ON THE ‘NEW' Y COMBINATOR

Summary from the TLDR Founders newsletter

YC's latest batches look like a time warp to its early days, but with an AI-era twist. The average founder is now 26, often a Stanford or MIT grad who left OpenAI, Stripe, or Google to build fast in San Francisco. Nearly 85% of YC startups are Bay Area–based, half the founders come from top 20 universities, and almost as many worked at top-tier employers. They're technical, pedigreed, and surrounded by alumni who've done it before.