Most accelerators fund ideas. Y Combinator funds founders—and transforms them. With a 1% acceptance rate and alumni behind 60% of the past decade’s unicorns, YC knows what separates the founders who break through from those who burn out. It's not the flashiest résumé or the boldest pitch but something President Garry Tan says is far rarer: earnestness. In th ... Show More
Nov 11
The Brutal Truth About Success No One Talks About | Panera Founder Ron Shaich
Restauranteur Ron Shaich reveals how he built the fast casual industry, scale a business, and spot the trends before they happen.
Ron Shaich is an entrepreneur and investor. He was the founder and former CEO of Panera Bread and Au Bon Pain, generating 25% annualized returns a ... Show More
1h 43m
Oct 2024
AI Startups: The Next Big Thing
<p>In this episode, Jaeden and Jamie discuss the latest trends in AI investment, highlighting key players and innovative startups that are shaping the future of technology. They explore the significance of funding in driving disruption across various industries, including finance ... Show More
11m 49s
Jun 2025
Building Cluely: The Viral AI Startup that raised $15M in 10 Weeks
<p>What if virality wasn’t a tactic — but the entire product?</p><p>In this episode, a16z General Partners Erik Torenberg and Bryan Kim sit down with Roy Lee, cofounder and CEO of Cluely, one of the most talked-about consumer AI startups of 2025. Cluely didn’t raise a mega round ... Show More
38m 24s
May 2024
How YC fosters AI Innovation with Garry Tan
Garry Tan is a notorious founder-turned-investor who is now running one of the most prestigious accelerators in the world, Y Combinator. As the president and CEO of YC, Garry has been credited with reinvigorating the program. On this week’s episode of No Priors, Sarah, Elad, and ... Show More
39m 59s
Jul 2025
#85 AI CEO: How To Make A $10M Business With AI Employees (Amjad Masad, CEO @ Replit)
In this episode, host Codie Sanchez sits down with Amjad Masad, CEO of Replit, to discuss the transformative potential of AI in the tech industry. Amjad shares his journey from coding at age six in Jordan to leading one of the fastest-growing AI companies. He offers insights into ... Show More
1h 37m
Jul 2025
Anthropic co-founder on quitting OpenAI, AGI predictions, $100M talent wars, 20% unemployment, and the nightmare scenarios keeping him up at night | Ben Mann
Benjamin Mann is a co-founder of Anthropic, an AI startup dedicated to building aligned, safety-first AI systems. Prior to Anthropic, Ben was one of the architects of GPT-3 at OpenAI. He left OpenAI driven by the mission to ensure that AI benefits humanity. In this episode, Ben o ... Show More
1h 14m
Sep 18
Why experts writing AI evals is creating the fastest-growing companies in history | Brendan Foody (CEO of Mercor)
Brendan Foody is the CEO and co-founder of Mercor, the fastest-growing company in history to go from $1M to $500M in revenue (in just 17 months!). At 22, he is also the youngest American unicorn founder ever. Mercor works with 6 of the Magnificent 7 and all top 5 AI labs to help ... Show More
1h 6m
Sep 11
$46B of hard truths from Ben Horowitz: Why founders fail and why you need to run toward fear (a16z co-founder)
Ben Horowitz is the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, Silicon Valley’s largest and most influential venture capital firm, with over $46B in committed capital across multiple funds. He took Loudcloud public with just $2 million in revenue (dubbed “the IPO from hell”), sold it for ... Show More
1h 37m
Aug 28
How 80,000 companies build with AI: products as organisms, the death of org charts, and why agents will outnumber employees by 2026 | Asha Sharma (CVP of AI Platform at Microsoft)
Asha Sharma leads AI product strategy at Microsoft, where she works with thousands of companies building AI products and has unique visibility into what’s working (and what’s not) across more than 15,000 startups and enterprises. Before Microsoft, Asha was COO at Instacart, and V ... Show More
57m 11s