Oct 22, 2026

Why AI Startups Will Disappear Without Compute Markets — Evan Conrad, San Francisco Compute

Evan Conrad explains how San Francisco Compute went from an AI lab forced to sublease its own GPU cluster to an operator of supercomputers and a market for compute. He lays out the chain of risks facing new labs and inference companies, from sold-out capacity and oversized deposits to late, broken clusters and unpredictable demand, and argues that these form one credit-driven risk problem that a working compute market must solve.

Oct 05, 2026

The Current State of Consumer AI

The latest a16z Top 100 Consumer AI Apps report uncovers a power-user dominated economy, where a small percentage of users drive the majority of AI spending, primarily on productivity and creative tools. It highlights the rapid emergence and challenges of personal AI agents like Muse and Instinct, emphasizing privacy and high serving costs. The discussion also covers the limitations of subscription models, the burgeoning role of advertising (with OpenAI's $1B run rate), the competitive landscape of leading AI labs (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini), and the vast untapped consumer AI white space in areas like social, dating, and entertainment, suggesting a shift from "save time" to "spend time" applications for future growth.

Sep 01, 2026

Why Your Agent Evals Are Missing the Real Failures (with Aishwarya Srinivasan)

Aishwarya Srinivasan, co-founder of The Gen Academy, discusses the shift in AI and software engineering, highlighting how "cheap code" necessitates strong engineering judgment and a "whole-system eval" approach for agentic AI. She explains the resurgence of reinforcement learning for fine-tuning, the evolution from prompt to loop engineering, and introduces her MIND framework for living with AI. Srinivasan emphasizes experimentation as the most critical career skill and offers insights into what differentiates successful AI startups in today's competitive landscape.

Aug 25, 2026

The Evolution of Computers

This conversation explores how AI's mathematical progress challenges traditional computing assumptions. It examines the shift from engineering-bound problems to capital-bound problems, impacting startups, incumbents, and venture capital, and considers the unpredictable potential of massively funded AI models.

Aug 12, 2026

Y Combinator CEO on Founder Psychology in the Age of AI

Garry Tan, President and CEO of Y Combinator, discusses how AI is fundamentally reshaping the startup landscape. He covers the evolution of Silicon Valley culture, the lessons learned from two decades of tech cycles, and why earnestness and courage trump chasing trends. The conversation delves into the transformative power of AI agents in creating "400x" founders, the obsolescence of traditional SaaS, and how small, agent-powered teams can achieve unprecedented scale. Tan also explores the future of consumer AI, the impact of AI on organizational bureaucracy, and the "white pill" perspective on AI adoption, concluding with thoughts on local politics and community engagement.

Jul 25, 2026

What Actually Makes A Startup Durable

YC partners discuss how founders should navigate the AI era, emphasizing the rapid decrease in AI costs, the evolving definition of a 'hard problem' for startups, the critical importance of human connection and co-founders, and practical advice on building AI-native loops, pivoting, and achieving distribution in a world where software is easy to build.