![](https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2023/10/Pete-Tweet.png/")
Optimizely was acquired</a>, Pete and his team had climbed up to nearly $120M in ARR. </p><p>(Fun fact: Pete is also a<em> literal </em>climber. Check out <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.instagram.com/p/BqJPCM8gg_B//">this picture</a> of him conquering El Capitan.)</p><p>Pete first came back to YC last year as a Visiting Group Partner — a similar role, but one that asks for a commitment on a batch-to-batch basis. As with Pete, a number of Visiting Group Partners have gone on to join YC as full-time Group Partners.</p><p>On that note, <strong>I’m also very happy to welcome two more YC alumni back home as Visiting Group Partners</strong>: Tyler Bosmeny and Nate Smith.</p><p><strong>Tyler </strong>is the co-founder and former CEO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/clever/">Clever (S12), which lets students and teachers access all of their learning software in one place. If you have a kid in K-12 in the U.S., they probably log into Clever all the time — 60% of them do. In 2021, Clever was acquired for half a billion dollars. Besides his uniquely deep expertise in EdTech, Tyler brings a ton of experience in B2B sales (he was already leading a YC/Stanford class about sales and marketing <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHAh6WKBgiE&t=7s\%22>eight years ago</em></a><em>.)</em></p><p><strong>Nate </strong>is the co-founder and former CEO/CTO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/lever/">Lever (S12), an all-in-one system that helps companies like Netflix and KPMG (and 5000+ others) handle everything in the talent recruiting process. Lever was acquired by Employ Inc. last year. Before starting Lever, Nate was a Product Manager on Google Search and Google Analytics, and he authored the JavaScript application framework <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://github.com/derbyjs/derby/">DerbyJS. Nate and his husband live in San Francisco with their two bernedoodles, Walnut and Brownie.</p><p>Even before today’s news, YC had more Group Partners than at any point in its history. Every addition brings more experience, more insight, and more personalized attention for each and every YC founder.<em> </em>As an increasing number of YC founders hit their grand slams, more of them are coming home to help the next generation of founders at bat and we <em>love it</em>.</p><p>Yet we’re very deliberate in who we bring on, and we’re just as deliberate in why we call them “Partners”. They’re not just partners at YC; they’re partners<em> with their YC companies</em>.<em> </em>Each of us thinks and acts like long-term owners in these companies, because <strong>that’s the right way to do this</strong>. Any insight, any experience, any strengths we can bring to help these teams succeed, we will. Anyone in startup land can offer you “mentorship”; this is so much more.</p><p>Welcome, Tyler and Nate — and congrats, Pete!</p>","comment_id":"651deaddb7f98e0001a1d5d5","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/10/Nate-Pete-Tyler.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-10-04T15:44:45.000-07:00","updated_at":"2023-10-06T09:10:46.000-07:00","published_at":"2023-10-06T08:58:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"I'm thrilled to welcome YC's newest Group Partner and Visiting Group Partners. Welcome, Tyler and Nate — and congrats, Pete!","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d2","name":"Garry Tan","slug":"garry","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/03/Instagram-Image-Template--Square---21-.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Garry is the President & CEO of Y Combinator. Previously, he was the co-founder & Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Before that, he co-founded Posterous (YC S08) which was acquired by Twitter.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":"@garrytan","meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/garry/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d2","name":"Garry Tan","slug":"garry","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2023/03/Instagram-Image-Template--Square---21-.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Garry is the President & CEO of Y Combinator. Previously, he was the co-founder & Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Before that, he co-founded Posterous (YC S08) which was acquired by Twitter.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":"@garrytan","meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/garry/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/meet-ycs-newest-group-partner-and-visiting-group-partners/","excerpt":"I'm thrilled to welcome YC's newest Group Partner and Visiting Group Partners.","reading_time":3,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":"An image of Y Combinator's Nate Smith, Pete Koomen, and Tyler Bosmeny","feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"646cef8dbd93340001aed321","uuid":"a6ff7bf7-ccbc-400f-aece-1b031e3c607b","title":"Tom Blomfield of GoCardless and Monzo is our newest Group Partner","slug":"tom-blomfield-of-gocardless-and-monzo-is-our-newest-group-partner","html":"<p>To help you make a startup that matters, it helps to have people who have been in <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRnSjcVIqk&t=141s\%22>the idea maze</a> — trying to get product-market fit, finding it, and holding on to it – to get you through that maze yourself. If you’ve been in there at all, you know how hard it is to even<em> find</em> product-market fit, let alone keep it.</p><p>I’m proud to say our newest group partner is Tom Blomfield, who has been there not once but <strong>twice,</strong> and twice emerged with a billion-dollar company.</p><p>I first met Tom in 2011 when he went through YC with <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/gocardless/">GoCardless, an online payments processor for the Direct Debit system and Tom’s first billion-dollar company. I was a YC partner at the time, and office hours with Tom quickly proved that he was an extremely smart, direct, yet empathetic founder. </p><p>In 2015, Tom went on to create <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/monzo-bank/">Monzo, one of the first app-based challenger banks in the UK and his second billion-dollar company. In 2021, he <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/welcome-surbhi-nicolas-divya-ashu-and-tom/">returned to YC as a visiting group partner for the most recent three batches. </p><p>When it comes to group partners, we look for the most experienced founders to mentor startups throughout the batch. While most people spend their career building up that experience in one area, Tom has domain expertise in multiple — B2B software with GoCardless, and consumer/viral marketing with Monzo. He has a unique set of skills as someone who led as both a technical co-founder (at GoCardless) and CEO (at Monzo), and the rare experience of scaling not one, but two, massively successful companies. </p><p>Today, the YC community is made up of more than 90 billion-dollar companies and that number is always growing. Tom leverages his experience to advise alumni at every stage of their startup – whether it’s just figuring out if an idea works, putting a board together, growing a team to thousands of employees, running multiple offices, or later-stage fundraising. There’s not a startup that he can’t give useful advice to, always drawn from his own experience. </p><p>The traits I saw in Tom as a founder in 2011 have proven to be extremely beneficial as a group partner. He’s direct with founders while having empathy for the difficulties of being one. He helps founders see that the smallest ideas can lead to world-changing companies, and he provides them with the optimism needed at the lowest points in the founder journey. </p><p>We now have the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/people/">largest number of group partners</a> in YC history. We’re increasingly finding that our best alumni are coming back to be group partners to shepherd in the next generation. Tom is no exception. His experience has already proven invaluable to the YC community, and we’re so thrilled he has joined as a group partner!</p>","comment_id":"646cef8dbd93340001aed321","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/05/Tom-Blomfield-YC.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-05-23T09:53:33.000-07:00","updated_at":"2023-07-21T10:37:16.000-07:00","published_at":"2023-05-24T09:00:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Introducing YC's newest Group Partner, Tom Blomfield","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d2","name":"Garry Tan","slug":"garry","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/03/Instagram-Image-Template--Square---21-.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Garry is the President & CEO of Y Combinator. Previously, he was the co-founder & Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Before that, he co-founded Posterous (YC S08) which was acquired by Twitter.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":"@garrytan","meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/garry/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d2","name":"Garry Tan","slug":"garry","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2023/03/Instagram-Image-Template--Square---21-.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Garry is the President & CEO of Y Combinator. Previously, he was the co-founder & Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Before that, he co-founded Posterous (YC S08) which was acquired by Twitter.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":"@garrytan","meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/garry/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tom-blomfield-of-gocardless-and-monzo-is-our-newest-group-partner/","excerpt":"Introducing YC's newest Group Partner, Tom Blomfield","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":"A photo of Tom Blomfield, the newest Group Partner at Y Combinator","feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"645bf0808d5a140001e31726","uuid":"144e84b8-5535-4846-8e53-8a0e94513ab9","title":"Welcome back to YC, Emmett Shear and Wayne Crosby","slug":"welcome-back-to-yc-emmett-shear-and-wayne-crosby","html":"<p>Every batch, we invite founders to advise YC companies as Visiting Group Partners. These advisors bring valuable insights and recent operational experience to YC’s early-stage companies. Throughout the batch, they take on a variety of responsibilities, including application reading, interviews, group and individual office hours, Demo Day prep, and more.</p><p>Today, we’re excited to welcome Emmett Shear and Wayne Crosby as our newest Visiting Group Partners — and welcome back to Visiting Group Partners <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/dflieb/">David Lieb</a>, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/koomen/">Pete Koomen</a>, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/RichAberman/">Rich Aberman</a>, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/umurc/">Umur Cubukcu</a>.</p><p><strong>Emmett Shear</strong></p><p>Emmett was co-founder and CEO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.twitch.tv//">Twitch, where millions of people come together live every day to chat, interact, and make their own entertainment together. For 16 years, he worked on live video for the internet starting with <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/twitch/">Justin.tv (W07), which later became Twitch Inc. </p><p>In 2014, Twitch Inc. became a fully owned subsidiary of Amazon and the platform has grown to more than 8 million streamers a month. Emmett resigned as CEO in February 2023 and now works with Twitch in an advisory role. </p><p>He graduated from Yale University in 2005 with a degree in computer science. Emmett lives with hisfamily in San Francisco and is happiest when he’s learning something new.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">YC has been part of my life since summer of ‘05 when I went through the program for my first startup, Kiko Calendar (“Google is so stupid, can you believe they haven’t made a calendar to go w Gmail?”).</p>— Emmett Shear (@eshear) <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1656812142476288001?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\%22>May 12, 2023</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js/" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n</figure><p><strong>Wayne Crosby</strong></p><p>Wayne is passionate about helping people and teams reach their full potential. He was a co-founder of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/zenter/">Zenter (W07), a collaborative presentation product that was acquired by Google and turned into Google Slides. Wayne spent ten years at Google scaling and leading teams including GSuite, Machine Intelligence, and both successful and ill-fated parts of Google+. GSuite became Google’s fourth product to have more than 1B users and generate more than $1B in revenue. </p><p>Wayne’s professional experience and his desire to help others led him to become an angel investor, and he’s invested in dozens of Y Combinator companies over the years. In 2017, Wayne co-founded his second company, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://humu.com/">Humu, a product that uses behavioral science and machine learning to help teams at large enterprises achieve greater happiness and better performance. Humu raised over $100M to deliver on its mission to make work better for everyone, everywhere. </p><p>Always the consummate builder, Wayne is also the founder of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://orgorg.us/">OrgOrg, a company that is building a suite of small business tools to help organizations run more efficiently. Above all, Wayne knows that none of his success would have been possible without the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=288914\%22>support of his family</a>, and he loves spending time with them, their dog, and their hairless cat in the Bay Area. </p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Y Combinator changed the trajectory of my life, and I’m so excited to be back! This time as a visiting partner.<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://t.co/Fa3XsoUtNp/">https://t.co/Fa3XsoUtNp— Wayne (@wcrosby) <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/wcrosby/status/1656812373066530817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\%22>May 12, 2023</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js/" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n</figure>","comment_id":"645bf0808d5a140001e31726","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/05/Emmett-Shear-Wayne-Crosby.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-05-10T12:29:04.000-07:00","updated_at":"2023-10-06T08:35:15.000-07:00","published_at":"2023-05-11T16:59:59.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Today, we’re excited to welcome Emmett Shear and Wayne Crosby as our newest Visiting Group Partners.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71070","name":"Aaron Epstein","slug":"aaron-epstein","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Aaron-E-2.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Aaron is a Group Partner at YC. He was the co-founder and CEO of Creative Market (YC W10), a marketplace for graphic design assets, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2014.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/aaron-epstein/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71070","name":"Aaron Epstein","slug":"aaron-epstein","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Aaron-E-2.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Aaron is a Group Partner at YC. He was the co-founder and CEO of Creative Market (YC W10), a marketplace for graphic design assets, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2014.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/aaron-epstein/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/welcome-back-to-yc-emmett-shear-and-wayne-crosby/","excerpt":"Today, we’re excited to welcome Emmett Shear and Wayne Crosby as our newest Visiting Group Partners.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":"Y Combinator Visiting Group Partners Emmett Shear and Wayne Crosby","feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"626b07a754a948000183a4e2","uuid":"ebf26b06-b133-419d-9373-175a5f20af27","title":"Welcome S22 Visiting Group Partners","slug":"welcome-s22-visiting-group-partners","html":"<p>Every batch, we invite founders and executives to advise YC companies as Visiting Group Partners. These advisors bring valuable insights and recent operational experience to YC’s early-stage companies. Throughout the batch, they take on a variety of responsibilities, including application reading, interviews, group office hours, individual office hours, demo day prep, and more.<br></p><p>Welcome to JJ, Liz, Pete, and Puneet. And <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/welcome-surbhi-nicolas-divya-ashu-and-tom/">welcome back</a> to Divya, Ashu, Tom, and Rich who joined us after the W22 Visiting Group Partners were announced.<br></p><p><strong>JJ Fliegelman</strong></p><p>JJ was co-founder and CTO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/wayup/">WayUp (W15), the leading DEI recruiting platform used by millions. WayUp raised $40 million and was named by CNN as one of the 30 most innovative companies changing the world. JJ has been featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30, Silicon Valley 100, and as a speaker and advisor on technology and hiring topics. Prior to WayUp, JJ spent a year as a freelancing backpacker in 16 countries, then joined McKinsey as a consultant in New York. JJ received his BA in International Studies and BS in Economics from Penn and enjoys languages and linguistics, cooking with his flamethrower, fancy coffee, and decidedly unfancy $1 pizza.<br></p><p><strong>Liz Wessel</strong></p><p>Liz was co-founder and CEO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/wayup/">WayUp (W15), the leading Diversity & Inclusion recruitment platform used by 6+ million candidates (71% of whom self-identify as underrepresented) and thousands of employers. WayUp raised $40M, and after 7 years, merged with Yello, another recruitment software platform. Liz has been featured in various publications from Forbes 30 Under 30 to Business Insider’s “18 Coolest Women in Silicon Valley.” Prior to WayUp, Liz was in the APMM program at Google (in San Francisco and India), and before that, Liz attended the University of Pennsylvania where she studied political science, mathematics, and Japanese. With her free time, Liz enjoys hiking with her husband and their cavapoo, volunteering on a weekly basis, traveling, and working with / investing in great founders.<br></p><p><strong>Pete Koomen</strong></p><p>Pete co-founded <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/optimizely/">Optimizely (W10) which helps companies run experiments on their websites and apps. For more than a decade, he helped Optimizely grow from inception to $100M+ in ARR and, ultimately, an acquisition in 2020. Pete holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. An avid rock climber, he lives in Reno with his wife.<br></p><p><strong>Puneet Kumar</strong></p><p>Puneet was the founder and CEO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/supr-daily/">Supr Daily</a> (W17), a consumer grocery startup based out of India that was acquired by Swiggy. Supr created the daily delivery model by reducing the last mile costs by 10x. Before exiting Supr, he scaled the company to $100M in annual revenue run rate. He is a 2x founder, an alumnus of IIT Bombay, and a maker by background. He currently lives in Bangalore with his wife.<br></p><p><strong>Rich Aberman</strong></p><p>Rich co-founded <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/wepay/">WePay (S09), a multi-party payments API for B2B SaaS platforms, POS systems, and online marketplaces. As Chief Product and Strategy Officer, he helped raise $75M in venture capital, grow the company to 300 employees, and achieve profitability before being acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2018. Following the acquisition, Rich was a Managing Director at Chase Payment Solutions until 2021. He holds a degree in economics, political science, and philosophy from Boston College, and lives with his wife and young son in Santa Cruz, California, where he is an avid surfer and golfer.</p>","comment_id":"626b07a754a948000183a4e2","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/05/BlogTwitter-Image-Template.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-04-28T14:31:19.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-05-11T09:14:00.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-05-11T09:14:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Welcome to our newest YC S22 Visiting Group Partners: JJ, Liz, Pete, Puneet, and Rich! We’re excited for them to bring their insights and operational experiences to our next batch of companies.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71070","name":"Aaron Epstein","slug":"aaron-epstein","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Aaron-E-2.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Aaron is a Group Partner at YC. He was the co-founder and CEO of Creative Market (YC W10), a marketplace for graphic design assets, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2014.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/aaron-epstein/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71070","name":"Aaron Epstein","slug":"aaron-epstein","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Aaron-E-2.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Aaron is a Group Partner at YC. He was the co-founder and CEO of Creative Market (YC W10), a marketplace for graphic design assets, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2014.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/aaron-epstein/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/welcome-s22-visiting-group-partners/","excerpt":"Welcome to our newest YC S22 Visiting Group Partners: JJ, Liz, Pete, Puneet, and Rich! We’re excited for them to bring their insights and operational experiences to our next batch of companies.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/05/BlogTwitter-Image-Template-1.jpg","twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":"First row: JJ Fliegelman and Liz Wessel. Second row: Pete Koomen, Puneet Kumar, and Rich Aberman."},{"id":"625dd04854a948000183a422","uuid":"1a799975-a685-4a25-99c7-bde6878dcf1a","title":"Tim Brady is leaving YC","slug":"tim-brady-is-leaving-yc","html":"<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/tim-brady-interview//">Tim Brady</a> and I go back a long way. Tim was already at Yahoo! when my company was acquired in 1997. Of course, Tim was there. In fact, he was Yahoo!’s first employee and ran a group called “production” until he eventually became Chief Product Officer. Tim was, in many ways, the conscience of Yahoo! He kept us focused on the customer experience in an era when it was too easy to toss that aside in a search for revenue. My connection to Tim and what he meant to Yahoo! grew when I succeeded him as CPO in 2002, as he left in search of new adventures.</p><p>And what adventures! Tim first studied history with an eye to perhaps earning a PhD and then teaching. Subsequently, he became an excellent chef by taking an intense course from San Francisco’s Tante Marie's cooking school, and then returned to his operator roots and took on the CEO role at QuestBridge, an educational non-profit helping connect low-income students with elite colleges around the country.</p><p>We stayed in contact over the years and when I began thinking of starting something in the educational technology space in 2010, it was natural for us to begin batting ideas around. When we started toying with the idea of an edtech version of Y Combinator we naturally checked in with our former Yahoo! colleague Paul Graham and he not only thought it was a great idea, he offered to help! That launched Tim and me on our amazing Imagine K12 adventure together where we funded over 80 great edtech companies over five years. </p><p>PG, in his seminal essay “<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html/">How to Start a Startup</a>”, said you should always look to find “animals” as your co-founders, and Tim is an animal in the best of all possible ways. He is the kind of guy who solves problems and gets things done. When we realized that the two of us were going to need to write a whole bunch of infrastructure software in order to support our new accelerator, Tim didn’t hesitate. He leapt in with PHP and MySQL and in short order, we were up and running. Together we ran Imagine K12, funded all the companies, and wrote all the code we needed to accept applications, create a community, and run Imagine K12. He never let a problem go unsolved, was always kind, optimistic, and super thoughtful. He was the best possible choice as a cofounder. Our time together at IK12 ranks as one of the highlights of my career, with memories of amazing companies, epic IK12 poker tournaments - which became a much-anticipated annual event - and memorable end-of-batch events where Tim would often cook up an amazing paella.</p><p>In 2016, when we merged with YC, Tim joined me as a YC Group Partner and scarcely missed a beat in helping many hundreds more companies grow and thrive. He has remained passionate about making the world a better place, by helping YC companies make things people want, and by being the main person who worked with the non-profits YC occasionally funds. His affability, his integrity, his positivity, and his deep commitment to adding value will be sorely missed. It has been my great, great pleasure to have Tim as a colleague and a friend, and wish him only the best in whatever adventures lie ahead in his, always epic, journey.</p>","comment_id":"625dd04854a948000183a422","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/04/2018-0313-YC-Event_104-1.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-04-18T13:55:36.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-04-19T08:57:38.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-04-19T08:55:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"It has been our pleasure to have Tim as a colleague and a friend, and wish him only the best in whatever adventures lie ahead in his, always epic, journey.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tim-brady-is-leaving-yc/","excerpt":"It has been our pleasure to have Tim as a colleague and a friend, and wish him only the best in whatever adventures lie ahead in his, always epic, journey.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/04/2018-0313-YC-Event_104-2.jpg","twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71604","uuid":"d6368269-bcb2-4bc8-9fdc-e4521f97777b","title":"Two New YC Partners: Justin Kan and Aaron Harris","slug":"two-new-yc-partners-justin-kan-and-aaron-harris","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><div class=\"posthaven-post-body\">\n<p>I’m delighted to announce that Justin Kan and Aaron Harris are joining Y Combinator as Partners.</p>\n<p>Justin was in the very first YC batch with me in the summer of 2005, and has been a part-time partner since 2011. Justin founded Kiko, Justin.tv/Twitch.tv, Socialcam, and Exec. He took the “do what it takes” directive of startups unusually far with Justin.tv, when he wore a webcam on his head and broadcast his entire life for 8 months, 24 hours a day.</p>\n<p>For some time now, Justin has been who we send startups to with questions about growth and marketing. But he knows a ton about nearly every part of startups.</p>\n<p>Aaron was in the YC Winter 2011 batch doing Tutorspree, which moved back to New York after their batch. He’s actually been a partner since October 2013—sometimes it takes us a while to get around to announcing things.</p>\n<p>Aaron will also advise startups on all topics, but he’s especially good with anything related to finance.</p>\n<p>We’re all very happy to have both of them on the team.</p>\n<div></div>\n</div>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"665460","feature_image":null,"featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2014-03-19T09:30:08.000-07:00","updated_at":"2021-10-20T14:12:47.000-07:00","published_at":"2014-03-19T09:30:08.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710c1","name":"Sam Altman","slug":"sam-altman","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/eifaoe14zqiueje28oo9.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI. He was the president of YC from 2014-2019. He studied computer science at Stanford, and while there, worked in the AI lab.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/sam-altman/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710c1","name":"Sam Altman","slug":"sam-altman","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/eifaoe14zqiueje28oo9.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI. He was the president of YC from 2014-2019. He studied computer science at Stanford, and while there, worked in the AI lab.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/sam-altman/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/two-new-yc-partners-justin-kan-and-aaron-harris/","excerpt":"I’m delighted to announce that Justin Kan and Aaron Harris are joining YCombinator as Partners.Justin was in the very first YC batch with me in the summer of 2005, and hasbeen a part-time partner since 2011. Justin founded Kiko, Justin.tv/Twitch.tv,Socialcam, and Exec. He took the “do what it takes” directive of startupsunusually far with Justin.tv, when he wore a webcam on his head and broadcasthis entire life for 8 months, 24 hours a day.","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null}],"filter":"(Partners)","featured":null,"pagination":{"page":1,"limit":10,"pages":1,"total":6,"next":null,"prev":null}},"url":"/blog/tag/partners","version":null,"rails_context":{"railsEnv":"production","inMailer":false,"i18nLocale":"en","i18nDefaultLocale":"en","href":"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/tag/partners","location":"/blog/tag/partners","scheme":"https","host":"www.ycombinator.com","port":null,"pathname":"/blog/tag/partners","search":null,"httpAcceptLanguage":"en, *","applyBatchLong":"Winter 2024","applyBatchShort":"W2024","applyDeadlineShort":"October 13","ycdcRetroMode":true,"currentUser":null,"serverSide":true},"id":"ycdc_new/pages/BlogList-react-component-e2787eb5-597b-401c-b5a6-442f958cbca9","server_side":true}" data-reactroot="">Recent Posts (Partners)
All Posts
Welcome S22 Visiting Group Partners
by Aaron Epstein5/11/2022
Welcome to our newest YC S22 Visiting Group Partners: JJ, Liz, Pete, Puneet, and Rich! We’re excited for them to bring their insights and operational experiences to our next batch of companies.
Tim Brady is leaving YC
by Geoff Ralston4/19/2022
It has been our pleasure to have Tim as a colleague and a friend, and wish him only the best in whatever adventures lie ahead in his, always epic, journey.
Two New YC Partners: Justin Kan and Aaron Harris
by Sam Altman3/19/2014
I’m delighted to announce that Justin Kan and Aaron Harris are joining YCombinator as Partners.Justin was in the very first YC batch with me in the summer of 2005, and hasbeen a part-time partner since 2011. Justin founded Kiko, Justin.tv/Twitch.tv,Socialcam, and Exec. He took the “do what it takes” directive of startupsunusually far with Justin.tv, when he wore a webcam on his head and broadcasthis entire life for 8 months, 24 hours a day.