Garry Tan
President & CEO, Y Combinator
- Startups
- AI
- Early-Stage Investing
Editorial bio
Garry Tan was born in Winnipeg; his family settled in Fremont, California. BS in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford, early employee at Microsoft and the 10th at Palantir (where he also designed the Palantir logo). Co-founded Posterous (YC S08) – a blogging platform acquired by Twitter for ≈ $20M – and later Posthaven. Partner at Y Combinator from 2011 to 2015, where he built Bookface and other founder tools and wrote early checks, including into Coinbase. Co-founded Initialized Capital, with early positions in Coinbase, Instacart and Flexport.
In 2023 he returned to YC as President & CEO. His tenure has been loud. YC has shifted hard toward AI, demo-day cadence has accelerated, the YouTube channel has become a public hiring and recruiting funnel, and he's unusually visible on X – simultaneously running the accelerator and being its public face. He's active in San Francisco civic efforts (Garry's List), and sits on the Forbes Midas List.
Worth following if you want the pulse of what the next YC batch is building before the demo day runs.
Key facts
- based in
- San Francisco, California
- current
- President & CEO, Y Combinator (since 2023)
- prior
- Partner, Y Combinator (2011–2015) · Co-Founder, Posterous (YC S08; acquired by Twitter ≈ $20M) · Co-Founder, Posthaven · Co-Founder, Initialized Capital · Palantir (10th employee; designed the logo) · early Microsoft
- education
- BS Computer Systems Engineering, Stanford
- early investments
- Coinbase · Instacart · Flexport
- recognition
- Forbes Midas List
- focus
- Early-stage startups · AI companies · YC batches · SF civic (Garry's List)
Featured work
Y Combinator (President & CEO, 2023–)
Leading the accelerator through its AI-first batches.
Initialized Capital (Co-Founder)
Seed fund with early positions in Coinbase, Instacart, Flexport.
Posterous (Co-Founder, YC S08)
Blogging platform acquired by Twitter for ≈ $20M.
Palantir (10th employee, logo designer)
Early product and design work.
Garry Tan YouTube channel
Founder advice, YC behind-the-scenes, interviews with founders.