Outschool (W16)</a> offers online classes for homeschooled children, which used to be a small minority of American kids and overnight became the majority. </li>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/directory/1208/">Farmstead (S16)</a> and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/directory/989/">Tovala (W16)</a> are delivering more food and groceries than ever before.</li>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/directory/1884/">Curebase (S18)</a> and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/directory/729/">Ginkgo Bioworks (S14)</a> have invested in products to support <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/covid/">COVID-19 response and research</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>As you speak with founders during the interview process, ask how the economy has impacted their business (for worse or for better) and what they’re doing to adapt so they come out strong on the other side.</p>\n<p><strong>Assess the founders, not just their answers.</strong></p>\n<p>We tell YC founders to be very transparent with candidates during the interview process. We feel this is important to build trust early on, and the trust will be reciprocated when they hire great employees who can use information to make strong business/product/engineering decisions.</p>\n<p>As you interact with the founders and team, look for answers to your questions that are thoughtful and balanced — revealing both the pros and the cons of any scenario. You’re likely to get more detail as you get to the end of the interview process (the company has more invested in you at that point), so take the opportunity to ask questions throughout the process.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>Joining a startup isn’t for everyone, and the above should help you better assess the startup you are considering. Go in with thoughtful questions, and hopefully you will walk away with trust in the founders to make good, thoughtful decisions — about the business, the product, the customers who use it and the team you work with to build it.</p>\n<p>If you’re looking for your next role, you can fill out a profile at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/">Work at a Startup</a> to view YC startups that are actively hiring. We’re <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/finding-your-next-role-through-y-combinator//">here to help</a>.</p>\n\n<center>\n<a class=\"ycdc-retro-btn ycdc-retro-btn-gold mt-[-10px] ml-[13px]\" href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://account.ycombinator.com/authenticate?continue=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.workatastartup.com%2Fapplication&defaults%5BsignUpActive%5D=true\%22 style=\"text-decoration: none;\" title=\"Sign up for YC's Work at a Startup.\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for YC Jobs</a>\n</center>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1104263","feature_image":null,"featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2020-04-07T16:49:17.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-06-24T15:19:36.000-07:00","published_at":"2021-10-18T21:38:37.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710bf","name":"Ryan Choi","slug":"rchoi","profile_image":"//www.gravatar.com/avatar/36ba914c5f191f813e96db0296154469?s=250&d=mm&r=x","cover_image":null,"bio":"Ryan works with YC companies to find great engineers — from 2-person startups to larger ones like Airbnb, Stripe and Instacart.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/rchoi/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71170","name":"Startups","slug":"startups","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/startups/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71171","name":"Work at a Startup","slug":"work-at-a-startup","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/work-at-a-startup/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71178","name":"#jobs","slug":"hash-jobs","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","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/404/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71177","name":"Jobs","slug":"jobs","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/jobs/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710bf","name":"Ryan Choi","slug":"rchoi","profile_image":"//www.gravatar.com/avatar/36ba914c5f191f813e96db0296154469?s=250&d=mm&r=x","cover_image":null,"bio":"Ryan works with YC companies to find great engineers — from 2-person startups to larger ones like Airbnb, Stripe and Instacart.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/rchoi/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71170","name":"Startups","slug":"startups","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/startups/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/how-to-pick-the-right-startup-to-work-for/","excerpt":"I talk to a lot of people who are trying to figure out which startup to join. I\nwant to share some of the advice I’ve been giving, and I hope it helps you\nnavigate your own job search.\n\nAsk about the company’s runway, burn rate and plans for future funding.\n\nA company’s runway is the number of months that it has until it runs out of\nmoney. This can be determined by a number of things, including the amount of\nfunding it raised, the amount of revenue it generates, and the expenses (or\n“burn”) it h","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":null,"feature_image_caption":null},"mentions":[],"related_posts":[{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71c0b","uuid":"b1eb2ee4-3d41-496d-9a91-6d84ecb4cac3","title":"What startup hiring looks like in 2021 — and during a pandemic","slug":"what-startup-hiring-looks-like-in-2021-and-during-a-pandemic","html":"<p>When we first created <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com//">Work at a Startup</a> in 2018, our goal was to eliminate friction in finding a job at a startup. Our initial thesis was to build a common application to apply to many YC companies at once. It quickly became the most efficient way to meet multiple founders and have a more natural conversation to find a job.</p><p>Since then, we’ve collected a lot of data about the startup job landscape, and the changing needs of both job seekers and our founders. We wanted to share some trends we’ve seen over the last year that show where we’ve been – and inform where we’re going as a product.</p><h2 id=\"startup-hiring-was-resilient-amid-a-volatile-2021\">Startup hiring was resilient amid a volatile 2021</h2><p>The number of jobs on our platform exploded in 2021 with 7,300 jobs posted – even despite the uncertainty of a global pandemic. That was 4.5x growth from the prior year, and 10x from when we started. And now, there are over 1,200 startups across a wide range of industries: tech, bio, logistics, media, and many more.</p><p>Part of this growth has to do with our increased batch sizes. But another part is a reflection of the resilience and adaptability of our startups. While hiring nearly stopped at the beginning of the pandemic (much to our guidance of frugality and “being a cockroach”), our startups came back strong. And by September 2020, we saw a record number of hires.</p><p>It is equally important to us to do right by job seekers: we’ve spent countless hours vetting startups and founders to make sure each one is in a great position to hire – well funded, early traction, and clarity of what to build next. The result of which is a job platform that showcases some of the most resilient and business-minded startups you’ll find anywhere.</p><h2 id=\"digital-nomads-are-the-new-startup-workforce\">Digital nomads are the new startup workforce</h2><p>While 2020 was the year of WFPJs<sup><a>1</a></sup>, 2021 was when digital nomads became a real thing. Last year, a massive 82% of job seekers on the platform looked for remote work – up from 15-20% pre-pandemic. Startup jobs also moved in the same direction: remote jobs grew 6.4x in the last year, and now 69.5% of all jobs are remote or remote-friendly.</p><p>Not surprisingly, the changing landscape meant that our startups looked worldwide for talent: hires were made in over 40 countries. And while the common belief is that companies hire abroad to lower costs, we’ve already started seeing the opposite. Some of our international startups are hiring US-based talent in IC and even leadership positions.</p><p>Lastly, our smaller startups (< 50 people) were quicker to adapt to remote, moving to fully remote a good 6+ months ahead of our larger ones. With better HR infrastructure like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/deel/">Deel and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/pilot/">Pilot, both tools to onboard and pay employees wherever they are, we expect our startups to continue to adapt to the changing landscape.</p><h2 id=\"waiting-for-founders-to-contact-you-isn%E2%80%99t-always-the-best-way\">Waiting for founders to contact you isn’t always the best way</h2><p>Last year, we saw a whopping 150,000 messages sent on our platform, at a 4.5x YOY growth. 53% of first contact messages were sent by a founder to a job seeker. And our founders are equally responsive to interested candidates: some companies kept up a 60% response rate to inbound applications.</p><p>One thing we’ve learned, however, is that job seekers with high agency made it happen: 25% of new hires in 2021 were initiated by the candidate. To help them, we need to give more signals and tools to help them find “the one” — by size, funding, team makeup, and even the interview process. On that last point, our team works hard to teach founders how to hire with transparency and candidate experience top of mind, and we aim to build this more into the platform.</p><h2 id=\"how-can-we-help-in-2022\">How can we help in 2022?</h2><p>At YC, we tell founders to make something people want. We operate by this same mantra at YC’s Work at a Startup, and we’re seeing early signs of success – 600 people found jobs through our platform last year, at a clip of 1.5 per day. While that’s a drop in the bucket for larger companies, we know that a great hire at an early startup can be transformative – and be the difference maker in building the next Instacart or Dropbox.</p><p>And while it’s easy to just monitor metrics, building this platform has become closer to my heart. My own friends and former colleagues have found jobs on the platform: first a designer at a pre/seed startup, then an engineering manager at a Series C growth company, and later a CTO of a biotech startup. Similarly, our founders trust us to help build their teams. Yin Wu, founder at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/pulley/">Pulley, called our hiring platform “one of the best things about YC.” That’s high praise, and we aim to help out even more.</p><p>Reflecting on 2021, we are thankful for every single person who has given us a shot — checked out the site, met with founders, possibly found a job, or even just sent us an email for feedback. We’re still learning, and we’re here to build the best way for you to find your next job — and just maybe something as resilient as our most enduring startups.</p><hr><p><sup><b>1</b></sup> Work from pajamas <a>↩</a></p>","comment_id":"61f5fc11eb74f90001a957b7","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/01/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--21-.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-01-29T18:46:41.000-08:00","updated_at":"2022-06-24T15:17:52.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-01-17T06:00:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"Since launching Work at a Startup in 2018, we’ve collected a lot of data about the startup job landscape.\n\nWe wanted to share some trends we’ve seen over the last year that show where we’ve been – and inform where we’re going as a product:","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710bf","name":"Ryan 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Choi","slug":"rchoi","profile_image":"//www.gravatar.com/avatar/36ba914c5f191f813e96db0296154469?s=250&d=mm&r=x","cover_image":null,"bio":"Ryan works with YC companies to find great engineers — from 2-person startups to larger ones like Airbnb, Stripe and Instacart.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/rchoi/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71177","name":"Jobs","slug":"jobs","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/jobs/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/what-startup-hiring-looks-like-in-2021-and-during-a-pandemic/","excerpt":"When we first created Work at a Startup in 2018, our goal was to eliminate friction in finding a job at a startup. Our initial thesis was to build a common application to apply to many YC companies at once. It quickly became the most efficient way to meet multiple founders and have a more natural conversation to find a job.","reading_time":3,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/01/BlogTwitter-Image-Template-15-1.png","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":"63fced280ca0ec00016319fa","uuid":"f1d9175c-3d17-4d36-92bf-a65b2362acc3","title":"Announcing Y Combinator's Spring 2022 Tech Hiring Event","slug":"yc-spring-2022-tech-hiring-event","html":"<p>We're excited to host an <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/">in-person tech hiring event on Wednesday, March 8th</a> at 5:30 PM at Y Combinator's San Francisco office. This will be the first in-person hiring event we're hosting at YC in over two years, and we have 9 YC-backed startups who are looking to hire engineers and technical talent.</p><p>The event will feature brief founder & company overviews, time to network, and light food and drinks provided by YC. Spots are limited, so <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/">apply now</a> to get on the list.</p><p>The companies attending <em>(and what they're hiring for)</em> below:</p><ul><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/onesignal/">OneSignal (Growth):</strong> Engage customers through personalized omni-channel messaging <em>(Infrastructure and Product Engineers, Product Managers)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/memora-health/">Memora Health</a> <strong>(Series A):</strong></strong> Helps healthcare organizations digitize and automate complex care workflows</li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/seam/">Seam (Series A):</strong> API for IoT Devices <em>(Engineering & Sales)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/slope/">Slope (Series A):</strong> Buy Now, Pay Later for B2B <em>(Backend & Full stack engineers; data; customer success)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/fieldguide/">Fieldguide (Series A):</strong> Automation and collaboration software for audit and advisory firms<em> (ML Engineer, Product Manager)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/agave/">Agave (Seed):</strong> Plaid for Construction <em>(Founding Engineer in PHP/Typescript/React)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/mintlify/">Mintlify (Seed):</strong> Developer-first documentation that converts users <em>(Full Stack Engineer)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/replo/">Replo (Seed):</strong> Visual development for React, starting with e-commerce <em>(Engineers & Designers)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/oneshop/">OneShop (Seed):</strong> Operating system for reselling online <em>(Backend, Frontend and Growth Engineers)</em></li></ul><p>If you're an engineer interested in working at a fast-growing startup, this is an opportunity to meet founders and hiring managers in person to learn about their companies and products, understand their technology stacks and challenges, and get a sense of their culture and what it's like to work there.</p><p>This is a unique chance to engage with multiple companies at once, and to potentially find your next role at a leading tech startup. We hope you'll join us for what will be an informative and worthwhile evening.</p><!--kg-card-begin: html--><center>\n<a class=\"ycdc-retro-btn ycdc-retro-btn-gold mt-[-10px] ml-[13px]\" href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/" style=\"text-decoration: none;\" title=\"Apply to YC Event\" target=\"_blank\">Apply to Join</a>\n</center><!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"63fced280ca0ec00016319fa","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/02/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--5--1.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-02-27T09:49:28.000-08:00","updated_at":"2023-03-06T12:57:26.000-08:00","published_at":"2023-02-28T09:00:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710bf","name":"Ryan 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Choi","slug":"rchoi","profile_image":"//www.gravatar.com/avatar/36ba914c5f191f813e96db0296154469?s=250&d=mm&r=x","cover_image":null,"bio":"Ryan works with YC companies to find great engineers — from 2-person startups to larger ones like Airbnb, Stripe and Instacart.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/rchoi/"},"primary_tag":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/yc-spring-2022-tech-hiring-event/","excerpt":"We're excited to host an in-person tech hiring event on Wednesday, March 8th at 5:30 PM at Y Combinator's San Francisco office. This will be the first in-person hiring event we're hosting at YC in over two years, and we have 9 YC-backed startups who are looking to hire engineers and technical talent.","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},{"id":"63f91878d2b0220001e8d6e9","uuid":"a99f2458-1bdd-4a40-81e6-36ee441b133c","title":"Congratulations to the 2023 YC Top Companies!","slug":"yc-top-companies-feb-2023","html":"<p>We’re excited to present the 2023 YC Top Companies!</p><p>The startups are separated into 3 lists: YC’s top <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">private</a>, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/public/" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">public</a>, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/exits/" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">exited</a>. Private companies and exits are sorted by the company's valuation from their latest funding round, and all are valued at over $150M. Public companies are listed in alphabetical order.</p><p>The Breakthrough Companies list highlights the fast-growing companies we’ve doubled down on – which means they’ve all received significant additional investment from YC in their post-Demo Day rounds. </p><p><strong>Here are stats about the companies on this year’s list:</strong></p><p><strong>></strong> More than 290 private YC companies and 33 exits are valued at over $150M, over 90 are worth more than $1B, and 16 are public. </p><p><strong>></strong> 58% of the companies have HQs in the Bay Area. 27% of the companies are fully remote, and 55% list themselves as partially remote.</p><p><strong>></strong> YC Top Companies have HQs in 40 countries including: United States, India, United Kingdom, Canada, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Spain, Israel, Netherlands, Philippines, Portugal, Germany, Egypt, Ireland, South Korea, Peru, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Bolivia, Switzerland, Algeria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Romania, Sweden, Senegal, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam</p><p><strong>></strong> YC W16 is the most represented batch (by percentage). 23% of the companies from W16 are on the YC Top Companies list. </p><p><strong>></strong> Here’s a sector breakdown of the top companies:</p><ul><li>B2B Software and Services: 43%</li><li>Financial Technology and Services: 19%</li><li>Consumer: 13%</li><li>Healthcare: 12%</li><li>Industrials: 7%</li><li>Real Estate and Construction: 3%</li><li>Education and Government: 3%</li></ul><p><strong>></strong> 10 new companies joined the lists since August 2022:</p><p>Private:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/treasury-prime/">Treasury Prime</a> (YC W18) - Embedded banking software platform and marketplace</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/onesignal/">OneSignal (YC S11) - Engage customers through personalized omni-channel messaging</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/skill-lync/">Skill-lync (YC W19) - Online engineering college for India</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/tigereye/">TigerEye (YC S22) - Modern enterprise software for sales leaders</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/zeitview/">Zeitview (YC W15) - Inspection software for renewable energy & sustainable infrastructure</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/ontop/">OnTop (YC W21) - A bank for remote workers connected to payroll</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/obie/">Obie (YC S19) - Insurance and risk management for landlords</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/nabis/">Nabis (YC W19) - The largest licensed cannabis wholesale platform</li></ul><p>Public:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/presto/">Presto (YC S10) - Digital meets physical for big chain restaurants</li></ul><p>Exits:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/nurx/">NURX (YC W16) - Medicine or testing kit, prescribed online, and delivered to your door </li></ul><p>One thing to note is that this is not an exhaustive list of YC’s top companies. We allowed founders to opt out of being listed for any reason. The full list of YC companies can be found <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/">here. </p><p>Congrats again to the companies recognized on the 2023 YC Top Companies list!</p>","comment_id":"63f91878d2b0220001e8d6e9","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/02/BlogTwitter-Image-Template.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-02-24T12:05:12.000-08:00","updated_at":"2023-03-16T09:44:58.000-07:00","published_at":"2023-02-27T09:00:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"There are now 16 public YC companies, 290 private YC companies and 33 exits that are valued at over $150M, and over 80 that are worth more than $1B.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a7106f","name":"Y 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I talk to a lot of people who are trying to figure out which startup to join. I want to share some of the advice I’ve been giving, and I hope it helps you navigate your own job search.
Ask about the company’s runway, burn rate and plans for future funding.
A company’s runway is the number of months that it has until it runs out of money. This can be determined by a number of things, including the amount of funding it raised, the amount of revenue it generates, and the expenses (or “burn”) it has in operating the business on a monthly basis.
There is no right or wrong answer — it really depends on your risk tolerance. But you probably want a startup that has enough runway to both endure the downturn and also raise its next round of funding.
Also note that while cash-flow positive businesses are in a good position to weather this storm, even startups like Stripe endured the 2009 recession, despite being largely unprofitable at the time.
Ask how the business is adapting to this new economic environment.
While many startups might falter during a tough economy, it’s important to consider which might thrive as a result of changed consumer behavior or market opportunities. A few examples:
Outschool (W16) offers online classes for homeschooled children, which used to be a small minority of American kids and overnight became the majority.
As you speak with founders during the interview process, ask how the economy has impacted their business (for worse or for better) and what they’re doing to adapt so they come out strong on the other side.
Assess the founders, not just their answers.
We tell YC founders to be very transparent with candidates during the interview process. We feel this is important to build trust early on, and the trust will be reciprocated when they hire great employees who can use information to make strong business/product/engineering decisions.
As you interact with the founders and team, look for answers to your questions that are thoughtful and balanced — revealing both the pros and the cons of any scenario. You’re likely to get more detail as you get to the end of the interview process (the company has more invested in you at that point), so take the opportunity to ask questions throughout the process.
Joining a startup isn’t for everyone, and the above should help you better assess the startup you are considering. Go in with thoughtful questions, and hopefully you will walk away with trust in the founders to make good, thoughtful decisions — about the business, the product, the customers who use it and the team you work with to build it.
If you’re looking for your next role, you can fill out a profile at Work at a Startup to view YC startups that are actively hiring. We’re here to help.
