sam altman
Hacker News calls for “political detox,” critics cry censorship
Can social media even exist without political debate? What about trolls? Hacker News, the social news site run by Y Combinator, is trying to find out. The head of the Hacker…
OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research non-profit backed by Tesla’s Elon Musk, Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, a Donald Trump fan called Peter Thiel, and numerous other tech luminaries, is partnering with Microsoft…
Advancements in artificial intelligence should be kept in the public eye
Artificial intelligence allows machines to reason and interact with the world, and it’s evolving at a breakneck pace. Now consider that most of our data, the best minds in the…
Comparing the politics of Trump and his Silicon Valley surrogate Peter Thiel
It’s been a weird year for Peter Thiel. The always contrarian investor has managed to stir up quite a bit of ill will with his shadowy support of the lawsuit that…
With a new CEO, Y Combinator will wind down fellowships and start a MOOC
Y Combinator, which has been expanding rapidly in recent years, is making broad, organizational changes– for the second time this year. Most dramatically, Y Combinator will be winding down its…
YCombinator makes every SimCity player’s dream reality with new research initiative
Ever wanted to design a city from scratch? All those years tinkering with SimCity and Legos are going to finally start paying dividends for a lucky few. YCombinator is looking for…
You know what to do at work today, but do you know why? Goals. Having clear goals is critical to keeping productivity and morale high on any team. Whether it’s…
Jeremy Guillory, who says he was ousted as Cruise co-founder, files counter-complaint
A strange new battle over valuable startup equity took another step forward late this afternoon. Jeremy Guillory, a Bay Area mechanical engineer, has filed a cross-complaint against 2.5-year-old Cruise Automation and…
Task management app Asana raises $50M at a $600M valuation led by YC’s Sam Altman
Asana, an enterprise app that lets people set and track projects and other goals, has hit a goal of its own: today, the company is announcing that it has raised $50 million. The…
We recently marked the 112th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first powered, manned flight. The flight lasted 12 seconds. That one-fifth of a minute has continuously reverberated throughout technological advancements…
YC Switches Up Its Management, As Altman Shifts Focus
Famed accelerator Y Combinator has grown a lot under the direction of Sam Altman, who was appointed president roughly two years ago. It’s grown so much in fact that Altman, known…
Artificial Intelligence Nonprofit OpenAI Launches With Backing From Elon Musk And Sam Altman
Today, OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company was announced to the world. Its director, Ilya Sutskever, is a research scientist at Google. This comes a day after Facebook open-sourced its AI…
Garry Tan Says Goodbye to Y Combinator
Garry Tan is leaving the accelerator and investment firm Y Combinator after a four-year stint with the outfit. Tan had previously cofounded the easy-to-use blogging service Posterous, which was backed by Y…
Elon Musk, Sam Altman Predict Self-Driving Cars Will Be On The Road In Just A Few Years
Elon Musk and Sam Altman discussed everything from alien life to nuclear fusion onstage at the Vanity Fair Summit on Tuesday, including how soon we can expect to get our cars to…
Y Combinator President Sam Altman: I’m an Optimist, But I’m Not Optimistic About Government
At Disrupt today, Y Combinator Sam Altman had a somewhat gloomy prediction for attendees and the broader audience following the conference: If the state and federal government “can’t get its…
Meet The Disrupt SF 2015 Speakers And Judges
Disrupt SF is just a few weeks away, and we have some of the most iconic entrepreneurs and thought leaders in the tech industry lined up to speak throughout the…
Perfume subscription platform Scentbird was once just for the ladies. But participation in Y Combinator influenced the startup to create a men’s cologne service, Scentbird Men. Scentbird launched out of…
Ginkgo Bioworks Takes On Zymergen With $45 Million In Series B Funding
Boston biotech startup Ginkgo Bioworks just gained an extra $45 million in Series B funding from an “oversubscribed” list of investors. The startup raised $9 million in March, so that…
Y Combinator President Sam Altman to Take the Stage at Disrupt SF 2015
He’s the former co-founder of the social startup Loopt, which was funded by his current company — Y Combinator — in 2005 and acquired by the Green Dot Corporation in…
Y Combinator’s Sam Altman On The Elements Of A Successful Startup
You don’t have to have millions of dollars or the best team possible to launch a winning startup. What you do need to have, however, is passion according to Sam…
Y Combinator-Backed Bright Aims To Bring Solar Power To Mexico
Jonah Greenberger envisions Mexico’s rooftops covered in cost-effective, environmentally friendly, dark blue solar panels. The 28-year-old founder of Y Combinator-backed solar power startup Bright left his job working in fossil…
Reddit Plans Its Own Cryptocurrency To Give Back To Its Users After $50 Million Raise
Reddit, the so-called front page of the internet, has raised $50 million in Series B on a $500 million valuation with intentions to give back 10 percent of the round’s…
Y Combinator Will Teach A Class On Startups At Stanford This Fall
Startup accelerator Y Combinator is an undeniably helpful resource for entrepreneurs looking for mentorship through the tough process of building a company. Unfortunately, it’s a very resource-intense program, in that…
Y Combinator’s president Sam Altman dropped some big stats about his prestigious startup accelerator today. But there’s a few he left out that can be estimated based on his announcement…
Y Combinator Calls For Strict Net Neutrality Rules, Reclassification Of Broadband Under Title II
Early this afternoon Y Combinator released a letter, written by its own Alexis Ohanian, calling on the FCC to abandon its current plan to pursue net neutrality regulation under Section…
Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, has just posted a blog post announcing the Board of Overseers at the world’s most successful accelerator. The list includes Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky,…
Y Combinator Squares Up To 500 Startups, Takes Its One-Day Event International
Y Combinator, the mother of tech accelerators, says it is not planning to run its three-month YC program anywhere but Mountain View, but it is definitely starting to look further…
