About this channel
Y Combinator brings startup building into contact with physical technology, AI research and the practical work of reaching customers. The channel's subjects extend well beyond software applications…
Y Combinator brings startup building into contact with physical technology, AI research and the practical work of reaching customers. The channel's subjects extend well beyond software applications: robotics, construction, transport and sensing appear alongside discussions of the startup environment. Company and project introductions provide one perspective, while research discussion and advice for founders supply others. The result is a view of entrepreneurship that includes both ambitious engineering ideas and the everyday difficulties of getting a business moving.
Robotic factories that build robots offer one example of the industrial questions in the episode selection. A discussion about general-purpose models in robotics approaches a related issue from the AI side, asking what kind of system might be useful across different tasks. A Paper Club episode considers alternatives to GPUs, bringing the underlying computing choices into the conversation. These topics place startup ideas in the context of the technologies on which they depend.
For someone working on a company, the channel also turns to a more immediate problem: why cold outreach can go unanswered. That practical strand sits beside broader assessments of the startup landscape and material connected to demo days. Founders can draw on the videos to think about both their product and how they introduce it to other people. Viewers interested in emerging businesses can explore what teams are attempting across several fields, without needing to approach every episode as a lesson in launching a company themselves.
Latest episode
How Jeetu Patel Runs Cisco Like the World’s Largest Startup
Cisco is building AI infrastructure, from networking GPU clusters to securing agents, with its hyperscaler AI business reaching $9.3 billion in orders in two years. Cisco President and Chief Product…
Cisco is building AI infrastructure, from networking GPU clusters to securing agents, with its hyperscaler AI business reaching $9.3 billion in orders in two years. Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel joins Y Combinator Managing Partner Jared Friedman to discuss bringing startup speed to 32,000 engineers, why AI should unlock new ideas rather than just cut costs, and why he expects to need more engineers, not fewer. He also explains why he doesn’t think we’re overbuilding data centers and shares career lessons on choosing learning over ego.
Chapters:
00:00 — Cisco’s Bet on AI
03:38 — Running Cisco Like a Startup
06:45 — The Infrastructure AI Agents Need
10:00 — Getting 32,000 Engineers to Embrace AI
14:07 — Bringing AI to Hardware and Silicon
17:15 — Inside the AI Data Center Buildout
21:27 — Are We Overbuilding AI Infrastructure?
25:10 — Building Trust in AI Agents
28:18 — From India to Waiting Tables at Sizzler
32:12 — Choosing Learning Over Ego
35:31 — Ambition, Teamwork, and Compounding
39:31 — Don’t Squander Your Opportunity
Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply
Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs
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