The Social Radars

Paul Graham is back in the latest episode of The Social Radars. This time we focus on what was going on behind the scenes at Y Combinator back in the early years. If you really want to understand what YC is like and what made it that way, this is the episode for you.

In the latest episode of The Social Radars, we talk to Peter Reinhardt, who has the distinction of having started two iconic companies that are completely different from one another: Segment, which does web analytics, and Charm Industrial, which catches CO2 before it can return to the atmosphere and buries it in the ground.

In today's episode of The Social Radars, we talk to Tom Blomfield, founder and original CEO of the transformative British fintech startup Monzo, and now a YC partner. The striking thing about this interview is simply how much has happened to him. Tom has spent his entire working life in startups and it has been a remarkably wild ride even by startup standards.

In this episode we talk with Spenser Skates of Amplitude. Amplitude is a spectacular example of a something people talk a lot about in Silicon Valley: the pivot. Their initial idea failed because they depended on technology they didn't have enough control over, but the new one was so successful that they took it all the way to an IPO.

In this episode of The Social Radars we talk to Christina Cacioppo of Vanta. Christina is a case study in agency. She actually did all the things founders know they ought to do but don't have the discipline to. She taught herself to code. She solved an unsexy but real problem. She focused on talking to customers instead of investors. She even put put off raising a Series A (despite inbound interest) till Vanta had $10M in ARR.

In today's episode we talk to the founder of a startup that will have momentous consequences for the whole world if it works: David Kirtley, Founder & CEO of Helion Energy, who is building an actual fusion power plant. Fusion has always been something that was 20 years in the future. Not anymore. The new Helion model, which they're constructing right now, is going to achieve net electricity production.

In the latest episode we talk to one of the great YC insiders, Jared Friedman, who was in the third batch back in summer 2006, as cofounder of Scribd, and who has worked since 2015 as a YC partner. Jared really embodies the spirit of YC. He's incisive, but also a mensch, as you'll notice when you listen to the episode.

Jessica & Carolynn Announce Season 5 of The Social Radars

In today’s episode, we talk to Blake Scholl, Founder & CEO of Boom Supersonic. Building a supersonic airliner sounds hard, and it is: startups often have dramatic ups and downs, but Boom’s are among the most dramatic we’ve heard. His story was a gripping series of last-minute saves.

In today's Social Radars, we talk to Sajith Wickramasekara of Benchling. For Sajith, founder mode means a pervasive feeling of responsibility for everything at the company. Nothing can be bad at Benchling.