Y Combinator is getting a new leader.
Garry Tan, a founder who participated in YC's acclerator program before becoming a partner at the firm, will take over as its CEO at the end of the year. He will replace Geoff Ralston, who has been president and CEO of the influential Mountain View-based startup accelerator and venture capital firm for more than three years.
"My goal has been to cement YC as an institution that will endure for decades – not only through organizational changes but by leading a team that has scaled the community we bring together, the products and capital we provide to startups, and the software we build," Ralston said Monday in a blog post announcing the moves. "Garry, the visionary hacker, designer, and builder who has described how YC is 'engraved on his heart' believes in this future and is precisely the right person to take over as YC’s chief executive."
Ralston, who in March 2019 replaced Sam Altman as president and CEO of the firm, did not say what he would be doing after he leaves his position at the end of 2022. He only said that he was "looking forward to some to-be-discovered adventures."
Here's how Ralston introduced Tan in this blog post:
All of us at YC know Garry well. He was a YC founder in the summer of 2008 and is both a terrific hacker and a brilliant designer. Garry is also one of the most trustworthy, kind, and likable people I know.
After earning a degree in computer engineering from Stanford, Garry was an engineer at Palantir and then created one of the earliest and best-designed blogging platforms, Posterous. After selling Posterous to Twitter, Garry joined YC as a partner - almost exactly when I also joined PG, Jessica, and co. For the next five years we worked together advising startups. Garry also found the time to build some of the core internal software (including Bookface!) still used at YC. In 2015, Garry left YC to focus on Initialized Capital, the venture fund he co-founded. Over the years at Initialized, Garry showed his investing expertise and continued supporting YC companies. He built a superb team there which will continue investing in great companies while Garry comes back home to YC.
Throughout his career, Garry has impressed everyone around him with his intelligence, his affability, and his desire to get things done or, as he might say, “let’s get building!” And while showing that he is a leader who understands the details of building and running a business, he also demonstrates his extraordinary communications skills, with hundreds of thousands of YouTube followers who watch his many videos on startups, jobs, and life.
YC launched in 2005 in Cambridge, Mass., with programs running out of the Boston-area city as well as in Mountain View. In 2009, it closed its Cambridge program and shifted its headquarters and focus to Mountain View.
Getting a startup accepted into the YC program has been a top goal for many entrepreneurs as the accelerator has had a string of highly successful graduates, including Stripe Inc., Airbnb Inc. and Instacart. Only about 20% of startups that have gone through the program have failed, according to one analysis in 2020.
The program offers resources, training, mentorship and $500,000 in financial backing to the startups it accepts into the program. For the first $125,000, YC takes 7% equity in a company. For the remaining $375,000, the valuation will be set when a startup negotiates with other investors in the future.
