Washington could also be the center of laws and regulation affecting startups, but many people in the city don’t know anything about one of the more famous accelerators powering the industry: Y Combinator. In a speech at the TechCrunch Strictly VC event on Tuesday night, YC public policy chief Luther Lowe said the startup incubator is looking to raise its profile in D.C.
Lowe, who joined the accelerator last fall from Yelp, where he was vice chairman of public policy, said his role at YC is akin to “YC 101” for the DC audience.
“So many people in Washington don’t really know what it is,” he noted.
Founded in 2005, Lowe called YC the “original accelerator.” He explained the industry’s roots to event attendees, noting that the accelerator’s co-founder was Paul Graham, who successfully sold the company in the Nineties and assisted founders by writing essays to help them avoid pitfalls. When Graham put out a call for startup applications, a dozen startups made it into YC’s debut class. From this initial group got here Reddit and Twitch, and the program has grown steadily since then.
“Basically the way it works is if you and I had a cool idea, we could pitch in. The acceptance rate is approximately 1%. You can give up about 10% of your equity, get half a million in funding, and move to San Francisco – now where it’s anchored – for about 12 weeks. You just get intense mentoring and you get that kind of zero-to-one product market fit,” Lowe said.
The organization has now founded about 5,000 corporations and has 11,000 founders in its network, which Lowe described as “just a crazy impact on the U.S. tech economy.” And yet, he noted, “what’s most surprising about this new role is that many Washingtonians don’t even know it exists.”
Lowe said he is working to educate policymakers about YC’s impact and how the accelerator has touched “virtually every congressional district” in the United States.
Garry Tan, president and CEO of YC, is also raising the profile of the accelerator in his own way — with racy tweets, as noted by moderator and TechCrunch CEO/Editor-in-Chief Connie Loizos.
Lowe didn’t confirm whether this was a strategy on Tan’s part, but praised Tan for his warmth and dedication.
Having trained the Washington market, YC intends to leverage its influence, particularly in areas comparable to competition policy. “We actually need to get competition policy right first… If we glance at Europe and the Digital Markets Act, [it’s] it is not perfect, but at least they’re trying to determine how to limit the most egregious types of self-selection by these large corporations. And if we do not do that, it’s pretty easy to see the way it compares to the reality outside,” Lowe said.
He pointed to startups and small tech corporations that are negatively impacted by Apple through software launches like the ones announced during Monday’s WWDC 2024 keynote – a practice so common it even has a name: Sherlocking.
“There is an alternative universe where we leverage interoperability and force these companies to stop choosing their own preferences, and it’s better for everyone… it’s not too late,” Lowe said.