Skip to content
YC Root AccessYC Root Access

YC Startup Talk for Students, 2022

Are you a current student who's curious about what it's like to work at a YC startup? Or are you ready to apply to roles and want to make your application as strong as possible? Do you want to start your own startup someday? Join the Y Combinator team for a discussion targeted at current students who are interested in working at startups -- whether as an employee or a founder. We'll talk about what questions to ask yourself to determine if a startup is right for you, as well as methods to find which startups might be a great fit. Find more talks at YC's Work at a Startup: https://www.workatastartup.com -------- Jump to sections: 0:27 - What Y Combinator does 1:16 - What’s the best way to learn about startups? 3:18 - How are startups different than FAANG? 5:54 - How do I choose a startup? 8:34 - What should I focus on at my job/internship? 11:47 - How do I start my own company? 12:59 - Case Study: Airbnb 13:53 - What does YC look for in a startup? 16:46 - How do I learn more about startups? For aspiring founders: https://www.startupschool.org/. To find a job at a startup: http://workatastartup.com/. 18:22 - Why apply to YC?

Diana Huhost
Oct 25, 202221mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

YC’s student startup guide: learn by joining, measure impact, build companies

  1. The fastest way to learn startups is to work at one, where you’ll gain outsized responsibility, direct customer exposure, and rapid shipping cycles.
  2. Startups differ from FAANG in hiring generalists, offering higher visibility and faster decisions, and enabling deeper customer impact—at the cost of less structural predictability.
  3. Choosing a startup is largely about choosing the stage (seed, series, growth, scale), because stage determines risk level, team needs, and which roles exist.
  4. To excel in a startup job or internship, you should understand the business and measure your impact with role-appropriate metrics (pipeline, revenue, retention, efficiency, NPS).
  5. YC’s core founder playbook is to make something people want by talking to users and doing non-scalable things early, and YC evaluates founders for domain passion, execution ability, and learning speed more than a polished prototype.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Learn startups by joining one, not just reading about them.

Diana argues the real education comes from operating inside a small team: shipping quickly, seeing the business context, and learning directly from founders and experienced peers.

Startups reward generalists, but specialization can still matter in niches.

Most startups need people who can wear many hats (e.g., build a landing page and talk to customers), though deep specialists can be critical in areas like ML or APIs.

Stage selection is the hidden key to ‘startup risk.’

Seed companies may be pre-product and chaotic, while growth/scale companies can be far less risky and hire across many functions; your fit depends on how much ambiguity you can handle.

Your internship/job success hinges on understanding the business and quantifying impact.

She emphasizes measuring outcomes you can put on a resume—pipeline created, revenue closed, funnel conversion improved, retention lifted, or systems made faster/more reliable.

Engineering isn’t exempt from business impact—own outcomes, not tickets.

Diana notes engineers can ship what’s requested yet miss real impact; startups value engineers who understand customers and can challenge or refine direction to move business metrics.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

One of the best ways to actually learn about startups is to just go work at one.

— Diana Hu

Working at a startup sometimes means you get more responsibility than you deserve.

— Diana Hu

The number one thing I say is understand the business and measure your impact.

— Diana Hu

Make something people want… Talk to your users… Do things that don't scale.

— Diana Hu

You're not gonna be able to experience that unless you really go find one that is interesting to you… and you work at one.

— Diana Hu

What YC does for early-stage startupsWorking at a startup as the best learning methodStartups vs FAANG tradeoffsStartup stages: seed, series, growth, scaleRole metrics: marketing, sales, product, engineering, supportYC founder principles: users and non-scalable workAirbnb early MVP and niche beginningsWhat YC looks for in applicants (domain, team, iteration)Startup School and cofounder matchingWhy apply to YC (product, fundraising, hiring support)

High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome