Garry Tan
President and CEO of Y Combinator, General Partner
Garry Tan
Garry Tan is president and CEO of Y Combinator and a General Partner. He was a partner at Y Combinator from 2011 to 2015, where he built key parts of the YC experience for founders including Bookface and the Demo Day website. Garry is the co-founder of Initialized Capital and Posterous (YC S08), a blog platform acquired by Twitter, and prior to that, he was an early designer and engineering manager at Palantir (NYSE:PLTR), where he designed the company logo. Garry holds a BS in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford.
YC Stats
- The companies Garry has worked with are worth a combined $226 billion.
- Garry has read more than 6,000 YC applications.
- He's advised more than 35 unicorns including: Bellabeat, Coinbase, Algolia, Checkr, Segment, Benchling, Cruise, Front, DoorDash, EasyPost, GoCardless, GOAT Group, Fivetran, Flexport, Helion Energy, Apollo, Instacart, Mixpanel, Twitch, PagerDuty, ShipBob, SmartAsset, Snapdocs, Amplitude, Gusto, Sift, Webflow, GrubMarket, EquipmentShare, Zapier, Razorpay, Teleport, Xendit, Outschool, and Astranis.
Recent Posts
In the News
- Forbes: Y Combinator Names Venture Capitalist Garry Tan As Its Next President
- Axios: Y Combinator's Garry Tan on Zoom fundraising and not having a boss
- Bloomberg: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan Talks Startups
- Fortune: Garry Tan breaks down the key metric in Y Combinator's new list of top startups
- CNBC: Y Combinator's Garry Tan estimates hundreds of startups will be unable to make payroll after SVB closure
- Inc: What Garry Tan Has Learned About Startups After Founding 2 Companies--and Advising More Than 700
- Forbes: 2023 Midas List
- John Coogan: Interviewing the CEO of Y Combinator
On Twitter
@garrytan · June 14, 2023
An est. 4.5% of the startups that have gone through Y Combinator since 2010 have become billion-dollar companies. Between 2010 and 2015 [the rate] was even higher, at approximately 5.4% of all startups. 2/3 of total value has come from its unicorns.
@garrytan · April 7, 2023
Founders comparing early stage round valuations is like comparing the color of shoes at the beginning of a marathon
@garrytan · June 14, 2023
Y Combinator changed my life. It's the best community I've ever lucked into being a part of. The outcomes are head and shoulders better than any other program of its type. My pledge to you is that we will do even more to help founders than ever.