“Y Combinator = Growth: YC President Geoff Ralston Says He Isn’t Worried about the Competition”, 2021-12-09 (; backlinks):
…Geoff Ralston is no Sam Altman—and that’s part of the reason why I wanted to talk to him.
The media seems to have an endless appetite for writing about Ralston’s predecessor. Whether it’s getting profiled in The New Yorker, or, more recently, when The Information launched its new weekend section, former YC President Sam Altman is a perpetual headline Silicon Valley character. For The Information piece, Altman’s PR fixer at OpenAI, where Altman is now chief executive officer, suggested the reporter talk to the ultra-networker Diane von Fürstenberg. She apparently compared Altman to both Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein. Now that’s a good friend.
Altman may be among the most connected people in Silicon Valley, but he’s no longer formally tied to Y Combinator. The firm transitioned him from president to chairman and then after saying he would be an advisor, he ended up unaffiliated. (The choreographed exit was accompanied by a quiet edit of his Wikipedia page). In his place, came Ralston, who first joined Y Combinator a decade ago.
…Ralston’s top priority seems to be about turning Y Combinator into a timeless institution and about broadening its reach. He clearly wants it to have the longevity of a Sequoia, which is almost 50 years old. “I need to build an institution, or help build an institution, that’s durable and solid, and that can continue to do that for a very long period of time”, Ralston told me.
…So I wanted to know what to make of the Ralston era of YC so far. Y Combinator is a startup-creation machine that keeps whirring no matter the personnel. That is part of the reason the Altman regime rankled some YC insiders—Altman had a tendency to make it about himself when in reality YC is largely about the process. Partners come and go. Close watchers will note that longtime YC partners Aaron Harris, Adora Cheung, and Eric Migicovsky have left in the past year.