Business
Year One
Every billion-dollar YC company survived a brutal first year after Demo Day.
Episodes
The archive
28 episodes, newest first.
- Greypoint: Proving a Four-Person Team on a Different ClockGreypoint is four people building drone swarms, in a defense market where most of the money is going to a handful of giants. A week before the November 3 midterms, Year One goes back to the Greypoint and 9 Mothers storyline from the YC hardware and defense cohort to ask what has happened since Demo Day. A YC partner weighs in on what hardware founders should and shouldn't read into election-year policy noise, including why headline drone money that is requested is not the same as money that is appropriated. The founder-side updates on contracts, raises and setbacks come from the interviews, not from public sources. This one is especially relevant for hardware and defense founders trying to get noticed on a clock the big rounds don't share.
- W27 Applicants: The Draft You Haven't FinishedYou have an unfinished YC application open in another tab, and the on-time deadline for Winter 2027 is November 2 at 8pm PT. Decisions are due by December 11. In this Year One episode, Miles and Grant work backward from the interview to ask what changes between applying and interviewing, which parts of an application people overthink, and which parts they skip. A YC partner and a recent-batch founder are planned guests, and their on-tape accounts will carry the partner and founder claims. Along the way the hosts cover what to do with the weeks before an interview, since YC's own advice is to keep making progress. It's especially relevant for any founder with a half-written draft and a ticking clock.
- Anonymous Founder: Extension or Default AlivePicture a seed-stage founder at the point where the runway math stops working. The metrics are real, but they fall short of the Series A bar, and the next move decides whether the company gets a second act. In this Year One episode, Miles and Grant walk through that hypothetical scenario and the three options on the table: a $1.5-3M extension on a SAFE, a push for a priced A, or cutting burn to aim for default alive. We look at how common extensions have become, why they get misread, and the real difference between a planned bridge and a way to avoid admitting the model isn't repeatable yet. The stall-or-plan reading is the hosts' own analysis, built on YC's published default-alive guidance and its 2022 position on extensions, not a quote from a YC partner. If you're a seed-stage founder staring at month fourteen, this is especially for you.
- Two Founders, One Year Out: The Series A CliffA year ago they stood on the Demo Day stage. Now two YC founders — one from Summer 2025, one from Winter 2026 — are staring down a number that decides everything: only 15-20% of seed-stage companies make it to a Series A. Year One follows two non-outlier founders, the kind nobody writes headlines about, as they find out in real time whether their normal $3-4M seed clears a bar that has roughly tripled since 2021. Miles and Grant walk through what a 2.0-2.5x valuation step-up and a $1-2M-plus ARR floor actually require, then bring in a YC partner to pattern-match this exact fork against hundreds of companies who've hit it before. Published {date}. This one's for any founder a few months past their own Demo Day who's starting to feel the runway math get uncomfortable.
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- Nadia: Walking Into the Room After the $200M NumberNadia's cohort files into a San Francisco ballroom for day one of Y Combinator's Fall 2026 kickoff, and the first thing everyone wants to talk about is a number they weren't even in the room for. Year One picks the arc back up as the batch that follows the show's own S26 valuation-shock storyline gets its own orientation, its own group dinners, and — per what a YC partner reportedly tells the class — explicit instructions to price rounds on fundamentals instead of the comp everyone's whispering about. Miles and Grant walk through what week one actually looks like: the three-day kickoff, the scale of a batch built from hundreds of founders split into small partner-led groups, and the July deadline crush that got them all in the room. They close by marking December 2nd on the calendar, the date this cohort's own Demo Day countdown begins. This one's for anyone who's been following Nadia since Demo Day, or anyone wondering whether a founder class can actually unlearn the anchoring trap the batch before them fell into.
- 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}.
- 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.
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.
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