What Founder Mode Really Means

At YC, we're seeing more and more people in their 20s taking the leap and starting their own companies.In this episode, Dalton & Michael share their advice on how young founders can get a head start and hit the ground running in their startup journey.

When it comes to building a successful startup, focus is critical. But how do you know if you’re spending time on the right things? In this episode, Dalton and Michael share advice for how to break through the noise and zero in on solving the problems that matter most for your business.

How should you navigate your 20s - the most important decade in your life? For many people, it’s an age with fewer responsibilities: no kids, no mortgage, no restrictions. And so it’s actually the best possible time to go hardcore: to take risks, invest in yourself, and surround yourself with like-minded people. In this episode, Dalton & Michael share their thoughts on how to live your 20s - founder or not.

Thanks to advances in AI, we're currently living through one of the biggest technological shifts in a generation. And things aren't slowing down anytime soon. So now the question is, what should you do about it? In this episode, Dalton and Michael break down several steps you can take right now to leverage the latest tools and set yourself up for success in the age of AI.

You know what they say, to understand the future, look to the past. Since the early 2000s, Apple and Facebook (now Meta) have been battling over who controls the consumer market. Facebook arguably dominated the web era, while Apple took over during the mobile era starting in the late 2000s. Now, as we enter the AI era, Dalton + Michael discuss who's pulling ahead, and what that means for startups trying to break into the crowded consumer market.

Thanks to a recent talk by Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky and a follow up essay by Paul Graham, the concept of "founder mode" is everywhere. But what does it mean and who does it really apply to? In this episode, Dalton and Michael break through the noise to find out what lessons can be learned from going all in on "founder mode."

As Dalton & Michael have discussed before, ZIRP stands for “Zero Interest Rate Policy” which refers to when the Federal Reserve sets interest rates around 0% and banks were able to borrow money for almost nothing. This phenomenon had a profound impact on tech throughout the pandemic and many companies are still readjusting. In this episode, Dalton & Michael examine how to know whether your company is recovering from a bad case of ZIRP (aka Zirpes) and how to know if it may be time to leave and do something else.

Space travel, the Internet, cryptocurrency — these huge leaps in technology were fueled at least in some part by distrust and fear of others. In this episode, Dalton & Michael discuss the origins of some of the biggest innovations over the last 75 years.

Remember how in "The Matrix," Neo found out that human beings were really just being used as batteries to power the machines that enslaved them? In a sense, social media companies are now the machines, and we, the users, have become the batteries. With that in mind, Dalton and Michael discuss what to be aware of as we engage online and how we can leverage the social media matrix to our benefit.

Whether it's career advancement, leaving a positive mark at an org, or raising funds for your startup, the ability to convince and influence decision-makers is a vital skillset to develop. In this video, Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel discuss actions you can take to be more persuasive and create more favorable outcomes for yourself.