Paul Graham described Zuckerberg's early communication style as lacking small talk, stating, 'If there wasn't anything that he felt like saying, he would just go like this,' and demonstrated by staring at the camera. He found this surprisingly disconcerting, realizing the importance of small talk only when he encountered its absence.
Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan initially defended the choice on X. YC-backed Canadian startups that reincorporated in the US had twice the average valuation as those that didn't, he wrote. "There are lots of reasons to build great companies in Canada, and there are lots of great YC and non-YC startups that thrive and are making the Canadian tech scene great," he wrote a few hours later. "Where you are incorporated increases your access to capital. That's it."
When I was younger, I started an e-commerce grip socks brand called Alpha Grips. It failed, but that's what got me interested in business. I was 12. A lot of kids' first businesses is always something to do with e-commerce, like drop-shipping or clothing brands. Social media does saturate you with that "get rich quick" idea with drop-shipping or crypto. Although 90% of the time it's a scam, it still ignites an interest.
CEO George Cheng and CTO Dylan Nguyen cofounded Code Four, which is police radio lingo to indicate that a situation is under control. They say their technology reduces paperwork, allowing officers to spend more time in the field. The startup uses AI to generate reports from bodycam footage that can be used in court or for record-keeping purposes. Code Four can also redact footage and reports for records requests and generate transcriptions and summaries from video interviews and security footage.
Amogh Chaturvedi is running on little sleep but plenty of conviction at 6 a.m. He's groggy, apologetic for rescheduling, and still reeling from a recent scare involving a family member and an electric scooter. Within minutes, though, the 20-year-old Stanford dropout snaps into focus, walking me through how he and his co-founders sold one startup at 19, landed in Y Combinator, and raised $5 million for their next company, Human Behavior.
Khalid Ashmawy remembers the first time he wired money home while studying in Europe. He had just received his monthly stipend as a master's student in Stuttgart and wanted to send part of it back to his family in Cairo. It was usually a slow and expensive process, he recalled. A $400 wire transfer, for instance, could cost $40 in fees and take three business days to arrive.
Pig.dev, a startup from Y Combinator's Winter 2025 batch, initially aimed to develop agentic tech for Windows desktops but pivoted to Muscle Mem, a cache system for AI.
I'm very worried about them because what we're coming to understand is they are teaching you to lie. Software is the most empowering thing in the world. Why do you have to lie?
