company boards.

  • Michael Seibel
    Managing Director, Batch and Group Partner

    Michael Seibel is Managing Director, Batch and Group Partner at YC. He was the cofounder and CEO of Justin.tv and Socialcam. Socialcam sold to Autodesk in 2012 and under the leadership of Emmett Shear, Justin.tv became Twitch.tv and sold to Amazon in 2014. Before getting into startups, he spent a year as the finance director for a US Senate campaign and in 2005, Michael graduated from Yale University with a BA in political science.

  • Harj Taggar
    Managing Director and Group Partner

    Harj Taggar is a Managing Director and Group Partner at YC. He was previously founder and CEO of Triplebyte (YC S15) and Auctomatic (YC W07), which was acquired by Live Current Media in 2008. He first joined YC as a partner in 2010, leaving in 2014 to start Triplebyte and rejoining in 2020. He graduated in 2006 from Oxford, where he studied Jurisprudence.

Visiting Group Partners

  • Rich Aberman
  • Wayne Crosby
  • Umur Cubukcu
  • Pete Koomen
  • David Lieb
  • Emmett Shear

Batch

  • Elizabeth Akman
    Batch Director
  • Lindsay Selvitelle
    Director of Events

Admissions

  • Regan Bell
    Product Engineer
  • Eve Bouffard
    Admissions Associate
  • Steve Bunting
    Product Engineer
  • Carolyn Conway
    Admissions Manager & Software Engineer
  • Josh France
    Product Engineer
  • Tommy Kilmer
    Director of Admissions
  • Sean Pennino
    Admissions Manager
  • Jeff Peterson
    Product Engineer
  • Stephanie Simon
    Managing Admissions Officer

Software

  • Doug Duhaime
    Product Engineer
  • Jared Hobbs
    Product Engineer
  • Zach Kamran
    Product Engineer
  • Casey Muller
    Product Engineer
  • Oliver Ortlieb
    Product Engineer
  • Mark Thurman
    Head of Infrastructure and Security

Post Batch

  • Jon Levy
    Managing Director, Partnerships
  • Ryan Choi
    Head of Alumni Relations
  • Paige Omura
    Operations & Programs Manager, Work at a Startup
  • Di Qi
    Product Engineer, Work at a Startup
  • Arnav Sahu
    Principal
  • Chris Simon
    Data & Community Analyst
  • Frank Stratton
    Product Engineer, Work at a Startup

Pre Batch

  • Katherine Bernstein
    Product Engineer
  • Joan DeGennaro
    Operations Manager
  • Catheryn Li
    Product Lead
  • Raymond Li
    Product Engineer

Legal

  • Joseph Borges-Santos
    Legal Analyst
  • Nicole Cadman
    General Counsel, Early Stage
  • Mitch Duncombe
    Legal Counsel
  • Gaby Kapp
    Legal Counsel
  • Carolynn Levy
    Managing Director, Legal and People Ops
  • Brigid McCurdy
    Senior Legal Counsel
  • Micah Morgan
    Legal Analyst
  • Eni Oyeleye
    Legal Analyst
  • Alex Petersen
    Senior Legal Counsel
  • Angela Prochnow
    Legal Operations & Innovation Program Manager
  • Tommy Szalasny
    Legal Counsel
  • Tasnim Thakur
    Legal Analyst
  • Shirley Truy
    Legal Operations Specialist

Finance

  • Celia Cheung
    Senior Controller
  • Logan Clayson
    Senior Fund Accountant
  • Trevor Goddard
    Senior Fund Accountant
  • Ani Kochiashvili
    Finance Technology Lead
  • Irina Lukashuk
    Business Analyst
  • Emily Manashi
    Accounting Manager
  • Eliana Moorer
    Finance Coordinator
  • Kirsty Nathoo
    Managing Director, Finance
  • Yna Ortega
    Fund Accounting Manager
  • Verena Prescher
    Senior Director of Finance
  • Esther Schwyter
    Fund Account Manager
  • Anji Song
    Fund Controller
  • Shaun Weber
    Director of Tax
  • Shellie Wong
    Fund Accounting Manager

Outreach

  • Lindsay Amos
    Senior Director of Communications
  • Zach Both
    Video and Content Lead
  • Greg Kumparak
    Editorial Content Manager
  • Kat Mañalac
    Managing Outreach Officer
  • Ryan Loughlin
    Senior Video Producer
  • Steven Pham
    Online Community Director

People Ops

  • Renée Beck
    Chief of Staff
  • Adele Gower
    Operations Manager
  • Renee Mars
    Director of People Operations
  • Tatyana Veremyova
    Director of Payroll & Benefits
  • Julie Swan
    Business Operations

Hacker News

  • Daniel Gackle
    Hacker News