[HN Gopher] New YC homepage
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New YC homepage
Author : sarreph
Score : 83 points
Date : 2026-01-23 18:08 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ycombinator.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ycombinator.com)
| TheCoreh wrote:
| Looks good.
|
| A minor piece of feedback, though: might be just me, not sure if
| anyone else has this pavlovian conditioning, but seeing the black
| banner/bar on top with the YC logo/color below and HN background
| color immediately makes me think someone passed away.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I think it's fine. If it were a black bar and then an orange
| bar, that would be a different matter.
| 0003 wrote:
| Turning a builder into a formidable founder, which via the PG
| quote is someone who seems they will always get what they want
| is in its self a death. A builder... a truth-seeking creator
| dies. Devoured by someone who gets what they want, a superego.
| There should be a black bar at the top.
|
| /s
|
| Shout out to the risk takers.
| ls-a wrote:
| I found the switch of focus from startups/businesses to
| founders/CEOs particularly strange. Looks like a political
| campaign to me.
| alephnerd wrote:
| YC has always been founder first.
|
| Back when they started in the 2000s, most traditional VCs
| didn't recognize that high impact individuals can easily pivot
| or define product categories, and _only_ concentrated on
| financial engineering (DCF go _brrrrrr_ ).
|
| YC often also mentors founders on pivots (I'd say at least a
| third of all startups that make it to demo day were mentored
| into some sort of a pivot).
|
| YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z
| Speedrun and PeakXV Surge, both of which really center on the
| founder first approach or Operators-turned-Angels - which I
| assume this marketing shift is about.
| ls-a wrote:
| > YC often also mentors founders on pivots
|
| Interesting. I once talked to an investor (not YC) and they
| asked me what I would do if the product failed. I said one
| thing I can do is pivot. And they literally responded with
| "we don't invest in founders who think about pivoting"
|
| > YC also needs to pivot it's marketing to compete with a16z
| Speedrun and PeakXV Surge
|
| Maybe. A write up about the new design would be cool I think
|
| > YC has always been founder first.
|
| Internally yes there is a "founder community". But publicly I
| would argue it was product-first.
| throwaway89201 wrote:
| > YC often also mentors founders on pivots
|
| It doesn't seem unlikely to me that YC coined or at least
| popularized 'the pivot' in the context of changing business
| / startup directions. The first mention of using the word
| in that sense is in this comment [1] which explicitly
| mentions the usage by YC, while it only gets used when
| talking about pivot tables or more traditional uses of the
| word before that.
|
| Edit: The "Lean Startup" blog series [2], which was quite
| influential, mentions 'the pivot' a little earlier than the
| post above, and really seems to coin it, so I guess that's
| the source (edit again: wrong :D).
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=806601
|
| [2] https://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/06/pivot-
| dont-jum...
| dang wrote:
| That's a fun question! 806601 was from Sept 2009. I found
| 3 earlier cases of 'pivot' in the startup sense:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=699611 (July 2009)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=676514 (June 2009)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=562739 (April 2009)
|
| All 3 of those posts were by YC founders, so the term was
| obviously in circulation by then. The last of them
| includes a (broken) likn to this article: https://web.arc
| hive.org/web/20090703130211/https://redeye.fi....
|
| Edit: that one was discussed here, but the comments
| didn't say the p-word:
|
| _Yogi Berra wisdom for startups_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537331 - March 2009
| (9 comments)
| verdverm wrote:
| > YC also needs to pivot
|
| It's been reported that the ratio of mentors to founders had
| become quite bad. Seems quality has gone down since they
| tried to scale something that doesn't scale
| bflesch wrote:
| > YC also needs to pivot it's marketing
|
| Depends who you're marketing to. Do they need to follow what
| others did or should they stay in their own niche? Because
| I'm not hanging out on a16z forum because they make fancy
| marketing materials, I'm one of the thousands of people who
| bought into the YC brand which was build over decades. Would
| be stupid to become one with the crowd of sleeky VCs.
|
| As European I'm quite happy I didn't see YC involvement with
| the current administration, and if they stay a bit clear of
| the AI supergau I'm sure they'll be fine.
| ls-a wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the designer used political campaigns as
| inspiration
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| YC is a political movement. Look at their leaders' activities
| and what they fund.
| bflesch wrote:
| any details?
| 0xferruccio wrote:
| some of the design interactions are really polished. the section
| written with the quotes from founders is really cool. the hover
| effect with the before and after of the YC partners is a great
| touch too!
| ripped_britches wrote:
| I mean trying to insinuate oai is a yc company is just shady
| right?
|
| I get that the subtext isn't dishonest, but cmon, you know what
| you're doing
| tptacek wrote:
| They were an early funder. Seems p. reasonable for a VC firm to
| point that out.
| nailer wrote:
| Were OpenAI in a batch though? If not, I think maybe OpenAI
| deserves a mention but after companies that were actually in
| a batch.
|
| Typography looks great though, animations are smooth,
| /formidable founder' is original and it's nice seeing Jared
| Friedman - he was super friendly and acted as a company
| champion when I applied in 2016.
| bflesch wrote:
| It's fine they include openai, they can be very proud of sam.
| What I found a bit weird is that the reddit founder picture
| shows only two people. History is written by the winners I
| guess.
| trebligdivad wrote:
| Impressive collection of embarrassingly young founder pictures
| :-)
| nine_k wrote:
| A good remedy against lookism :)
| scheeseman486 wrote:
| [flagged]
| dmazin wrote:
| Wow - thank you for that.
| hajrice wrote:
| Visiting HN brings me back when to when I just started my career
| as a entrepreneur, I look forward to the nostalgic design it has.
| Have been familiar w/ YC's & HN design since 2008.
|
| New YC page looks great - but it just doesn't feel "yc" to me.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Impressive! Seeing all the before and after photos is a nice
| touch. With regards to the actual web page, white text on light
| background (partners part) makes it nice easily readable.
| skeptrune wrote:
| I love that the founders are so prominently featured on this new
| version.
| PStamatiou wrote:
| Really love the new site and how it highlights founders so well.
|
| Only minor tweak I'd make is for the desktop viewport size - make
| it so you can also click the company names instead of needing to
| precisely scroll for the images to show up for that company. With
| notched mouse wheels it's all too easy to skip one even with a
| regular scroll. Or increase the scroll distance.
|
| Also might suggest using a gradient mask to fade out the company
| logos as you scroll the primary text block up. Some of them get
| very close to the text and the one-by-one removal feels a tad
| distracting.
|
| And really minor but kept finding myself trying to click the
| photos to see things larger. Would be nice if they could come up
| in a media viewer with a small caption, and let me arrow key or
| swipe through.
| foresto wrote:
| Displays a blank page unless scripts are allowed. :(
| dang wrote:
| Thanks - someone else reported this too (as a security issue
| for some reason!) and I've passed it on.
| perfmode wrote:
| There's something that bothers me about reducing achievement to
| stock price and exit valuations. Yet, it is sobering to witness
| the machinery laid bare.
|
| The whole aesthetic of startup success--those triumphant IPO
| bell-ringing moments--celebrates money, not wisdom or authentic
| progress. I'm aware this is the dominant framework, but that
| doesn't make it feel less hollow. Welcome to Heartbreak.
| nine_k wrote:
| Wisdom and authentic progress are hard to measure. They are
| also not the goals enterprises pursue. Enterprises go for the
| money, but the money is normally paid by satisfied customers;
| this side effect is what makes enterprises viable and useful.
| (In case of VC money, customers even don't have to pay for
| sustainably for some time.)
|
| An IPO or a large acquisition is like a graduation event for
| school students. A diploma or a SAT certificate also do not
| certify wisdom, or even progress. They certify a certain degree
| of success, and a transition into "adult life". Or think about
| this as of an orbital insertion event for a spacecraft. Not an
| end goal, but a precondition for a serious progress.
|
| If you seek wisdom, a VC firm like YCombinator is likely not
| the most appropriate tool for your quest. (An attempt to found
| a business may bring some wisdom, as usual, at a cost.)
| hungryhobbit wrote:
| Redo the co-founder match sub-site next!
|
| That thing hasn't been updated in years, and could really use
| some love. If they don't want to do it themselves, just open
| source the sub-site and I'm sure a bunch of tech founders will
| happily do it for them (if only to be able to say they
| contributed to YC itself).
| autoexec wrote:
| Doesn't seem to display anything with JS disabled so it's a fail
| in my book, but I accept that I'll be in the minority here.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Gary Tan shows up in a photo at the bottom but nowhere by name.
| Gotta hand it to YC, whoever handles their PR needs a raise.
| moomoo11 wrote:
| Very cool!
| magicmicah85 wrote:
| There's a homepage? Kidding aside, it looks like a good landing
| page highlighting the top success stories and the purpose of YC.
| raldi wrote:
| The "YC/Now" timer starts (and sometimes flips) before the image
| actually loads.
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(page generated 2026-01-23 23:00 UTC)