General Partner @ycombinator, helping founders build iconic startups. Swiss designer, MIT engineer, founder Cron (acq by Notion). I run through forests.
Joined July 2008
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Life update: dropping the "Visiting" — I'm joining @ycombinator as a General Partner 🤩
YC was my first choice as a founder in 2019. Seven years later, I'm choosing it again.
This past year, I got to come full circle: working with founders through the W26 and S26 batches, helping them turn early ideas into products people love.
I'm incredibly excited to keep finding founders and helping them build the iconic companies of this generation 🔥
I wake up, new personal assistant drops.
I wake up, …
Raphael Schaad retweeted
Today, Notion AI gets some major upgrades. Introducing:
→ More capable Notion Agents
→ A smarter Auto (frontier results, 90% cheaper)
→ Bring your own AI (BYOK)
→ Improved Notion MCP
→ AI Command Center (coming soon)
→ A new credit system
Let’s get into it 👇
Connected a model to my Spotify.
Asked it to analyze my taste.
"Nocturnal, rhythmic, and slightly off-center."
🦉🔊🤙
Apple now feels like an appliance.
With AI, Linux feels like the Macintosh.
And OpenClaw feels like Linux all over again.
Old to-do (circa 2021) from the very first 1,000 Cronboardings. Did each personally & learned so much.
Good draft language! (highlighted)
Everything starts small.
Just read about ~150 investor update emails this morning. Before my context window compresses …
… here's what the best startups do after the YC batch:
- Focus on growth. 'if grew last month, do , else try ' This algorithm is simplified, but you get the idea.
- Have a through line month-to-month. Good founders reflect, push, learn constantly. Bad is when every update reads like a totally new set of goals/ideas.
- Write company updates in the first place!
Raphael Schaad retweeted
Life update: dropping the "Visiting" — I'm joining @ycombinator as a General Partner 🤩
YC was my first choice as a founder in 2019. Seven years later, I'm choosing it again.
This past year, I got to come full circle: working with founders through the W26 and S26 batches, helping them turn early ideas into products people love.
I'm incredibly excited to keep finding founders and helping them build the iconic companies of this generation 🔥
Week complete.
Distance 108k · Time 9h · Elevation 1,134 m
Easy milage, Threshold intervals, Marathon pace.
Mostly Central Park, capping it in California.
Do hard things.
Get this: the union is protesting that "the regime could let companies offer stock options instead of wages" 🤦♂️
Simple & tax-efficient stock-based comp is the only way for young companies to incentivize their workers, and for workers to get outsized rewards.
Protesting an EU-INC company law that doesn’t even exist yet because it might have downsides is peak European self-sabotage.
You want higher wages? Make Europe the best place in the world to start and grow a business. European founders still face 27 systems, endless friction and brutal regulations – and too few reasons to build here instead of in the US.
These people spend their working hours and money fighting a potential reform. Try building a business here and see how hard it is.
We need an economy where successful businesses can grow – and workers can participate in that success (via higher wages AND stock options). #EUInc
Special thanks to @bradflora and @snowmaker — it's been a ton of fun to work with you, learn from you, and help our W26 and S26 founders respectively.
I have no doubt that some of them will go on and become important companies and we'll fondly look back on these batches.
Read more: ycombinator.com/blog/welcome…
Thank you @garrytan and the whole YC team for the trust 🧡
Raphael Schaad retweeted
We’re excited to welcome @vivianmshen and @raphaelschaad as YC’s newest General Partners!
Vivian and Raphael first came to YC as founders.
Vivian co-founded Juni Learning (W18), which teaches kids coding and math, and later founded Acely, an AI tutor for college prep. Raphael founded Cron (W20), the calendar app that became Notion Calendar.
They built products used by millions of people, then returned to YC as Visiting Partners to help other founders. Now they're doing it full-time.
ycombinator.com/blog/welcome…
OAI feels like Google in the 2000s when they were just throwing spaghetti and trying to do everything because they were the best AJAX engineers and everything felt for grabs.
A couple things will stick, but impossible they'll own all the areas they move in on. Exciting times.
