Episode 642: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Garry Tan ( https://x.com/garrytan ), CEO of Y Combinator, about the sauce that makes YC outperform the rest of Silicon Valley plus lessons from Paul Graham, Peter Thiel and Garry’s first million. 

—

Show Notes: 

(0:00 ) Winning the game

(3:16 ) Being the Harvard of startups

(7:31 ) How YC outperforms most Silicon Valley investors

(9:36 ) Spotting extreme winners

(14:14 ) Capital-as-a-service

(16:34 ) How Garry hustled at 14 to get his into financial security

(23:04 ) Turning down Peter Thiel's offer to start Palantir

(32:20 ) Garry's first million

(44:57 ) Early days at YC

(51:31 ) The edge of startups with a 2-pizza team

(54:36 ) Advice for founders in AI

(1:05:57 ) The spoon-bending story

—

Links:

• YC - https://www.ycombinator.com/

• Founding Sales - https://www.foundingsales.com/

—

Check Out Shaan's Stuff:

Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it’s called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd

—

Check Out Sam's Stuff:

• Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/

• Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/

• Copy That - https://copythat.com

• Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth

• Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/

My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano