Software is cheap to start. Robots, GPU clusters, and data centers are not. The physical AI buildout will need new ways to finance steel and silicon: lenders, leasing companies, securitization, and hedging products designed around machines and compute. Every great infrastructure boom created financial giants alongside it. Apply for the Winter 2027 batch at ycombinator.com/apply.
Google, Anthropic, and Databricks were all started by founders with PhDs. But they’re the exceptions. Most academic founders fail, because the instincts that get you published are the ones that can ge
A lot of what makes a great engineer also makes a great founder. Before starting Layers and BootLoop, Shivani Patel and Chris Markus worked at SpaceX, where they learned to take ideas from zero to one
Blacksmith (YC W24) is building a faster cloud for continuous integration (CI), helping developers test and ship code as AI coding tools generate more of it. As software production accelerates, testin
In this episode of the Lightcone, the hosts sit down with Paul Copplestone, co-founder and CEO of Supabase. Since starting in the YC summer batch of 2020, the company has exploded to 13 million users
Some of the most valuable data in the world can never leave the building. Defense contractors, banks, hospitals, and nuclear plants can’t simply send it to a cloud AI API. That creates an opportunity
In some cities, getting a building permit takes longer than building the house. AI can help with plan reviews, zoning checks, inspections, licensing, public records, and other work that still happens
LLMs have gotten much better at coding and math, but their writing increasingly sounds flat and robotic. The same reward signals that improve coding and agentic work can flatten voice and style. That
General-purpose AI is getting incredibly capable, but many industrial problems don’t need a giant model that can do everything. Specialized foundation models for manufacturing, energy, and biology cou
Most companies building with AI still rent their intelligence from frontier labs. As open models improve, more companies will want models they can run, train, and control themselves. The opportunity i
Applying for government benefits means proving the same facts again and again across systems that don’t talk to each other. That creates friction for honest applicants and openings for fraud. Governme
The AI data center buildout is creating shortages far beyond GPUs and power. Transformers take years to get, while switchgear, circuit breakers, cooling systems, and specialized steel are all becoming
