He’s been saying the same thing for a while. E.g. here:
back in the day when we were working with companies you know what was sort of a aspirational growth rate what would we tell people to try to do week on week. Well 10% week on week is is an amazing metric to hit yeah and I think back then if uh you were like maybe the top one or two you know maybe even the top one or two companies in the whole batch you’d be able to achieve that. And since summer of last year the wildest thing is realizing that uh both summer and fall [2024] batch in aggregate on average over the batch in 12 weeks average 10% week on week growth so not just the very best the Airbnb of the batch but the batch overall
I will add this as a footnote to clarify though, thanks for pointing it out!
Cool, thanks. With that source, I agree it’s correct to say that Garry Tan has claimed that “YC batches are the fastest growing in their history because of generative AI” for the summer 2024, autumn 2024 and winter 2025 batches.
Have you noticed him making a similar claim for earlier batches?
Not to my knowledge. I agree with your point that maybe it’s just too soon to see any results (this is why I put “yet” in the title).
I’ve been trying to think about what a good prediction market for this post would be, because I’d like to get some signal on whether this is the explanation—any thoughts? Maybe something like “if I run this exact same analysis one year from now, will at least two 2024 batch companies be on the list of 20 fastest 2-year growth YC startups?”
Notably, in that video, Garry is quite careful and deliberate with his phrasing. It doesn’t come across as a case of him doing excited offhand hype. Paul Buchheit nods as he makes the claim.
This post misquotes Garry Tan. You wrote (my emphasis):
But Garry’s claim was only about the winter 2025 batch. From the passage you cited:
He’s been saying the same thing for a while. E.g. here:
I will add this as a footnote to clarify though, thanks for pointing it out!
Cool, thanks. With that source, I agree it’s correct to say that Garry Tan has claimed that “YC batches are the fastest growing in their history because of generative AI” for the summer 2024, autumn 2024 and winter 2025 batches.
Have you noticed him making a similar claim for earlier batches?
Not to my knowledge. I agree with your point that maybe it’s just too soon to see any results (this is why I put “yet” in the title).
I’ve been trying to think about what a good prediction market for this post would be, because I’d like to get some signal on whether this is the explanation—any thoughts? Maybe something like “if I run this exact same analysis one year from now, will at least two 2024 batch companies be on the list of 20 fastest 2-year growth YC startups?”
I’ve no experience writing questions for prediction markets. With that caveat: something like that question sounds good.
Ideally I’d like to see the 1-year analysis run in 2026Q1.
Notably, in that video, Garry is quite careful and deliberate with his phrasing. It doesn’t come across as a case of him doing excited offhand hype. Paul Buchheit nods as he makes the claim.