Better AI Starts With Better Verification

Halluminate, a Y Combinator S25 company, builds RL environments and benchmarks that teach AI models to do non-coding knowledge work, starting with financial services. In this fireside with YC Partner Jon Xu, co-founders Jerry Wu and Wyatt Marshall trace their pivot from evals to training environments, explain why verification quality matters more than task volume, and outline a roadmap toward multi-agent simulated companies. They also address reward hacking, alignment as an industry-wide responsibility, and what they look for in new hires.