Joins YC
Thiel joins YC on Altman’s invitiation. Altman says Thiel won’t be able to invest in any companies while they’re in YC, or for 3 months after they present at Demo Day. Altman:
I’m delighted to announce Peter Thiel is joining YC as one of the (now 10!) part-time partners…He already works with a number of YC companies, and we’re very happy he’ll be working with more…We generally won’t bring on people that are involved with other investing firms given the obvious conflict, but Peter is so good we felt like we had to make an exception. We’re pretty paranoid about potential conflicts, and we’ll continually evaluate this and change it if it’s not working…On a personal note, Peter is one of the two people (along with PG) who has taught me the most about how to invest in startups. I am confident that Peter joining will be great for YC.
Quora joins Y Combinator
Altman invites the question-and-answer site to be the first late-stage participant:
I don’t know if [Quora] will develop a new product that they did not already have in the works as a result of being at Y Combinator…But we think we can help them with certain areas like hiring… And we think they can help our community a great deal.
Loopt joins Y Combinator
Loopt joins the inaugural batch and receives a reported $6,000. Altman says the money-saving culture at Y Combinator, which extends to things like readymade meals, helps develop the location-based mobile app company develop:
That culture of frugality and discipline is really important for the Y Combinator mindset. The start-ups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.