Business
Year One
Every billion-dollar YC company survived a brutal first year after Demo Day.
Episodes
The archive
23 episodes, newest first.
- Greypoint: Building Hardware in an AI BatchFive days after Y Combinator's S26 Demo Day, Miles and Grant skip past the AI-wrapper pitches everyone's tweeting about and dig into the batch's quieter story: a wave of founders building physical things again. At the center is Greypoint Industries, a four-person team whose drone swarm geolocates enemy signals instead of shipping another dashboard. This episode is the callback to '9 Mothers' the show has been building toward — proof that outlier wasn't a fluke, it was the edge of a whole cohort trading SaaS margins for CNC machines and government contracts. Miles and Grant work through what the data actually says about this shift, where the press coverage gets the product wrong, and what a Canadian government contract and a real geolocated target tell you about whether the hype is earned. Especially relevant for anyone chasing a hardware or defense idea who assumes YC is still an AI-software funnel. Year One, YC, and the founders proving the batch is bigger than one narrative.
- 9 Mothers: The $200M That Warped the BatchDays before Demo Day, one S26 company was reportedly closing near a $200 million valuation — nearly double the batch's previous record. Within hours, that single number was the only thing anyone on Bookface and X wanted to talk about, and founders raising completely normal $3-4M seeds started wondering if their round was a failure. Miles and Grant trace how one outlier print reshapes hundreds of other term sheet conversations, then pull back the curtain on who the company actually is: a counter-drone defense startup with government sales traction that isn't playing the same game as everyone else in the room. Along the way they dig into what should actually anchor a founder's sense of progress — batch-wide strength data, and two decades of evidence that Demo Day hype barely predicts who wins. This is Year One and YC territory for anyone who's ever felt small standing next to someone else's headline number.
- Demo Day+72: How S26 Term Sheets Get PricedThe pitch is over. Now the real test starts: seventy-two hours where an S26 founder's inbox decides whether the company gets priced fairly or panic-priced by FOMO. Year One skips the Demo Day stage entirely to sit inside that window, tracing how exploding term sheets, SAFE caps, and a market that's suddenly pricing like 2021 again collide for founders who just walked off stage on September 10. Miles and Grant work through what YC itself says about same-day decision deadlines, what current SAFE cap benchmarks actually look like for AI versus non-AI companies, and why one tracked batch's numbers suggest this fundraising cycle has snapped back harder than founders expect. No named deal, no single founder's diary this time — just the mechanics every S26 founder is living through right now. Especially useful for anyone about to open their inbox after their own Demo Day, or any investor trying to understand why founders move so fast when the money starts showing up.
- Nadia: The Verdict ArrivesNadia has spent a month living inside one date: August 28, the day Y Combinator's Fall 2026 verdict was due. This is the episode where Miles and Grant sit down with her at the exact moment she finds out, capturing her reaction as it happens rather than reconstructing it after the fact. Nadia walks the hosts through opening the email in real time, whatever it says, and a YC partner returns to pattern-match what either outcome — a yes toward Demo Day or a no that still leaves paths open — actually changes about her next ninety days. Along the way, the hosts revisit how long the odds were and what founders who've heard no before eventually did with it. This closes the four-part arc Year One has been building since the July 27 deadline, and it's especially worth hearing if you've ever refreshed your inbox waiting for a verdict that would define your next quarter. Published {date}.
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- Nadia: The Ten Days Before August 28Nadia's YC Fall 2026 verdict lands August 28, and this episode sits with her inside the waiting window before it does. A YC partner returns to close the arc and map what her next 90 days look like either way.
- Nadia: What the Yes or No Actually Bought HerWith her Y Combinator Fall 2026 verdict due by August 28, Nadia walks Miles and Grant through what she actually did with the uncertain month of waiting, what the email in her inbox really said, and what changes the morning after either answer. A YC partner returns to close the loop.
- Nadia: The Verdict Lands August 28Nadia applied to YC's Fall 2026 batch before the July 27 cutoff and built an entire month around a single date. Miles and Grant sit with her at the midpoint of the wait, then bring in a partner's-eye read on what either answer actually changes.
- Nadia: Betting the Raise on August 28One day after the YC Fall 2026 deadline, Miles and Grant go back to the founder they tracked through the final application week to hear what she actually submitted, and what she's doing with the 31 days until the verdict lands.
- Mato: Turning Personalized Demos Into OnboardingWe explore how Mato turns personalized product demos into powerful onboarding flows, sharing real examples and automation tactics to convert cold leads faster.
- F26: The Application Nobody Finished YetWith YC's Fall 2026 on-time deadline landing July 27 at 8pm PT, Miles and Grant sit down with a founder finishing their application in the final six days and bring in a YC partner to break down what separates a rushed-but-real submission from a doomed one.
About
What the show is
Year One captures those twelve months as they happen, tracking one founder's make-or-break decision per episode: the pivot that saved the company, the co-founder fight that almost killed it, the fundraising round that closed at 2am on a Thursday. Two hosts (one former YC founder, one startup reporter) sit down with recent batch founders while the wounds are still fresh, then bring in YC partners to dissect what went right, what went wrong, and what the founder couldn't see from inside the fog. If you're an aspiring founder, an early startup employee, or an investor trying to understand why 90% of startups stall while a handful become Stripe or Airbnb, this is the show that replaces hindsight polish with the version founders tell each other at 1am on Bookface.
On the charts
Number 172 in Entrepreneurship
Apple Podcasts placements, from a cached snapshot taken 17 Sept 2026.
Ranking data provided by the Mato Topic Intelligence Platform.
More shows
Elsewhere in the directory
Every one of them is made with Mato.
