Startup

Garry Tan: "Personal AGI Is How You Stay Under Your Own Power"

Garry Tan: "Personal AGI Is How You Stay Under Your Own Power"

YC President Garry Tan introduces "Personal AGI," a concept where individuals own and train AI agents on their unique context, transforming personal productivity and startup creation. He shares his workflow, advocating for Markdown as code and emphasizing the critical importance of owning one's intellectual assets in the age of AI. The talk outlines a practical 5-step guide to building a personal AI system and explores the profound implications for innovation and individual empowerment.

Zynga Founder: Consumer Is Not Investible Right Now - Thats Why You Should Build It

Zynga Founder: Consumer Is Not Investible Right Now - Thats Why You Should Build It

Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga, discusses the product philosophy behind "Life at the Speed of Play," focusing on consumer innovation in the AI age. He introduces the "Proven, Better, New" framework, shares insights on founder mode, and predicts a future where "intelligence on tap" driven by free AI compute will unlock unprecedented opportunities for new "internet treasures," despite current investor skepticism in the consumer space.

Making Every Supermarket in America Autonomous

Making Every Supermarket in America Autonomous

Brandon Hill, co-founder and CEO of Vori, discusses how his company is digitizing the $1.5 trillion grocery industry with an all-in-one OS. He covers their journey from a simple ordering app to a full-stack platform, the use of AI agents to automate pricing and inventory, and their vision for the 'self-driving' grocery store.

The Future of Search: Agents, RAG, and Why Retrieval Still Matters — Simon Eskildsen, Turbopuffer

The Future of Search: Agents, RAG, and Why Retrieval Still Matters — Simon Eskildsen, Turbopuffer

Simon Hørup Eskildsen, founder of turbopuffer, shares his journey from scaling Shopify's infrastructure to creating a new search engine for the AI era. He discusses how a prohibitively expensive experiment at Readwise inspired him to build a cost-effective vector search solution based on object storage and NVMe. Eskildsen breaks down turbopuffer's architecture, its role in cutting costs for companies like Cursor and Notion, his philosophy on building a 'P99' engineering team, and how agentic workloads are changing the future of retrieval.

Protecting Healthcare Data w/ AI Cybersecurity | Siyethaba Nxumalo | Founder & COO | CipherGenix |4K

Protecting Healthcare Data w/ AI Cybersecurity | Siyethaba Nxumalo | Founder & COO | CipherGenix |4K

Siyethaba Nxumalo, the 22-year-old founder of CipherGenix, outlines the critical need for AI-specific cybersecurity in healthcare, where compromised models directly impact patient lives. He details his journey of building a global startup from South Africa, emphasizing a customer-first approach, a multi-layered security architecture to combat threats like data poisoning and model theft, and the non-negotiable role of ethical, explainable AI in building trust and ensuring patient safety.

Artie: Real Time Data Streaming For The AI Age

Artie: Real Time Data Streaming For The AI Age

Jacqueline Cheong and Robin Tang, founders of real-time data streaming platform Artie, discuss their journey from identifying the critical need for fresh data at companies like OpenDoor to building a production-ready solution, acquiring their first major customer Substack via a cold email, and navigating the complex technical challenges of real-time data processing at scale.