Y Combinator CEO on How AI is Changing What Startups Build

**Ryan Knutson** (0:05)
If you want to know how AI is going to change the workplace, one of the best places to look is at startups. And there's probably no one more steeped in the world of startups than this guy.

**Garry Tan** (0:16)
Hi, my name is Garry Tan, and I'm the president and CEO at Y Combinator.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:21)
If you haven't heard of Y Combinator, you've definitely heard of some of the startups that's helped launch. Airbnb, DoorDash, Coinbase.
YC, as it's commonly known, is a startup incubator. Garry says it gets about 100,000 applications every year, but only a few startups get accepted. Those that are get up to a half a million dollar investment. Garry prolifically posts about his AI use, and he says that AI is changing everything about how companies are being created these days. And it's also changing how he works as a CEO.
Last month, I got on a call with Garry. He was in San Francisco and I was in a studio overlooking Times Square. If you want to see a video of our conversation, head to Spotify.
You use AI agents a lot. You've talked a lot about how ways you're putting it into your life. What are you having it do and what do you find that it's most useful at?

**Garry Tan** (1:18)
I mean, I think of it as like self-driving rocket for the mind. And so, like back in the day, you might have to have a team of a hundred or a thousand people to get done something that now only takes like 10 or 15 people. And so, I think that incrementally, this means that we need to boil the ocean. We need to increase the ambition of founders, and there are just more things that people should be doing.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:47)
How long do you think it will be until AI is as good at your job as you are?

**Garry Tan** (1:55)
It can't prompt yet. So, I'm on the lookout for that. I actually stopped drinking in February because I found that even having a single beer would make it much, much harder to think about code and run coding agents. But I would say I'm going to start drinking again when the coding agents don't need me anymore.
I would guess that that's sometime in the next six to 18 months.

**Ryan Knutson** (2:27)
Wow, that's soon.

**Garry Tan** (2:29)
Yeah.

**Ryan Knutson** (2:29)
I mean, are you worried though about your own influence?

**Garry Tan** (2:33)
I think the most important thing at that point will still be the most important thing. It'll be knowing what to build. It'll be that you still need a human. You still need a human who knows other humans. You still need to understand context. You still need to figure out, well, what do people want and why? And then, how do I build a thing?
The mechanics of it get easier and easier, but knowing what to build and knowing what to want is still a very, very human thing.

**Ryan Knutson** (3:03)
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knutson.
Coming up on the show, a conversation with Garry Tan about AI and startups.

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**Ryan Knutson** (4:34)
So I want to talk mostly about AI today. There are seem to be two extreme views of where AI might take us. On the one hand, there's people that worry about an AI apocalypse, that it might bring about the end of humanity, and there is another end of the spectrum. There are people who think that it could bring about a utopia in the future.
Where do you fall on that spectrum?

**Garry Tan** (4:57)
I mean, I think it's going to be different, and utopia is probably too, like things are going to change, and anytime the cheese is moved, they're going to be winners and losers.