Only minor tweak I'd make is for the desktop viewport size - make it so you can also click the company names instead of needing to precisely scroll for the images to show up for that company. With notched mouse wheels it's all too easy to skip one even with a regular scroll. Or increase the scroll distance.

Also might suggest using a gradient mask to fade out the company logos as you scroll the primary text block up. Some of them get very close to the text and the one-by-one removal feels a tad distracting.

And really minor but kept finding myself trying to click the photos to see things larger. Would be nice if they could come up in a media viewer with a small caption, and let me arrow key or swipe through.

This is followed by a series of before and after pictures. YC offers not money but personal transformation. Their standard offer of $500,000 for 7% is not mentioned on the homepage, maybe because it would invite comparison ... when you see numbers like this your first thought is: I wonder what other accelators offer? The before and after pictures are something no other accelator can compete with.

The movie posters behind look like garbage, and what's wrong with that Return of the Jedi poster? Why is there a random blob and a broken face at the top instead of Darth Vader?

And why is there a random Google+ logo on the left?

And why does Fred Ehrsam have a huge thumb and silky smooth legs?

[1] https://bookface-static.ycombinator.com/assets/ycdc/beforevs...

A minor piece of feedback, though: might be just me, not sure if anyone else has this pavlovian conditioning, but seeing the black banner/bar on top with the YC logo/color below and HN background color immediately makes me think someone passed away.

One suggestion: adding a quick filter by batch year or industry would make it easier to browse. Sometimes I want to see what's new in a specific space like AI or dev tools.

YC turns builders

nto formidable founders

And a little dirt next to founders.

(I do sense artifice. Possibly wrongly.)

Brands are resurrected in fashion all the time with new designers, CEOs and owners while keeping the name, heritage (codes/motifs/archive,) goodwill and stores intact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_house) is 70% owned by the Qatari royal family.

You could even have the ex-founders sit on a steering committee or advisory board for the switcheroo mob who could be their new bosses.

With all the unemployment around, startup musical chairs could be a solution. Isn't founders' equity the only valuable thing left in the startup world? No chance in getting rich as an employee - and with AI, who is/will not be replaceable? Also, finding the right people from the get-go is another significant challenge, and users of course.

Why don't those inactive companies share their failure stories to find some value-add? It's 2026: they could be mere hours away from an IPO horizon :)

This is rather dark actually. True, too. Props to Y Combinator for not trying to sugarcoat things!

The whole aesthetic of startup success—those triumphant IPO bell-ringing moments—celebrates money, not wisdom or authentic progress. I’m aware this is the dominant framework, but that doesn’t make it feel less hollow. Welcome to Heartbreak.

(I know the previous deal was different but just to get an estimate ...)

500k to each of 5,000+ startups = 2.5 billion

in exchange of

7% of 1.3 trillion = 91 billion

~36x return.

It's even better than that as they invest, on average, less than 500k and get, on average, more than 7% equity. (But they also get diluted, so, who knows).

Of note, that 1.3 trillion follows a comically long tailed distribution.

OpenAI is 500B.

Stripe+Doordash+Airbnb+Coinbase+Reddit+Scale is 400B.

The remainder is 5,000+ companies.

New YC page looks great – but it just doesn't feel "yc" to me.

That thing hasn't been updated in years, and could really use some love. If they don't want to do it themselves, just open source the sub-site and I'm sure a bunch of tech founders will happily do it for them (if only to be able to say they contributed to YC itself).

Yeah, especially laws and regulations.

"YC turns builders into formidable founders" - and then a bs faux-definition of formidable.

Sometimes folks need to be stopped. Sometimes those walls are there for a reason.

And after IPO, maybe a founder should consider the good of the world instead of what you think you want next for yourself and just bashing down more walls.

But I dunno… I’m just a rando.

The "after" pictures display a uniformly grim corporate homogeneity.

Maybe this is because the "before" pictures are unguarded, taken before the kool-aid sank in. But they still show people who queued up to drink that kool-aid.

It's a "no" from me.

I get that the subtext isn’t dishonest, but cmon, you know what you’re doing

Notice how they omit any mention of Loopt, and almost try to imply that he's famous for founding OpenAI, when the trajectory was really Loopt -> YC President -> other stuff -> OpenAI, and Loopt was a failure that was acquired for barely more than it raised in VC money, and spent its waning days as a seedy gay hookup app.

Sam's success was preordained, and failure, for him (and his VC backers), was never an option.

Obstacles are also any legal constraints that will break and pay later in fines, like Airbnb.

Dictator is another name.

"Here is an awful photo of our star founders. Look at how terribly they looked and what awkward nerds they used to be, when they came here."

You need to fire whoever green lit this.

Love this quote