Y Combinator Startup Podcast

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What Surprised Us Most In 2025

2025 was the year AI stopped feeling chaotic and started feeling buildable. In this Lightcone episode, the YC partners break down the surprises of the year, from shifting model dominance to why the real opportunity is moving back to the application layer, and why the next wave of AI startups may be just getting started.

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  How Intelligent Is AI, Really?

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  The End of the Designer–Engineer Divide

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  From Pivot Hell To $1.4 Billion Unicorn

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  The Best Consumer Startup Ideas Were "Impossible" Until Now

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  Cursor Head of Design Reviews Startup Websites

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  Inside The Startup Launching AI Into Space

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  How To Recruit The Best Engineers And Sales Reps

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  From Idea to $650M Exit: Lessons in Building AI Startups

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  Transformers: The Discovery That Sparked the AI Revolution

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  YC Partners Answer Your Questions | Office Hours

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  What Everyone Is Getting Wrong About AI And Jobs

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  How To Design Products That Truly Stand Out

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  The World's First Commercial Mobile Carbon Capture Device

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  Every AI Founder Should Be Asking These Questions

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  Anthropic Head of Pretraining on Scaling Laws, Compute, and the Future of …