Who are the founders of Y Combinator? What is their startup philosophy?

Of course, this is quite an interesting topic to discuss.

Y Combinator (which we usually abbreviate as YC) has several founders, but the true spiritual leader is Paul Graham.

You can imagine the founding team as a band:

• Paul Graham: He's the lead singer and songwriter. Most of YC's startup philosophy and essays come from him. He is YC's spiritual leader and is widely recognized as one of Silicon Valley's startup gurus.
• Jessica Livingston: She is Paul's wife, and you could say she's the shrewd manager of the band. She has a keen eye, is good at identifying talent, and oversees many of YC's interview sessions. She also wrote "Founders at Work," interviewing many successful founders, gaining a deep understanding of the entrepreneurial mindset and challenges.
• Trevor Blackwell and Robert Tappan Morris: These two are top-tier tech experts, like the talented musicians in the band, providing a solid technical background and support for YC's establishment.

As for their startup philosophy, this is where YC's true value lies. This set of philosophies has influenced an entire generation of entrepreneurs, and it's not complicated at all, but very down-to-earth. Let me summarize a few core points for you:

1. Make Something People Want This is YC's "first commandment." Sounds simple, right? But countless startups have died because they built "something they thought was cool, but no one was willing to pay for." YC repeatedly emphasizes that entrepreneurship is not about realizing your technical fantasies, but about finding a small group of people who have a very painful problem, and your product happens to solve it for them.

2. Do Things That Don't Scale This might sound counterintuitive. It means that in the very beginning, don't always think about systems and automation. You should use the "clumsiest" methods to acquire your first users. For example, in the early days of Airbnb, the founders personally went to take photos of hosts' rooms and helped them upload them one by one. This manual work certainly can't be done when you have ten thousand hosts, but it's precisely this "clumsy method" that helped you gain your first 10, then 100, loyal fans.

3. Launch Fast, then Iterate Don't always try to perfect a "big move" before launching it to the market. YC's philosophy is that you should quickly build a very basic but usable product (what we call an MVP, Minimum Viable Product), then release it immediately to see the market's reaction. Real user feedback is more valuable than a hundred meetings. Based on feedback, quickly modify and release new versions, growing like a snowball.

4. Founders are More Important Than Ideas YC actually invests in "people." They believe that a good idea might change, and the market might change, but a tenacious, smart, and highly adaptable founding team will always find a way out. So, during their interviews, they place great importance on the qualities of the founders: Are you a "cockroach" that can't be killed no matter how hard you try? Is your relationship with your co-founder solid?

5. Focus on Growth and Talk to Users YC requires startups to focus on one core metric: weekly growth rate (e.g., 7% weekly growth in users or revenue). This simple requirement forces you to put all your energy into the most important things. And the only secret to achieving growth is: constantly talk to your users. Understand what they like, what they dislike, and what else they need. Paul Graham has a classic summary: "Write code, talk to users." For early-stage startups, doing these two things well is enough.

In summary, YC's philosophy is a very pragmatic, user-centric "combo punch" that emphasizes fast action. It simplifies the complex entrepreneurial process into a few actionable core principles, bringing you back to common sense: solve real problems, serve users well, and then run as fast as you can.