Summary
Although I’ve been a member of Hacker News for 13 years, I knew surprisingly little about the Y Combinator program and its founders.
After reading these, Y Combinator felt less mysterious and more like a grad school program for startups with Paul Graham serving as professor.
Enjoy!
The Launch Pad
Inside Y Combinator
by Randall Stross
Recommended: 8 / 10
The Launch Pad answers the question, “What is it like to apply for and be accepted into Y Combinator?”
Randall Strauss follows 64 startups through Y Combinator, describing their application process, interviews, product development process, conversations with YC advisors, and presentations on Demo Day.
Hackers & Painters
Big Ideas from the Computer Age
by Paul Graham, Cofounder of ViaWeb and Y Combinator
Recommended: 8 / 10
In Hackers & Painters, Paul Graham describes the type of people he sees as ideal startup founders – hackers.
Beyond programmer personalities, Graham digs into the ideal startup locations programming languages for hackers.
20 YC Lessons
A Reference Guide (Vol. 1)
by Dave Goldblatt, CEO of Wavechat
Recommended: 8 / 10
20 YC Lessons is a collection of presentation slides from Startup School.
This book is not polished, but provides a lot of surprising advice from successful YC startup founders.
Founders at Work
Stories of Startups’ Early Days
by Jessica Livingston, Cofounder of Y Combinator
Recommended: 9 / 10
Founders at Work is a series of interviews between Jessica Livingston and successful tech founders like Steve Wozniak, Joel Spolsky, Craig Newmark, Caterina Fake, and many others.
I love that Founders at Work is a direct collection of thoughts from successful founders.
