Garry Tan

President & CEO @ycombinator —Founder @garryslist—Creator of GStack & GBrain—designer/engineer who helps founders—SF Dem accelerating the boom loop

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

Tech gave me everything I have

Its capacity to lift people into abundance is incredible and there is nothing like it

We must make that into prosperity for everyone

[Bloomberg Technology @technology]

"I realized tech is this thing that can bring people out of whatever situation they're in and often into prosperity. And that's what I want for everyone."

@ycombinator’s @garrytan tells @emilychangtv how tech changed his family's life.

Watch here: https://t.co/0HiusBQwCD

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

This new research on US unicorn startups is really interesting.

Some key facts from the report:

1. Immigrants founded or cofounded 455 of America’s 775 privately held billion-dollar startups, equal to 59% of all US unicorns.

2. 66% of all US unicorns were founded or cofounded by immigrants or the children of immigrants.

3. 79% of US unicorns have either an immigrant founder or an immigrant in a key leadership role.

4. The 455 immigrant-founded US unicorns have a combined valuation of $5 trillion.

5. That $5 trillion valuation is larger than the total stock-market value of companies listed in all but 7 countries.

6. Including immigrant-founded unicorns that went public since 2016 pushes the total value above $5.8 trillion.

7. The number of immigrant-founded US unicorns rose from 50 in 2018 to 455 in 2026.

8. 24% of US unicorns have a founder who first came to America as an international student.

[Jeff Lonsdale @JeffLonsdale]

Thank you Tom Steyer and Saikat Chakrabarti for demonstrating that rich people cannot actually buy elections, even when they cosplay as far left revolutionaries.

[Lee Edwards @terronk]

Beyond parody.

Saikat spent $10M of his own tech money to get a fraction of votes necessary to make the runoff, but wants to blame AIPAC spending less than that for his embarrassing defeat.

You cannot fathom how blessed we are to not have this fucking guy in Congress.

[Daniel Lurie 丹尼爾·羅偉 @DanielLurie]

To anyone who comes to San Francisco to commit crimes: we will find you, and we will prosecute you. On behalf of San Francisco, we are wishing Officer Brittney Taylor a full and speedy recovery. Our officers have our backs, and as mayor, I have theirs.

[Lee Edwards @terronk]

The clock cleanings will continue until candidates improve.

https://t.co/m9vnTZNmG1

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

The Pelley Firing Is Not a Free-Press Tragedy. It’s an Autopsy.

https://t.co/ewvRiCHRW3

[Jelani Nelson @minilek]

“In addition to overreliance on AI, Garcia also pointed out that many students are underprepared mathematically, a concern echoed by campus associate teaching professor Gireeja Ranade…

Both Garcia and Ranade have joined more than 1,300 UC faculty in signing a petition calling for the reinstatement of ACT and SAT standardized testing scores for STEM admissions in the UC system. The petition and its accompanying open letter detail similar concerns with students’ mathematical preparation.”

[Jesse Genet @jessegenet]

I'm so fucking bullish on the United States and so dismayed that the average citizen is not so fucking proud that the best fucking AI companies are US companies

Let's get it together folks 🇺🇸

Sry if you came for the gentle homeschool poasts and got this instead 😅

[Chris Elmendorf @CSElmendorf]

Sign of YIMBY times: a well-connected candidate for the S.F. Board of Supervisors who ran on opposition to upzoning got trounced 70%-30% in the richest district in the city.

I guess the neighborhood "felt that [she] failed that test."

[T Wolf 🌁 @Twolfrecovery]

A note of caution to elected leaders in San Francisco. It's critical you don't virtue signal. If you're going to ban mobile distribution of Crack pipes, then you need to actually ban it. There's little political risk here, only liability.

[Adish Jain ☕️ @_adishj]

we’re launching Motion, the frontier agent for tasteful motion design.

this launch video is made entirely with Motion. 👇🏽

QT + comment "MOTION" to get 1,000 free credits.

tag @motion_so in any X post for a surprise.

now generally available at motion [dot] so.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

San Francisco is healing. We don't fall for this type of ridiculous gaslighting anymore.

[New York Post @nypost]

Ex-AOC aide's $10M campaign ends in humiliation as he bombs in every precinct https://t.co/zpR7zAAAMW

[Frank Smith @frank_smith1111]

I still hold that @MattMahanSJ was the best candidate for CA Governor. Alas, he entered the race late, and most Californians keep voting along party lines regardless of results.

As centrists, we need to keep pushing the movement behind Matt into the mainstream. These are winning ideas, and they point to a different way of doing politics:

1. Zero ideology, outcomes first
2. Get government out of the way where it’s a hindrance
3. Clear accountability for results
4. Try innovative approaches, fail fast, iterate

This is how government should operate in the 21st century—and how we restore faith in it.

[Brooke Jenkins 謝安宜 @BrookeJenkinsSF]

1/ This April, @CaSupremeCourt ruled in a case titled “People v. Kowalczyk” that only individuals accused of violent crimes can be held without bail. For other accused criminals — including repeat offenders or drug dealers — bail must be set at a level that is “attainable.”

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

@MattMahanSJ Thank you Mayor Matt!

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

Some of the biggest companies of the next decade won't be software businesses. They'll be services companies like insurance carriers, law firms, and tax practices rebuilt from scratch with AI doing most of the work.

In this episode of Startup School, YC Visiting Partner @CharlieWarren walks through the playbook for building AI native services companies, covering how to pick a market with the right traits, why variance kills these businesses faster than anything else, and the P&L math that’ll transform your business model.

00:00 — Intro to AI Services Companies
01:01 — Picking the Right Market
02:55 — Markets YC Likes Right Now
03:43 — The Sam Altman Test
04:35 — The Right Founding Team
05:28 — Building the Product
06:19 — Variance Is the Existential Problem
07:08 — The Early Demand Trap
07:53 — How to Price AI Services
08:41 — The P&L Walkthrough
09:33 — AI Operating Leverage
10:27 — Don't Buy Your Way In

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

SF is pro-growth pro-business, and we have to keep winning

Keep voting, keep talking about the real issues, don't get distracted by culture war, keep building

[Andrew Jeffery @credealjunkie]

Pretty clear win for moderates in San Francisco's election yesterday.

Most outsiders think this shift started with the Nov 2024 election of Mayor Lurie.

But this movement started years prior.

From our SF multifamily pitch deck printed in 2023:

"Political winds are shifting towards pro-growth, pro-business, pro-safety. 2022 city elections began a clear, multi-year trend favoring moderate candidates, focused on safety and growth."

It was built on small win after small win at the grassroots level - in the living rooms of business people who stuck it out in SF post-pandemic and want to take back their city from forces whose policies were driving it into the ground.

There are many challenges yet to tackle and it will take time - but the city is on the right track to take them on.

[Paul Graham @paulg]

It's encouraging how the tech world has rallied round Ron Conway since he disclosed that he'd been diagnosed with cancer. So many people are helping him in so many different ways. It's really making a difference.

[Reed Schwartz @reedschwartzsf]

The map for Scott Wiener last night doesn't really track prog vs. mod, it tracks YIMBY vs. NIMBY. The bulk of precincts that went for Chan were conservative, high-homeownership, low-density areas on the West Side.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

If you've got to shard postgres, accept no substitutes

[Lev Kokotov @levpgdog]

1M PgDog downloads! 🚀🚀🚀