Washington, DC, may be the epicenter of laws and regulations that affect startups, but many in the city know nothing about Y Combinator, one of the most well-known accelerators fueling the startup industry. Speaking at TechCrunch Strictly VC event on Tuesday night, Luther Lowe, YC's head of public policy, said the startup incubator is looking to raise its profile in DC.
Rowe, who joined the accelerator last fall from Yelp, where he served as svp of public policy, described his role at YC as like “YC 101” for DC folks.
“A lot of people in Washington don't actually know what it is,” he said.
Founded in 2005, Lowe called YC “the original accelerator.” He explained the accelerator's industry roots to event attendees, saying that it was co-founded by Paul Graham, who sold a company in the 1990s and helped founders avoid common pitfalls by writing essays to help them avoid them. After Graham called for startups to apply, 12 startups enrolled in YC's first year class. Reddit and Twitch were also born from that first group, and the program continued to grow.
“The basic way it works is if you and I have a great idea, we can apply. We have a roughly 1% acceptance rate. We give up about 10% of our equity, get $500,000 in funding, move to San Francisco, where we're based now, for about 12 weeks, and get intensive mentorship to help us get to zero-to-one product-market fit,” Rowe said.
The organization has now funded about 5,000 companies and has 11,000 founders in its network, which Rowe called “an incredible impact on the U.S. tech economy.” But he noted that what's most surprising about this new role is how many people in Washington don't even know it exists.
Rowe said he is working to educate policymakers about YC's impact and how the accelerator touches “virtually every congressional district” in the United States.
YC President and CEO Garry Tan has also been raising the accelerator's profile in his own way with his sharp-tongued tweets, as moderator and TechCrunch GM and Editor-in-Chief Connie Loizos pointed out.
While Low did not confirm whether that was Tan's strategy, he praised his partner for his warmth and dedication.
After educating Washington, YC aims to leverage its influence, particularly in areas such as competition policy: “First, we need to get our competition policy sorted… If you look at Europe and digital market law, [it’s] “It's not perfect, but at least they're trying to figure out how to curb the most egregious self-serving behavior from these big companies. And if they don't, it's easy to see where this could go,” Lowe said.
He was referring to startups and smaller tech companies that Apple is negatively impacting with software releases like the one announced at Monday's WWDC 2024 keynote, a practice so common it even has its own name: “Sherlocking.”
“There's a different world out there that embraces interoperability and forces companies to stop putting themselves first, and that's good for everyone… it's not too late,” Lowe said.