How to Get Into Silicon Valley’s $600 Billion Startup School | The Circuit with Emily Chang

Hi! Hi! Hi! How are you? Good to see you! Good to see you! I hear this is a special coffee shop. Yeah, this is just where so much stuff happened, especially for YC over really ten years. YC, short for Y Combinator, is one of the most storied startup accelerators in Silicon Valley, where Airbnb, Coinbase and Reddit all got their start. It's like an elite club for chosen founders to get access to top shelf mentors, and if they're lucky, raise top dollars.

嗨！嗨！嗨！你好吗？很高兴见到你！很高兴见到你！我听说这是一家特别的咖啡店。是的，这地方确实发生了很多事情，特别是对于YC而言，已经有十年了。YC是硅谷最具历史的初创企业加速器之一，Airbnb、Coinbase和Reddit都起源于这里。它就像一个精英俱乐部，为被选中的创始人提供顶级导师的资源，并且如果他们幸运的话，还能筹集到大量资金。

Gary Tan is the new leader of Y Combinator, succeeding a short line of big names, including Sam Altman and Paul Graham, which makes Tan now perhaps the ultimate startup kingmaker. I've ever done a deal here or anything like that? Uh, you know, like, YC is interesting because the deal is pretty straightforward. Right. We just meet them for ten minutes and then decide yes or no. Is that it? Yeah, that's right. So that's. Ten minutes in and yes or no? Yeah, that's right. Wow. How do you know in ten minutes? Well, I think you can look at, you know, what the founders are capable of, their skills.

Gary Tan是Y Combinator的新领导者，接替了包括Sam Altman和Paul Graham在内的一系列重要人物，这使得Tan现在可能是最终的初创企业王牌人物。我在这里做过交易或者类似的事情吗？嗯，你知道的，像Y Combinator这样的孵化器很有趣，因为交易相当直截了当。对，我们只需要见面十分钟，然后决定接受还是拒绝。就这样？对，没错。哇，你怎么在十分钟内就知道？嗯，我认为你可以看看创始人的能力和他们的技能。

I think we're up to 40,000 applications. Ever? Every year. Every year? Yeah. And you pick like a few hundred. That's right. It's the lowest acceptance rate. Right. You know, more selective than, you know, pretty much any selective school in the world. I feel like a lot of this stuff all started here. Uh-huh. You know, back in really 2005, this idea that you could give very small amounts of money to just a few teams and have those teams go on to become sort of the Reddit and the Airbnb's of the world. All right. Thank you. Here we go. You've got to try in the water. Oh, thank you. You're so warm. Yeah. Let's go. This is where people meet their first investors. This is where they meet their co-founder for the first time. Sometimes this is really important part of Silicon Valley.

我想我们已经有了40,000个申请。每年都有吗？没错。每年都有。对，你们只选择几百个。没错。这是最低的录取率。没错。你知道，比起世界上的绝大多数选择性学校，我们更为挑剔。我觉得很多事情都是从这里开始的。嗯。你知道，真正开始于2005年，这种给少数几个团队提供少量资金，然后这些团队成长为Reddit、Airbnb这样的公司的想法。好的。谢谢。我们开始吧。你得试试水。哦，谢谢。你好温暖啊。是啊。走吧。这里是人们第一次遇见他们的投资者的地方。也是他们第一次遇见共同创始人的地方。有时，这是硅谷非常重要的一部分。

And you actually were in YC yourself. Oh, yeah. I lived five blocks down that way and YC is about five blocks down this way. And when were you accepted to YC? 2008. 2008. So just at the start of a financial crisis. Yeah, for sure. We raised our angel around for Postorus the day Lehman died and nobody else in our batch managed to raise any money. And you're a Bay Area guy, right? That's right. You were born and raised here. Yeah, I grew up right here in Fremont right across the Bay. And Tech gave me everything I have, honestly. You know, child of Chinese immigrants. You know, we were sometimes food insecure, but I just remember Tech was here. And we grew up in the shadow of all this greatness, all this technology being built from nothing. And I knew that I wanted to learn to code. And, you know, I cold called the internet section until I got a job. And we were living in one or two bedroom apartments. And for my parents to, you know, sometimes struggle with English, the cultural barrier, you know, my dad was forming in a machine shop. My mom was a nurse assistant at a convalescent home. For dinner, we would sort of have the expired bread that someone would drop off to sort of help out my mom who was, you know, working sometimes two shifts just to keep the family going. And so I think that's one of the really important things to me that I realized, like, Tech is this thing that can bring people out of whatever situation they're in and often into prosperity. And that's what I want for everyone. You were sort of like an engineer designer by background. How does that inform your perspective? This is why YC really attracted me in 2008 was that here was the one place that wasn't about the flash. It wasn't about, you know, whether you had an MBA or, you know, you went to some school or whatever. It was just purely, hey, can you build something great?

你之前实际上就在YC。哦，是啊。我住在这附近，YC大概在这边五个街区。那你是什么时候被YC录取的？2008年。2008年。所以正好是金融危机开始的时候。是啊，确实。我们在利曼兄弟倒闭的那天为Postorus筹得了天使轮融资，而我们批次的其他项目都没能筹到资金。你是湾区人，对吗？没错。你在这里出生长大。对，我就在海湾对面的弗里蒙特长大。技术给了我一切，说实话。你知道，我们是华裔移民的孩子。有时候我们会面临食品不足的问题，但我记得有技术在这里。我们在所有这些伟大科技的阴影下长大，那些科技从无到有。我知道我想学会编程。然后，你知道，我不停地打电话找互联网公司，直到找到一份工作。我们住在一两个房间的公寓里。对于我那些有时与英语、文化差异斗争的父母来说，我爸爸在机器店里工作，我妈妈是一家康复院的护理助手。晚饭时，我们通常会吃到过期的面包，有人会放些过期面包给我妈妈，帮助她照顾家庭，因为有时她得连续工作两班才能养家。所以我觉得这对我来说很重要的一点就是，技术是一种可以帮助人们摆脱困境并通向繁荣的力量。而这正是我希望为每个人实现的。你的背景可以说是工程师和设计师。这如何影响你的观点？这就是为什么2008年我被YC吸引的原因。这是唯一一个不看重虚华的地方。他们并不关心你是否拥有工商管理学位，或者你是否上过某所学校。他们只在乎一个问题，你能不能做出伟大的东西？

You have this picture. It's 2008, I believe. You're sitting on the ground and you can see Paul Graham in the background and Mark Zuckerberg. What's going on in that moment? At that point, I knew I wanted to start a company. And YC threw this event that was a free event called Startup School. And it was all sort of like the luminaries. You know, I believe that year Jeff Bezos came and he actually launched AWS at that Startup School in 2008 at the auditorium at Stanford. I was sitting on the ground. Photography was one of my loves. And I was actually thinking about either starting a company or becoming a hip-hop editorial photographer. Very different proposition.

你有这张照片。我相信这是2008年的。你正坐在地上，可以看到保罗·格雷厄姆和马克·扎克伯格在背景中。那一刻发生了什么？那时，我知道我想要创办一家公司。YC举办了一场名为Startup School的免费活动。这里聚集了很多行业大咖。我记得那一年，杰夫·贝佐斯亲自出席，并在斯坦福大学的礼堂上推出了AWS。当时我正坐在地上。摄影是我热爱的事情之一。那时我在思考是要创办一家公司还是成为一名嘻哈摄影师。两个完全不同的选择。

Yeah. You went on to become a partner at YC yourself. How did you make the transition from entrepreneur to investor? You know, we were doing Dead Simple Blogs by email, Posterus. And then didn't you sell that to Twitter? Much later, actually. I mean, Instagram came out and that flat lined our growth. And this is one of the interesting things about being an investor. You know, I think we were very much in the running to be sort of one of the major social networks. But that was because there were no really great iPhone apps yet for uploading photos until Instagram. And now I realize it's actually the role of the investor. We need to be helping them understand the historical context, like what is actually happening in the market and what are the brass rings that are going to be enduring meaningful businesses that could be worth billions of dollars.

是啊，你最后成为了YC的合伙人。你是怎么从创业者转变为投资者的呢？你知道，我们当时通过邮件来进行死简单的博客，叫做Posterus。然后你不是把它卖给了Twitter吗？其实是很晚才卖的。我的意思是，Instagram一出现，我们的增长就停滞了。这就是成为投资者有趣之处之一。我觉得我们本来有很大可能成为主要的社交网络之一，但那是因为当时还没有真正很好的iPhone应用来上传照片，直到Instagram出现。现在我意识到投资者的角色应该是帮助他们了解历史背景，了解市场上实际发生的事情，以及哪些有可能成为真正有价值、可能价值数十亿美元的持久性企业。

So obviously you worked at YC for a bit. You went on to start your own fund. Yep. Initialize. Absolutely. So you had some pretty smart bets really on. You invested in Coinbase, for example. What did you learn from that experience that gave you sort of the bona fides to be an investor? This is actually a business that requires you to see enough. And YC was just such a concentrated form of all of tech happening. And it remains that that I think you just end up learning way more about what's doable, what's possible.

显然你在 YC（Y Combinator）工作了一段时间。然后你开始了自己的基金。没错，Initialize。绝对是。所以你确实有一些非常聪明的投资决策。例如，你投资了 Coinbase。从那次经历中，你学到了什么可以让你成为一名投资者的资格？实际上，这是一项需要你有足够洞察力的业务。而 YC 则是所有科技事物发生的高度浓缩形式。我认为，它仍然如此，你最终会学到更多关于可行性和可能性的知识。

So coming back to YC as CEO, is that like a dream job? Yeah. I mean, the ability to help people basically achieve their dreams. You know, that's what YC did for me. And I'm, you know, a steward here. I'm trying to figure out what can we do to help more innovation happen in the world.

回到YC担任首席执行官，这就像是一个梦想的工作吗？是的。我的意思是，有能力帮助人们实现他们的梦想。你知道，这就是YC对我的作用。而我现在是这里的管理员，我正设法找出我们能为世界带来更多创新的方法。

Ooh. I love the wall of oto. Oh, yeah. So this was very, very early days. Alexis O'Hadia and Steve. Yeah. There's Sam Altman on the left. Oh, there's Sam. Yep. That's Emmett Sheer of Twitch. Oh my gosh. Justin Kahn, Steve Huffman, and Alexis have read it. There's a lot of lore in this one photo. That's right. Oh my gosh, everyone looks like babies. Yeah. I mean, they really are though too. Like, just out of college. Like. And that's the thing to emphasize here is there's sort of the next Brian Chesky out there. Maybe watching this right now.

哦，我喜欢 Oto 的墙壁。噢，是的，这是非常非常早期的日子。Alexis O'Hadia 和 Steve。是的，左边是 Sam Altman。噢，那是 Sam。是的。那是 Twitch 的 Emmett Sheer。哦天啊。Justin Kahn，Steve Huffman 和 Alexis 是 Reddit 的创始人。这张照片里有很多传说。没错。哦天啊，每个人看起来都像宝贝一样。是的。他们确实也是，像是刚刚大学毕业。在这里要强调的是，可能正在看这个视频的人，就是下一个 Brian Chesky。

I walked right by this. Oh, yeah. What do we have here? Well, this is sort of the experience of every startup, right? You know, you launch and then things sort of fall out and then you have a crash. Trafosaro. Yep. Everything's horrible. Yep. Obviously you always hear about this story, but we're here to sort of try to lift people up right at that moment. Right at the crash of ineptitude. Yeah, that's right. Ups and downs are always a part of it.

我走过了这个。哦，是的。我们这里有什么？嗯，这基本上是每个初创公司的经历，对吧？你知道，你开始启动，然后事情开始崩溃，然后你就会遭遇一次崩溃。Trafosaro。是的。一切都很糟糕。是的。显然，你总是听说过这样的故事，但我们的目标是在这个时刻，也就是无能为力的崩溃时刻帮助人们重新振作起来。是的，没错。起伏和挫折总是其中的一部分。

This is actually the photo from my YC interview. Actually, this is the stripe office right in Palo Alto. I think that's Greg Brockman of OpenAI right there. Yeah, so this is from 2009. That's me over here. And Sam's right there. Look at this. James Lindenbaum from Heroku. So this looks like the Last Supper. Yeah. Airbnb, Stripe, Instacart, Dropbox, coinbase, cruise. So many. Oh gosh, there are so many. The most crazy thing to me is that the next ones are still coming. This is a community that is refreshing itself with the next billion dollar startups literally right now.

这实际上是我去Y Combinator（YC）面试时的照片。事实上，这就是位于帕洛阿尔托的Stripe办公室。我认为那个站在那里的是OpenAI的格雷格·布罗克曼。是的，这是2009年的照片。我就是在这里。而且萨姆就在那边。看这个，这是来自Heroku的詹姆斯·林登鲍姆。所以这看起来像最后的晚餐。是的。Airbnb、Stripe、Instacart、Dropbox、Coinbase、Cruise等等，太多了。天啊，实在是太多了。对我来说最疯狂的事情是，下一个亿美元创业公司还在不断涌现。这个社群正在不断通过接下来的亿美元初创公司自我更新。

So I have to call you out about something here. Sure, of course. There are a lot of dudes in these pictures. Absolutely. Where are all the women? Yeah, I mean, that's something that we're going to continue to work on. I mean, there's not a single woman in this picture. Yep, I mean, 2009 was a time that the house easily a problem and that's something that we're continuing to work on.

所以我必须就这件事找你们解释一下。当然，没问题。这些照片里有很多男人。没错。那女性在哪里呢？是的，我是说，这是我们将继续努力解决的问题。是的，这张照片中没有一个女人。是的，2009年的确是一个问题比较突出的时期，而我们现在仍在努力改善。

Is there something about the orange? This room is very orange. It's very orange. I think it was the hex code for the color was that FF6600. Okay. So it was very simple color that you could write in code and it turned out to be a very bright one. We read online that orange also can symbolize optimism and energy. So I thought maybe that was the reason. But of course it's probably more wonky than that. The name Y Combinator is actually Algorithm that writes other algorithms. So YC was meant to be a startup that helps start other startups. I never knew that.

这个橙色有什么特别之处吗？这个房间非常橙色。真的非常橙色。我记得它的十六进制代码是FF6600。好吧，所以这是一种非常简单的颜色，你可以用代码写出来，结果它变成了一种非常亮的颜色。我们在网上看到，橙色也可以象征乐观和活力。所以我以为可能是这个原因。当然，事情可能比这更复杂。Y Combinator这个名字实际上是一个编写其他算法的算法。所以YC本意是帮助其他初创公司启动的创业公司。我从来不知道这些。

So many companies have come through these doors. Talk to me a little bit about the process for those who don't understand. What exactly does a startup accelerator do? Well, YC works kind of as a 10, 12 week program. Anyone can apply online. All they have to do is ideally have an idea and have a demo sometimes. And what we do is we try to figure out who are the smartest, best people who are capable. What are the things that they're trying to do and are those things viable? And we whittle it down to about 250 to give half a million dollars to. Right. Which is great because when I first started, I think YC only gave me $12,000.

这扇大门见证了许多企业的诞生。对于那些不太了解的人来说，你能谈谈创业加速器的过程吗？究竟创业加速器是做什么的呢？嗯，YC（Y Combinator）实际上是一个为期10到12周的项目。任何人都可以在线申请。他们只需要有一个理想的创意和有时候一个演示。我们的任务是找出那些最聪明、最优秀、最有能力的人。他们想要做的事情是什么，这些事情可行吗？然后我们会从中筛选出大约250个项目，为他们提供50万美元的资金支持。这真是太棒了，因为当我刚开始的时候，YC只给我12000美元。

What does the newest class of founders look like? What problems are they trying to solve? A good deal of them are focused on AI bringing in large language models. That's a really exciting time for just software period. Demo day is sort of like a rite of passage. Oh, definitely. Right? What happens on demo day? It's a thousand investors, VCs, angel investors, people who have been there. And they often raise millions of dollars. And so that's a really powerful moment because that big bump at the top of that graph that we saw. That's a moment of euphoria. And then, hey guys, it's back to work. We're going to be in that trough of sorrow for a while, but we're going to make it to the promised land.

最新一届创业者群体是什么样子的？他们试图解决什么问题？其中很多人专注于人工智能带来的大型语言模型。这对于软件行业来说是一个非常令人兴奋的时刻。Demo日有点像是一个成年礼。噢，确实。是吗？Demo日会发生什么？那里会有一千名投资者、风险投资家、天使投资家，以及那些已经有经验的人。他们通常会筹集数百万美元的资金。所以这是一个非常重要的时刻，因为我们看到图表顶部的那个巨大增长是一种幸福的时刻。然后，伙计们，回到工作中。我们将在苦难的低谷中度过一段时间，但我们最终会进入应许之地。

What do you say to the folks who are out there thinking, how do I get in? Well, the big thing is, I think we really like people who are earnest. What we really care about is, are you solving a real problem? Can you show us the quality of your work? You know, can you access a market that nobody else can actually access? So in 10 minutes, you decide whether to give someone a golden ticket. That's right. Are you making all the right decisions? Well, we hope so. And that's why demo day exists. You know, those thousand investors come back year after year after year because you'll never find a congregation of hundreds of startups in which, you know, a dozen of them will probably go on to be worth a billion dollars or more. The hard part is it's not really about what happens in that 10 minutes. It's about the 10,000 hours that goes in beforehand. The best CEOs in the world are sort of Jack of all trades, but master of one or two. And that isn't something that is in that 10 minutes or in those 12 questions. That's something in someone's life.

对于那些正在思考如何加入的人，你会说什么？嗯，最重要的是，我认为我们真的喜欢认真的人。我们真正关心的是，你是否在解决一个真正的问题？你能展示你的工作质量吗？你知道，你能访问其他人无法访问的市场吗？所以在10分钟内，你决定是否给某人一张黄金门票。没错。你做出了所有正确的决策吗？我们希望是这样。这就是为什么有演示日存在。你知道，那些上千个投资者每年都会回来，因为你在这里永远不会找到上百家初创企业聚集在一起，其中可能有十几个价值十亿美元或更多的企业。困难的是，这并不完全取决于那10分钟内发生了什么。它是关于之前付出的一万个小时。世界上最好的首席执行官是一种多面手，但同时也是一两种专业领域的专家。这并不是那10分钟或者那12个问题中的内容，而是某个人生活中的一部分。

Are you really looking for people from around the world or do people who are here have an advantage? Lots of people come here just for the batch. They raise money. They build their community and then they go back and become the best company in Mumbai, the best company in London. So, you know, I think that this is a story that is San Francisco Bay Area based, but also one that radiates out into the entire world. We talked about the pictures on the wall and you said, hey, you got me. We don't have enough women. We haven't had enough women for a couple of decades now. What are you seeing in the numbers now? I think representation matters a lot at the end of the day. You know, the types of problems that people solve kind of come out of their own stories. It is important to us. It's important to me. You know, at YC we have more than 850 women founders who have gone through the program. And you're right. That's not enough. What are you doing to make, to change the ratio? I mean, I think I look at the process and we want the process to be something that is as open and inclusive as possible. There's a lot to be done and, you know, we're not done.

你真的在寻找来自世界各地的人，还是在这里的人有优势？很多人只是为了批次来这里。他们筹集资金，建立自己的社群，然后回去成为孟买最好的公司、伦敦最好的公司。所以，我认为这不仅仅是基于旧金山湾区的故事，也是辐射到整个世界的故事。我们谈论了墙上的照片，你说，嗨，你击中了我，我们没有足够的女性。过去几十年里，我们一直没有足够的女性。你现在的数字是什么？我认为代表性在最终很重要。你知道，人们解决的问题类型源于他们自己的故事。这对我们来说很重要，对我来说也很重要。你知道，在Y Combinator，我们培养了850多位女性创始人。你是对的，这还不够。你们在做什么来改变这个比例呢？我觉得我在看这个过程，我们希望这个过程尽可能地开放和包容。还有很多事情要做，你知道，我们还没有完成。

We're seeing tens of thousands of people getting laid off from tech companies. How does this play out? I think a lot of large companies started treating their employee base almost as a place to park resources and almost as a competitive moat versus the other giants. And when I think about the amount of talent that was sort of locked up in cushy jobs, that, you know, could have been actually out there in the market making new technology, pushing things forward. I'm hoping a lot of them actually come over to startups and they realize, oh, this is what it's like to run fast again.

我们正在看到数以万计的人从科技公司裁员。这将会如何发展呢？我认为很多大公司开始把员工视为资源存放的地方，几乎是与其他巨头竞争的要塞。当我考虑到被锁定在舒适工作中的大量人才，这些人才本可以在市场上创造新技术、推动事物向前发展。我希望其中很多人能加入创业公司，并意识到，噢，原来这就是再次迅速前进的感觉。

What's your advice for these workers who are getting laid off? It does sound a little trite to just say, it's time to build. Right. It sure does. I mean, I think some of it is like it takes stock, right? Like getting much more connected to the problems out there. I think will lead to just a lot more direct access to, I mean, building equity, building businesses that really matter.

对于这些正在被解雇的工人，你有什么建议？光说“是时候开始重新建设了”听起来有点陈词滥调。是的，确实如此。我是说，我认为其中一部分就是要反思，对现实问题更加深入了解。我认为这将带来更多直接的机会去创造股权，去建设确实有意义的企业。

Well, speaking of equity, for years, tech workers have been paid in stock and that was sort of, you know, the ticket. You're taking a risk on this company. It could be worth zero or it could, you know, be worth millions, right? Absolutely. We're seeing kind of the dark side of RSUs or getting paid in stock now. Do you think that's still the way it should work in Silicon Valley? I mean, that's some of the magic of startups. I think this is about labor being able to access, you know, actual capital. And this is like one of the most direct and most awesome versions of it. Some of the bad behavior we saw from startup founders was trying to reach for that billion dollar valuation because they wanted the headline out there saying that there are unicorn now, but that comes at a cost, right? The focus on valuation and getting that next notch of valuation above all else, that comes at both a great personal cost to the founders themselves, but also to the employees. So what do you think needs to change? I think some of it is already happening, right? You know, the revaluation of startups right now is starting and it will continue. People are going to be a lot more mindful about, you know, do I really need to do that 50 to 200 million dollar raise?

嗯，说到公平性，多年来，科技工作者一直以股票的形式获得报酬，这在某种程度上也是一种机会。你对这家公司承担了一定的风险。它可能一文不值，也可能价值数百万，对吧？确实如此。现在我们看到了以股票形式获得报酬的负面影响。你认为这仍然是硅谷的工作方式吗？我是说，这是初创公司的一些魔力所在。我认为这是劳动力能够获得真正资本的一种方式，而且这是最直接和最了不起的方式之一。我们看到初创公司创始人的一些不良行为是为了追求十亿美元的估值，因为他们希望宣布成为独角兽，但这是以一定的代价的，对吧？专注于估值和追求更高的估值，不顾一切地追求，这既对创始人本人产生了巨大的个人成本，也对员工造成了影响。那你认为有什么需要改变的呢？我认为其中一些已经在发生了，对吧？估值的重新评估已经开始，而且会继续进行下去。人们会更加慎重，是否真的需要进行5亿到2亿美元的融资。

So you're a few months into this job as CEO of Y Combinator and Silicon Valley Bank collapses. What is your level of panic in that moment? Well, I remember, you know, I'm dropping my seven year old off Friday morning at 9 a.m. and then immediately I start getting texts and phone calls from founders saying that was my only bank account. What do I do? Because it wasn't clear to me that people were going to give a bank called Silicon Valley Bank the benefit of any doubt at all, simply because of its name. This is not big tech getting in an hour of need. This is a moment of little tech. This whole SVP thing is made clear. A lot of people look at Silicon Valley and see elites. Are they wrong? Anytime you have power that is accumulated in the hands of the few, that's something we should be worried about. Little tech is competition and competition is the way that we have actually vibrant markets that give consumers new choice, and that is actually a very important thing to protect.

所以，你担任 Y Combinator 的首席执行官已经几个月了，然而硅谷银行破产了。在那一刻，你的紧张程度如何？我记得，你知道，星期五早上9点我刚刚送我七岁的孩子上学，然后立刻收到创业者们发来的短信和电话，他们说这是我唯一的银行账户。我该怎么办？因为对于一个叫做硅谷银行的银行，显然没有人愿意给予任何怀疑的余地，仅仅因为它的名字。这不是大型科技企业在需要时提供援助。这是一个小科技的时刻。整个硅谷银行的事情变得清楚了。很多人看待硅谷会觉得是精英主义的。他们错了吗？每当权力集中在少数人手中时，我们都应该担心。小科技是竞争，而竞争正是我们产生充满活力的市场、给消费者提供新选择的方式，这实际上是需要保护的非常重要的事情。

How long do you think the downturn lasts? How hard does this get? I guess it's so hard to tell and I'm not a macro economist. Some people like to play that on Twitter though. So I underestimated to what degree interest rates rule everything around us. It affects valuations, it affected the SVP crisis. If you work in crypto, you better pay attention. All of these things matter because the price of money is shifting radically.

你认为这次衰退还会持续多久？这会变得有多艰难？我觉得很难说，我不是宏观经济学家。有些人喜欢在推特上炒作这些。所以我低估了利率对我们周围一切的影响程度。它影响估值，影响了SVP（片语，特指“次级贷款危机”）危机。如果你从事加密货币行业，最好要注意。所有这些都很重要，因为货币价格正在发生剧变。

YC branched out into a lot of things like a lot of funds did, to be honest, over the course of the last 10 years. You're now ending the later stage investing. Does that make it harder for a lot of the YC companies to then do follow on rounds? Does that sort of clip their wings before they can even fly? Well, I don't think so, just because the best thing we can do is take our own advice, and especially in times of sort of re-centering a reset in what's happening out there in VC. What are the things that make you truly unique and really focus on those things? So that was a painful decision to make, but it was ultimately the right one for YC.

YC在过去的十年中，像很多基金一样，涉足了很多领域。现在你们结束了后期投资阶段。这是否会让许多YC公司难以进行后续融资呢？这是否会在它们才刚起步之前束缚它们的发展空间呢？嗯，我认为并不会，因为我们能做的最好的事情就是听从自己的建议，尤其是在重新调整和重塑风险投资领域现状的时候。那些真正使你们独一无二并专注于的事情是什么？所以这是一个困难的决定，但对YC来说最终是正确的决定。

When you look at venture capital culture and the way it operates, do you see things that are broken? Yeah, I mean, I think the hardest part is often there's not alignment, right? If you're a junior VC, you're coming in, you might only be able to do one or two deals, three or four deals, period. And in those three or four deals, one better be a unicorn. And we see people bend over backwards, sort of put their own interests ahead of that of the founder, and sometimes that's systemic.

当你看着风险投资文化及其运作方式时，你是否发现了一些问题？是的，我的意思是，最困难的部分通常是没有统一的目标。如果你是初级风投，你刚刚进来，你可能只能做一两笔交易，三四笔交易。在这三四笔交易中，其中一个必须是一家独角兽公司。我们看到人们为了达到这个目标而不惜一切，有时这是系统性的，他们把自己的利益放在创始人的利益之前。

Do you think it's going to be harder for startups to raise money? For the next 10 years, it's been a fruitful time. Is this just the new normal? Well, I think today we're in the midst of this large language model explosion, and I think that that might be the next platform. And those platforms will actually give rise to new platforms that we don't even know about yet. So, you know, if you ask on a 10-year timeframe, like, will there be more technology or less, I think there's going to be more. And, you know, if it's a one or two-year timeframe, like, you know, we've got to ask Uncle Jerome.

你认为对于初创企业来说，筹集资金会变得更困难吗？接下来的10年，这将是一个丰收的时期。这只是新的常态吗？嗯，我认为现在我们正处于大规模语言模型爆炸的中间，我认为这可能会成为下一个平台。而且这些平台实际上会催生出我们甚至还不知道的新平台。所以，你知道的，如果你在一个10年的时间范围内问，有更多技术还是更少技术，我认为会有更多技术。而且，你知道的，如果是一个一两年的时间范围，比如说我们得问杰罗姆叔叔。

Between Microsoft and OpenAI, and Google, and Facebook, and Apple, and Amazon, is there enough room for startups to run when it comes to AI? Do they have room to really compete? I think so, and, you know, some of it is like, we actually don't even know the physics of this market yet. It took many years of the search engine world and the search engine war before we figured out that Google and AdWords were going to be the winner. And I think we're right there, right again. I would never count out, you know, the little startup who figures out a way to, you know, fight against unbelievable amounts of capital or unbelievable amounts of market power. That's how we combat this idea that Big Tech is, you know, too powerful. Like, guess who's going to fight against them? It's startups.

在微软、OpenAI、谷歌、Facebook、苹果和亚马逊这些大公司之间，对于人工智能的发展，科技初创企业还有足够的发展空间吗？它们是否有能力进行真正的竞争？我认为是的，你知道，其中部分原因是因为我们对这个市场的运作规律还没有完全了解。在搜索引擎领域，直到谷歌和AdWords成为赢家之前，经历了多年的竞争。我认为我们现在也处在这个阶段。我从不忽视那些想出办法与巨额资本或巨大市场力量对抗的小型初创企业。这是我们对待大型科技公司过于强大的观点的应对方式。你猜猜是谁来与他们抗衡？是初创企业。

What's going to define the Gary Tan era of YC? What I hope is that a thousand flowers bloom at the end of the day. You know, I also experienced this crazy place that gave me prosperity, and ultimately all I care about is that that story continues.

盖瑞·丹（Gary Tan）时代的YC（Y Combinator）将被什么定义呢？我的希望是，在一天结束时，能有一千种不同的可能性出现。你知道，我也曾经历过这个令我获得繁荣的疯狂地方，但最重要的是，我希望这个故事可以继续下去。

How much are you working here versus home in San Francisco? Oh, well, we're a San Francisco based and work-from-home culture means that I'm in San Francisco pretty much all the time.

在这里工作和在旧金山家里，你的工作量有多大？哦，我们是在旧金山为基地的公司，而且可以在家工作的文化意味着我几乎一直都在旧金山。

So I hear Mr. Beast schooled you on your content creation. Yeah, that's right. This was during the pandemic and I got in touch with him on Clubhouse and he gave me advice on thumbnail, title, and, you know, click-through rates and all that good stuff.

所以我听说Mr. Beast在你的内容创作方面给了你很多教训。没错，这是在疫情期间，我通过Clubhouse与他取得联系，他给了我有关缩略图、标题、点击率等方面的建议，非常有帮助。

Welcome to the YouTube studio. I love it. What do we got going on here? Well, you know, the number one thing that I give people advice about is get a really big soft box so you get, like, the really nice cinematic look. Everyone needs a nice cinematic look. That's right. It's important. I mean, it's sort of like wearing a suit to a nice meeting. Like, having a good zoom setup is, I think, you know, increasingly important.

欢迎来到YouTube工作室。我非常喜欢这里。我们在这里有什么节目呢？嗯，你知道，我给人们的一个最重要的建议就是要拥有一个很大的软光箱，这样你就能得到真正漂亮的电影感效果。每个人都需要一个漂亮的电影感效果。没错，这很重要。就像穿着西装参加一个重要的会议一样，拥有一个良好的视频会议设备设置，我认为变得越来越重要了。

What have you found really resonates? Like, what takes off? The number one thing for me is just actually talking about the things I messed up. Like, actually saying, hey, you know, this is why my startup failed or the time I messed up my pitch to Series A investors or my co-founder disputes. Like, those all were real things that became a problem for me and then being real about that helps people understand, like, hey, this is, again, the long trough of sorrow and here's how you get through it. So it's being cumin, being authentic. And actually, I feel like some folks in tech and I won't need names have trouble admitting when they're wrong. That's fair. That's one of the salient features of going on Twitter sometimes.

你发现有什么让人真正共鸣的事情吗？比如，什么能迅速引起共鸣？对我来说，最重要的一点就是谈论我犯错的事情。比如，实际上说，嘿，你知道吗，这就是为什么我的创业失败了，或者我向A轮投资者发表演讲时出错了，或者我与合作创始人发生争执。这些都是真实的问题，它们给我带来了困扰，然后真实地谈论这些问题可以帮助人们理解，嘿，这就是所谓的“忧郁低谷”，以及如何度过它。所以，关键是要真实、真诚。实际上，我觉得一些科技界的人，我不想点名，有时候很难承认他们的错误。这是公平的。这也是有时候上Twitter的一个显著特点。

This is my favorite part. Wow. You've got quite a view going on here. You walk down the streets of San Francisco, you have to admit it's different. Post COVID. The streets are different, but right down the street is what they call cerebral valley, which is sort of turning into the new Silicon Valley.

这是我最喜欢的部分了。哇，你这里的景色真是太棒了。走在旧金山的街道上，不得不承认它与以往不同了，尤其是在疫情后。街道不同了，但就在街道的尽头，有一个被称为「大脑谷」的地方，正在逐渐成为新的硅谷。

What is your role in San Francisco politics? I know you're doing a lot of tweeting.

你在旧金山政治中扮演的角色是什么？我知道你经常发推文。

Oh, yeah. Somehow Twitter gets me in trouble all the time. But my Twitter, in addition to being about startups, has accidentally also become really about what is the future of San Francisco and how do we make this a place for you? How do we make this a place for immigrants and immigrant families to actually come and do their thing, like for them to find their American dream here?

哦，是的。不知何故，Twitter总是让我陷入麻烦。但是除了关于创业公司的内容外，我的Twitter账号无意间也成了关于旧金山未来以及我们如何将其打造成一个适合你的地方的讨论。我们要如何使其成为移民及其家庭实现自己目标的地方，为他们在这里找到他们的美国梦？

I mean, it is expensive. It absolutely is. There was this huge push to raise payroll taxes in San Francisco. That was supposed to help the homeless problem. A lot of companies left San Francisco as a result stripe a Y Combinator company, for example. So now the city is taking in less taxes because the companies aren't here and the homeless problem doesn't seem like it's been solved.

我的意思是，这真的很贵。绝对是的。早前在旧金山推动提高工资税。据说这样可以帮助解决无家可归者问题。正因为此，包括Y Combinator公司在内的许多企业离开了旧金山。所以现在市政府税收减少了，因为这些公司不在这里了，而且无家可归问题似乎并没有解决的样子。

Like, what do you think about that?

你觉得这个怎么样？

I'm never about, hey, we should lower taxes. I don't think that's the issue. When we have prosperity in tech, we should be able to share that because we want abundance and we need policies to actually get us there. I just want things to work. Can we meet in the middle? Can we find common sense things to do common sense policies that work? Can we find politicians that represent us that are not at the extremes but finding ways to work together? And that's what I want.

我从来没有关心过我们应该降低税收的事情。我认为问题不在于税收的高低。当科技行业繁荣时，我们应该能够分享这种繁荣，因为我们渴望丰富，我们需要能够真正带领我们走向目标的政策。我只是希望事情能够顺利进行。我们能不能妥协一下？我们能不能找到一些常识性的做法，制定一些常识性的政策来解决问题？能不能找到代表我们的政治家，他们不是极端分子，而是试图寻找合作方式？这就是我想要的。

People look at you like this rich tech bro who wants to turn San Francisco into a utopia. Is that not the case?

人们把你当做一个富有的科技人士，想要把旧金山变成乌托邦，这不是事实吗？

I think a utopia is just another form of extremism. We have to look at what's possible. We have to look at the resources. I think that tech probably should pay its fair share. How do you keep the soul of San Francisco but also make it more attractive to everyone else?

我认为乌托邦只是另一种极端主义形式。我们必须看看可能性。我们必须看看现有资源。我认为科技行业可能应该分担公平的责任。如何保持旧金山的特色，同时也吸引其他人呢？

For the longest time, the status quo is let's prevent people from building. Let's stop people from coming here. Let's make it unpalatable for people to move to San Francisco and maybe that will make it okay. And I think that that's just the wrong solution. That's not a solution at all. That's putting your head in the ground. We should absolutely be making space for everyone. That's really what America is for me. That's what America has been for my family and that's what I want for everyone in the world.

很长一段时间以来，现状是让我们阻止人们建设。让我们阻止人们来这里。让我们让人们迁往旧金山变得不可接受，或许这样就没问题了。我认为这种解决方案完全错误。这根本不是解决方案，而是把头埋在土里。我们应该为每个人提供空间。对我来说，这才是美国的真正含义。这也是我家族所经历的美国，也是我希望全世界的每个人都能拥有的。

San Francisco for life? You know what? This is the shining jewel that I go everywhere in the world. The number one thing they want to hear about is how do we bring tech to our city? This is a gift and this is just getting started.

旧金山一辈子？你知道吗？这是我在世界各地走到哪里都引以为傲的瑰宝。他们最想听到的第一件事就是我们如何将科技带到我们的城市。这是一份礼物，而且才刚刚开始。