Simon Willison’s Weblog

What is it like going through the Y Combinator program?

6th February 2011

My answer to What is it like going through the Y Combinator program? on Quora

This essay is pretty comprehensive—it’s what convinced us to apply to YC, and our experience so far has been true to what it describes: http://ycombinator.com/atyc.html

Posted 6th February 2011 at 3:22 pm · Follow me on Mastodon, Bluesky, Twitter or subscribe to my newsletter

More recent articles

Thoughts on OpenAI acquiring Astral and uv/ruff/ty - 19th March 2026
GPT-5.4 mini and GPT-5.4 nano, which can describe 76,000 photos for $52 - 17th March 2026
My fireside chat about agentic engineering at the Pragmatic Summit - 14th March 2026

This is What is it like going through the Y Combinator program? by Simon Willison, posted on 6th February 2011.

startups 190 y-combinator 52 quora 1005

Next: What are some good user interface/user experience workshops/conferences coming up this March(p.s. distance isn't a factor, I'm willingly to travel)?

Previous: Where can I find a good list of conferences that take will place Boston in early April 2011?

Monthly briefing

Sponsor me for $10/month and get a curated email digest of the month's most important LLM developments.

Pay me to send you less!

Sponsor & subscribe