Garry Tan - SIER Distinguished Lectureship: A Candid Fireside Chat on the Entrepreneurial Journey

[ALAN YEUNG] Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Alan Young. I am the Li Ka Shing Professor of Medicine and Cardiology here at the medical school. Welcome to our second annual distinguished lectureship, with the Stanford Initiative for Entrepreneur Resilience and Well-Being, or SIER, we call it. We launched it in May of 2024 with the support of the vision of the Li Ka Shing Foundation, as well as the Selena Child Foundation. We basically remain dedicated to a singular and vital mission, that cutting edge technology must be matched by the internal strength of the people building it. Technology alone cannot do the work. As we move into our second year, our core inquiry remains unchanged. What attributes help entrepreneurs be resilient and endure hardships while maintaining a healthy mindset? We recognize that the journey to success is rarely a straight line. It is often accom-- accamp-- accompanied by significant challenges and setback. So at SIER, we define resilience as the capacity to adapt, recover, and grow stronger from stress. Because a lot of times, we think stress will just make us weaker, but we think that with stress, we actually get stronger every time, and how to do that is our mission. We believe that by understanding how to leverage our mental and physical strengths, we can help entrepreneurs turn the greatest challenge into unique opportunities for innovation. So SIER's goal is to bring awareness to the fact that well-being is not a luxury. It is a foundational requirement for success. To achieve this through SIER, we organize it and unite, unites two other expertise on campus. We always sometimes don't know that from one side of campus to the other, but we have two powerhouse centers. Obviously, the, the Stanford Musallam Center for Biodesign, under Professor Josh Maguire and Doug Wright is here, and also the Stanford Technology Venture Program, STVP, under Professor Tom Byers, Chuck Eesley, Rita Katila, and also Mike Lepec. So put, by combining these sort of relevant clinical insights, which with entrepreneurial strategies, we are researching and developing programs to empower community to navigate their journeys with confidence and endurance. So we want to put in a plug. We're gonna be launching an app that will study resilience in the next month or so. So look out for that particular flyer or on our website. I think that will be very helpful to really help you understand and help us understand how resilience can be built and can be sort of built forward. So today, we are privileged to host a speaker who epitomizes the spirit of resilience and grit. The speaker's path reflects exactly the kind of resilience and practice that we strive to understand here at SIER. His journey reminds us that the hardships we overcome are often the very experiences that define our greatest successes. To introduce our distinguished guest and share more about the intersection of health and leadership, please join me in welcoming the Dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, Lloyd Minor. (audience applauding) [LLOYD MINOR] Well, thank you very much, Alan. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. Welcome to this wonderful venue and to what I know is going to be an exciting discussion this afternoon. There's so much to appreciate about the Stanford Initiative for Entrepreneurs Resilience and Well-Being. It plays a vital role in innova-- in the innovation ecosystem that we've built at Stanford University. We have a tremendous legacy of innovation here at Stanford. Both the Stanford Musallam Center for Biodesign and the St-- Stanford Technology Ventures program can boast impressive results. Both programs do an excellent job of sharpening ideas and providing specialized expertise needed to turn a novel concept into a marketable product. With this collaboration, we fill an important gap, helping aspiring entrepreneurs navigate the ups and downs of startup culture, not only to achieve success, but also to maintain mental and physical well-being. I want to thank the Li Ka Shing Foundation for the generosity and support in making this multidisciplinary effort possible. We have a very special guest joining us this afternoon for our second annual distinguished lecture. It's my honor to introduce Gary Tan, President and CEO of Y Combinator. Gary joined YC in the fall of 2023 after founding Initialized Capital, a very successful venture capital fund.

Gary was one of YC's first partners and funded and advised many iconic companies, including Coinbase, Instacart, and many others. In YC's early days, Gary also served as a designer and engineer. He also wrote software, created Bookface, the internal network that connects YC's alumni founders to this day. Possibly most importantly for today, Gary is a Stanford alum. Throughout his career, Gary has met hundreds of entrepreneurs at every stage of the business life cycle. I can't think of anybody better to share his insights on what makes a successful, resilient, and healthy entrepreneur. Gary will be sitting down for a conversa-- conversation with SIER co-lead, Anastasia Ntracha. She's a health tech entrepreneur with founder and product leadership experience across women's health, autoimmune conditions, and baby tech in the US and Europe. Anastasia was previously a Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellow developing a minimally invasive oncology device. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Gary and Anastasia. (all applauding) [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Thank you, Dean Minor. Thank you, Dr. Yang. Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. Thank you all for being here with us today. And thank you, Gary, for being willing to go a bit deeper with us today. So at SIER where I co-lead with Andreas Werdich out of Stanford Biodesign, we spend a lot of time researching and asking founders this deceptively simple question: What does it take to build things that matter without breaking yourself in the process? So we gathered all those insights and experiences, and we're piloting a novel curriculum that has three phases. And we're gonna use these three phases to frame the conversation for today. So the agenda for today is we're gonna start from Discover, where we're gonna learn a bit more about Gary's story and his definition of resilience. Then we're gonna go to Explore and hear more about the strategies and patterns he sees across hundreds of YC founders. And lastly, we're gonna go to Embody and see how identity, culture, and system design come together. So to kick us off, with Discover, Gary, if we pause all those wonderful titles of YC CEO and investor and founder, and I ask you, "Who are you? " What feels most important for you to share with us today? [GARRY TAN] I guess the unusual thing, well first off, Anastasia, you so much for bringing me back to the Farm. And, you know, I, it's actually honestly quite surreal to be here, because when I look at this audience and it's full of a great many frankly, like I think we have, you know, students, grad students, and students. And I look at you, and I see myself. Like, we are not different. We're the same. I feel like I was in your shoes just yesterday. And for you guys to use this term, distinguished is blowing my brain right now. I just can't. I'm like, "Okay, this is very surreal. " But at the same time, like, I think there's a lot of things that maybe it's just the setting, maybe it's coming back to the Engineering Quad where I spent, you know, a great many nights in the labs you know, working on various projects. I right now, at this moment, like I kinda feel like the 18, 19-year-old freshman that like rolled down, you know, Palm Drive and was moving into Lauro right now. And I think the most important thing that I wish I could do, like one of my favorite questions for people on my YouTube channel is, "What do you wish the 18 to 22-year-old version of you knew right now, given what you've been through? " And first off, I would say, like if you were in my shoes, like actually it's gonna be okay. Like, you're already in rarefied air. You know, in full transparency, I had pretty rough childhood. And I didn't realize this. Like, I wish that I had taken ACE scores, the Adverse Childhood Experiences test. It's available on the internet. At the risk of sounding too therapy-pilled, like, I was pretty resistant to, you know, the, even the idea that talk therapy or that, you know, the psychology profession had something to teach me. You know, my childhood's very difficult, you know, in that, you know, I'm, I'm an Asian American, child of Chinese immigrants. In full transparency, I mean, that was like what drove me to achieve in a lot of ways. Like, I viewed getting, I grew up actually right over the bay in Fremont.

My mom was a nurse assistant. My dad was a foreman in a machine shop. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And you know, my father struggled with alcoholism. And for me, like getting a B might mean like a punch to the face. And so that was one of the things that was like a real part of my life. And, you know, I, now that I've, you know, come to be the CEO of like a important institution, I realize now like so many Asian American people of all ages have actually come to me and said, "Oh, that's actually, you know, unfortunately, a part of our culture as some--" You know, I know that that's like the third part, but like-- [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] No worries. [GARRY TAN] You know, I, I realize like that, you know, coming to Stanford, being able to-- Look how beautiful it is, right? I remember going, you know, I was a freshman in Florence Moore Hall and just being a, like, I was so excited to start my new life. I viewed coming to Stanford as like sort of, you know, how there's like a light at, at the end of the tunnel? Like, this was my light, you know, throughout my, up until I was 18 years old, you know, I worked really, really hard. I needed to get straight As. high SATs. Like, I studied, I worked hard, 'cause I thought like, "I'm going to get to the end, the light. " [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And then when I got here, I did it. Like, I'm done. Like, you know, all of that is in, behind me, and like none of it will affect me anymore. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] Like, I've made it. And I guess like, you know, the hard part was like that wasn't true at all, actually. And, you know, it's kinda funny how, as technology goes, we use technology to, you know, the sort of analogies, and ideas from technology to understand humans. And so, you know, I guess what I would say is, you know, I think you're, you know, 10, 20,000 hours of human learning, I mean, this is, it's just like in AI, like you have machine learning, right? [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] It's like this is your training set. And the cool thing is, you know, you can't change your pre-training. You can change your prompts. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm. [GARRY TAN] And post-training. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Very interesting, very interesting. [GARRY TAN] Which is very good, like this is great news. This is very advanced technology-- actually. Do not neglect, like, I thought like, oh, all I need to do is like, you know, do well in my CS classes, like I love CS106X. I loved, like, all of, like, 107 was awesome, 108. I'm, all of these like foundational CS courses I thought were like the real thing, and then what I neglected was that, oh, there's like all this programming that happened from my childhood. And it came out in all sorts of ways like almost like every single time I was in some sort of business scenario later. Mm. So I could not, you know, I, we all believe that we can compartmentalize, you know, this pre-training. But it will come out sooner or later, you know, and I guess, do you wanna hear the story of like my two rage quits? Well, maybe we can, before we get to that-- Please. You can give us first your definition of resilience in the entrepreneurial-- Yes. Context and then let's see if these stories are resilience defining moment for you. That's a good question. Okay. I mean, I was thinking when you asked this backstage, that we run across people who, it's not merely persistence because-- Mm-hmm. Persistence sometimes leads you down bad roads. This is why we actually really encourage people to pivot. Mm. I mean, I think it was Twain who said, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again-- then quit. It's no use being a damn fool about it. " And I think that's actually a really hard like this requires discernment, and I, you know, the weird thing is like we work with so many founders and like the failures sort of the sort of failure to be resilient happens in many different ways. Mm. One is obviously just giving up, like only aiming for like the brass ring and if you don't get the brass ring immediately give up, blame other people, blame yourself, like, you know, this is, I mean, it's just a bad thing to do, and yet it happens like quite common-- Mm. --in our society. You know, I like to say that I, it isn't to say I can't remember what there's a show that's, you know, I think it's a Rick and Morty-ism maybe or-- Yeah. No. It's Adventure Time actually. Okay. In Adventure Time they say, you know, "Sucking is just the first step to not sucking. " And I think that that's, maybe that's like

the best idea of resilience I could probably say-- Mm-hmm. That definitely is true in all of the founders who I've seen. I mean, you have to view it as a process, and you have to be aware of your circumstance. And then, like, learn, right? Like, you know, madness is doing the same thing over and over again, and so, you know, being totally relentless, but doing the same thing is a form of like self-torture, and so-- [INTERVIEWER] Exactly. [GARRY TAN] You know, sad to say, like that's actually one of the things that often, like, as a YC partner, like, that's my job. Like, when we meet people six months, nine months later and they've been sort of stuck in a rut, like, and they come, and they say, well, I've been doing the same thing over and over again for nine months. The answer is like, "Do something else. Which sounds like, you know, obviously, but, you know, I think one really important aspect of resilience is actually finding your tribe and community. There's a thing we say at the end of YC. We have a talk that say, don't Die, and it isn't Brian Johnson. (all laughing) It's actually about you know, you need to surround yourself with people who lift you up, and then you can be totally real with. I think one of the big reasons why people just sort of, I mean, how startups actually die, they sort of die, like, you know, sorry to be lurid, but like choking victims, like, you know, you get something lodged in your throat and you start choking, and you're a little freaked out But like you don't wanna make a scene, so then, like, people go into the bathroom. And then they're found later, and that's like my fear, and like it, and it's sort of like what we see, like, the pressure to perform, the needing to be like in the status game and to be seen as, like, I mean, what's funny about it is like it's a very interesting dichotomy to be the speaker for a Distinguished Speaker Series. But then I think the message a little bit is, like, don't be so worried about being distinguished. Like, don't worry about the titles. I think it's much more important like what is the outcome? Like, what did we do for one another? And well, you know, for startup founders in particular, on the first day of YC you get a T-shirt says, make something people want. I think that's actually a really important mantra because that focuses you, right? Make something, and then the people part is actually like the other directed part, like entrepreneurship is very lonely, and then also not helpful to anyone if it's making something only for yourself. Like a, you know, when founders are not quite going to make it, often it's like, I need to solve my own problem, which is needing a startup. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm. [GARRY TAN] And that's not good, right? Like, we want to be other-directed, and if we're in a community of other people for whom, like, it's not about, you know, it's, sometimes you go to these startup events and you, and someone's like, "Oh. Well, how's it going? " And you can't say what's really going on. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] You have to say, "I'm killing it. " And the other person says, "Oh, I'm killing it too. " Yeah. And it's like, "Ah, we're killing it. " And then it's like you might as well not have been in that room, like don't even go to that room, like you don't need that. What you really need is just, you know, a few people who you trust and they trust you and let's have, like, a real honest conversation about like what's really going on. Hmm. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] That's very interesting, 'cause in our interviews as well, it seemed that a lot of the founders were struggling with loneliness, but also this fear of showing their difficulties and being vulnerable because they would look weak in front of their investors, peers. You being an investor, how do you encourage vulnerability? And also, do you have any tips on community design in a way that founders don't feel so alone? [GARRY TAN] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm, I recently joined Young Presidents Organization. Um, and I find that fascinating because you can take really, really smart people, and then you have to create a setting where that is the norm, and I guess I'm just obsessed with life-changing organizations that start with Y. Um, Y Combinator, we try to do the same thing. So, being able to put people into small groups of, you know, six or eight, sometimes 10 other founders, and then explicitly, it is like, "We're not here to brag, to boast, to impress each other. We're here to figure out, like, what is the thing that, you know, is most frustrating Or, you know, what's the worst thing that happened to you this week? " And you know, it's not just that. It's not just, like, you're sort of complaining. Like, I think the much more important thing is, like, celebrating one another's wins. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] There's a very interesting thing that happens at YC, where every week you have group office hours, and then, you know, the first few weeks, everyone's

just feeling each other out, and then by week three or four they start seeing what other people in that group are doing. And so, if someone in the group gets like, you know, "We got our first $10,000 a month customer. " And then next week it's like, "Oh, well, we've signed another one. We're at 20,000. " And this doesn't happen in every group, and it's actually very interesting how spiky it is. Like, there are some groups where suddenly, like, every single founder in that group, because they were inspired by that first-- Person who did it, they said, like, "Well, they're my friend and we're in the same thing, and they did it. Well, I can do it too. " And then suddenly by the end of that batch, like, your entire pod groups end up being really, really like, the best companies in the whole batch are, like, in that group. I can't explain it, really. Like, I think that having people who lift you up, not having to impress one another. Helping each other, and then, like, I think the most important is actually sort of hardest to get. It's like, you want to be around people who do, they raise the bar for you, right? [ASHLEA WALLINGTON] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And the great thing is, like, you guys are all at Stanford, so this has already happened. [ASHLEA WALLINGTON] Amazing. Yeah. And then going a little bit back to your previous story about the death of startups. You've been also widely quoted saying that startups die when founders burn out, not when users churn, and we talked a bit before in the backstage about how founders really put their wellbeing as the last priority. Do you see across the YC founders similar reasons why they burn out? Do you see patterns in hardships and early signals where you see that a founder is going through that red line? [GARRY TAN] I mean, I think what's great is, I mean, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, there was definitely this sort of I guess they call it hustle porn. It's just like, you know, neglect your food and neglect your body and just, like, you know, code all day. And then I, you know, in full transparency, like, I realized, like, that was one of my mistakes actually. Like, I did that, like, for my startup in 2008 to, you know, 2011. I did fully, very unmanageable and not sustainable things at all. And I regret it, actually. It didn't help me. In a very specific way, which is aside from, like, not handling my ACE score from college, like, by the time I started my company like I would do, like, 20-hour days. I mean, I actually used Modafinil-- Mm-hmm. Which would allow me to like, not sleep. Like I said, "You know what? I'm gonna put this startup on my back. I'm the hero coder at, I'm the CTO and hero coder at the company. I do all the big features. " The stupid thing was, like, I did all the DevOps and SRE as well. So I basically worked, like, four-- I did front-end design, did design, front-end, back-end, I was full-stack. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Wow. [GARRY TAN] And the thing is, I burned myself out. And the other thing that happened was we got product market fit, and that was exactly the moment where I needed to switch into someone who was setting up other people in my organization. And I was so addicted to the feeling of being, like, the hero-- that I didn't do that, and it actually really hurt. Probably the biggest thing that was problematic, I mean, honestly, like, I probably didn't have the time to do therapy and coaching before my startup. So one thing I would say is, like, to the extent that you have not started your startup. Yet it is very, very good to try to, like, get as clear as possible. Before you start the startup, because you are not going to have time to figure out, like, what are the bugs in my pre-training. The, but you know what you should be trying to do, figure out what the bugs are, because they're gonna come out during your startup. They came out at my startup, so I'll tell you what my bug was. I had a really difficult relationship with my father. You know, he was an alcoholic. Thankfully, he's more than 10 years clean and sober, which is such a blessing. But yeah, which is incredible. (applause) He just got his AA chip, which is incredible. What a blessing. But, you know, what that resulted in for me was that, you know, of course, you're a startup founder, you're making decisions about like really high stakes decisions, like, you know, this thing's happening, our competitor did this, like they raised money from so-and-so, like what do we do? Do we raise money now? Like, what feature do we do? Like, you know, the API just closed down, you know, Facebook is closing their API, what do we do? Like every day, there's like some sort of horrible thing that's happening. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And then for me, I didn't realize it at

the time, but this was the bug or the bong, it was that I only had two modes because of my childhood. It was a self-abandon or my way or the highway. And that was sort of what I had to do in my pre-training, like me and my brother, and my mom like, because we had someone who was really, really overbearing, that was the only way that we could get our way, it was either like, let's do it the way Dad wants to do it. Or like, we're gonna throw such a giant fit that like we get our way. And so, I mean, it sounds crazy like, you know, I wish that I could tell you that, like when I was 18 And I was here at Stanford, I had any consciousness, I had no conscious awareness of this as the bug or failure in like my own pre-training. And it hurt me so badly in the startup there would be times when I hired a really great designer, one of the best designers, we could find and, you know, gone on to, he went on to do great things like you know, I would do this like, thing with him, I would like self-abandon and then at some point, I would blow up at him and it would be like laundry list of things And then he stopped me and he's like, Gary, that was the most disrespectful meeting I have ever had in my entire life. What is going on? And that was actually like one of the things that got me to realize, like, actually like, you know, anyone watch West World? I went like, freeze all motor functions. (Anastasia laughing) I was like, what's going on here? " Like something is happening, right? And then, you know, how that manifested with my co-founder at the time was that exactly the same thing, like he wanted to, you know, turn it into Google Groups, I wanted to charge money for it. In retrospect, like, I mean, and the thing is like, this argument doesn't matter now, like the startup, you know, ended up selling for, to Twitter for $20 million. And I'm very glad that my co-founder was able to like steer it to a really great exit for our investors and for our engineers, sorry to the users if you're using Posterous, I'm sorry about that. Um, but, you know, I'm glad that happened but I did not show up for him. Like our startup could have been so many, so, so much bigger, like it could've been like 10 to 100X bigger, like it sort of came up in the age of social media, and it was actually around for about a year earlier than Instagram. The funny thing was, like, the day Instagram came out that was the day that our growth flat-lined. Which is fascinating, right? And so, I mean, that's a very tangible, like your startup will work and it'll work, like we built it to a top 200 site at the time we had a, we raised our Series A from RedPoint, we had about 10 engineers, like we had our, you know, sort of loft office at 16th and Mission in SF, like we were, you know, riding high, and then right at that moment, like we didn't have the well, I mean, I take responsibility for this, like I didn't have the emotional awareness of my own, you know, bugs. And so, I actually burnt out, like so, I mean, and that's like one thing that really happened, it's if you're not aware of, you know, your internal sort of default programming, then it will rule you, right? That, I think that's a Jung quote, you know, if you do not make the unconscious conscious, you know, it will rule you and it'll, you'll call it fate. And so, that's, like, probably the most important lesson and sort of that, I hope people take away, actually, that like these things are not fate, but you also have to like do the introspection, and then once I was able, I mean, this is like maybe eight years of therapy that I have a psych, I have a somatic therapist who, like, really focuses on trauma that, like, where does it go in the body? There's a great book called 'Body Keeps the Score. ' And you know, when I first found out about it I was very skeptical. I was like, "What is this stuff? I don't really believe any of this. " Like, and over time, what I've realized is, oh, no, like I actually, and I use this every day now, like I can actually spot the sort of, you know, basic programming happen. And then my face gets hot. In particular that like, that happens to be my own trigger, and in the past, it's like, oh, I'm, I'm just, I'm gonna ignore this. Like, you know, and then the problem is I think there's like sort of a horse and a rider, and so, you know, the interesting thing for me is like I'm able to hold it together really, really well because I have a very fierce rider. I mean, that, I think that, like that was the imprint from also my father, is that like I have a prefrontal cortex and a language center that can say like, "Use reasoning," it's like

"This is what we're going to do, and this is what we need to do. " And then there are all these other parts of your body that your cortex, you know, all the different parts of your brain sort of like-- [GUEST] Interface with, you know, the rest of your body. And so, the interesting thing about that was like, I had self-abandoned so much that the rest of my body, the horse, in my case, when I was working on my startup, was in revolt. And I couldn't eat, and I couldn't sleep And you know, you read about this stuff, it's like psychosomatic, like, you know, this isn't real, and it's like, oh no, no, it's very real. It's very real because it is conflict, like, from outside, like, within your own body. And, you know, it's sort of a, it's like a strike, actually. [INTERVIEWER] Absolutely. And thank you so much for, like, sharing so openly about therapy and doing the inner work and self-awareness. It's super critical and important for future founders also to hear that. And it's true, this connection of body and soul. And I would like to ask you then, now with all the hats you're wearing, do you have a personal operating system with, like, physical and mental well-being, habits, and routines in your calendar? Or how do you stay grounded and effective? [GUEST] Oh, I mean, well, famously, I love sauna and cold plunge. So I think sauna is, I mean, it just really, it actually, like, releases toxins from the body, which is fantastic. And then cold plunge is very interesting, because I think that our bodies are so comfortable, we're so well taken care of by modern society that your body actually kinda needs to be shocked a little bit. And the sort of endorphins and sort of how I feel, like, after a really good cold plunge, like, there's really nothing like it. And so, I don't know. That, I also really like sound healing and meditation. So I'm almost embarrassed to say that. But I do about an hour of sound healing meditation every single week. And that helps a lot. I mean, I think that, you know, this horse and rider, like, it's just, it all sort of comes back to integration. You know, there's, I really love psychotherapy around parts work. Because, you know, there's a sort of idea that, like, you know, we are very, very integrated people. And like, actually, I don't think so. Like, personally, my experience is like, I definitely contain multitudes, and I suspect other people do too. Uh, and then maybe because of my pre-training, like, I'm, you know, a little bit more disintegrated than I should be. But like, this is also something that I can spend time on. [GARRY TAN] I can be aware of it. I can try to basically spend specific time, like I think that my meditation time is actually the specific time where I allow, you know, myself to integrate all these different parts of me. And then if I can do that, if I get enough sleep, if I eat well, I mean, all of, you know, if I don't, if I do the Bryan Johnson Don't Die regimen (Anastasia laughing) then actually, the hardware means that my software runs so much better. I can be better for other people. I can slow down. I mean, I can notice when my face feels hot, and then I can make a different choice. And then the feeling of it actually is like meta-programming-- like meta-programming of the self. Like, this is very funny to think about, like, you know, do we have free will, or is it all sort of written in the stars? And at least my visceral experience is that the more integrated I am, the more I can be conscious and often, like, right. I mean, weirdly, like you know, the reading about ChatGPT's psychosis kinda blows my mind, because, like, I think that if you are very intentional about your use of ChatGPT is the exact opposite. Like, to have an always-on advisor who, you know, that's what AI training and alignment, you know, done well, like, really does-- Is like, it's sort of there, and it wants to try to help you in whatever way it might. And to have that on tap, like, you know, I can say that, like, my wife and I started using it, and both of us have been able to get a lot better at, like, communicating with one another. You know, and you have things that might be, like, fights don't have to be fights. It might actually be like, "Oh, okay. " Well, after taking a beat, like, you know, we go off into our rooms, and we type into ChatGPT, like, "Hey, this is happening. What should I, what's going on here? " We can actually come back together. And I'm sure people here, and I mean, who here, I won't, I won't make people raise their hands. But, like, I'm certain people in this room have tried it, and if you haven't, like, I actually really do recommend it. Because having I mean, that is an interesting moment right now. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Yeah. [GARRY TAN] Like, that is new. That is actually something.

I was with Sam Altman, maybe late last year, talking about it and he said that was one of the most remarkable things about ChatGPT that was totally unexpected by the OpenAI team in the last year use cases like that. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Would you give us your favorite prompt? (audience laughter) [GARRY TAN] I don't know. I guess I often just ask, like, you know, if I feel like I'm being unfair, like, I just ask that. And it's, I mean, it'll tell me. I don't know. I don't know about your-- It depends on your memory, and like, you know, I find that memory is very interesting. I actually, here's a very crazy thing I did. I took years and my eight years of notes that I took, like, every, I would have a reflection from all of my therapy sessions. I just dropped it into ChatGPT, actually. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Wow. [GARRY TAN] But it's actually amazing. Like, at this point now, it knows like what's going on for me. And I mean, it is able to use that memory in, like, sort of all the things that might come up, where I feel like I might not present as well or be the best person that I could be. So I mean, it's a big risk. I better turn on two-factor authentication for my OpenAI now. But I say it only because, like I've gotten so much value out of it. And I think this is, like, the worst that the models will ever be. I'm a really big fan of memory, I think we're sort of in this brand new age of you know, using, think it mirrors for me, like, I use my prefrontal cortex and language centers to try to get things to be better. And then now, that part of my brain isn't, I mean, it's the wrong thing to say it's, like, more powerful. It is actually, like, more able to integrate, I think. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Amazing. Yeah, that's super interesting and it's definitely a new era in front of us on how we're using these tools. I'm gonna take you to a different topic, and another resilience modulator we saw in our work was motivation. And I think it ties perfectly with what you said about YC focusing on the why. So would you mind sharing what was, like, your initial motivation into starting something on your own, and how did this motivation change as you were going through some low points? [GARRY TAN] Well, I mean, I guess I have to admit, I mean, growing up without a lot of money, I just wanted money. And, but at the same time, like, I think that, like, that, you know, what's great is, like, I feel like God has been very, very generous with me and our family. And so at this point, like, you know, along the way, you know that Make Something People Want mantra turned into something that did solve the money problem for me. Mm-hmm. Which my mentor, Paul Graham, has this gr-- you know, I mean, I think that's one of the turns of phrases that, like, drew me to his essays actually. Like he talks about, you know, look, like doing a startup is sort of the one thing where you could solve the money problem by working really hard for I think he wrote this in probably 2005. So, you know, this was thinking about, like, these tiny little exits that, you know, he, like, basically he said, you know, you can work really hard for two years and, like, you know, do the work of, like, 20 years in those two years, and you could solve the money problem. And I think that was very of a time because, you know, the small exits don't really happen anymore. You know? In the meantime, actually, it's easier to solve the money problem just by going to work at a big tech, which was not true in 2005. Big Tech did not pay the type of salaries it does today. And so actually, I think everything's interestingly a little bit, like, shifted from when I started my company. Like, I thought, "I wanna solve the money problem. " And then along the way, I discovered, like, making something people want is actually a calling that transcends, like, your own material wants. Being able to recognize in the person that you're sitting across from, like, what do they want? What do they need? What are things that you know, my two hands and the two hands of my team, what could we create for someone else that gets them to their goals, allows them to feed their family, like, learn? I don't know. It's like in health tech-- Mm-hmm. It's incredible. It's, you know, people get to live lives where, whereas like, it would've been taken by death. Like, these are really profound things that you know, we're capable of doing. And you know, being at Stanford is awesome because, like, this is sort of the it's like almost, it's a Shelling point, you know? Like this is where people who want to do that kinda thing come together. And so I think that's just very, very powerful.

Yeah, for sure. And do you feel like different types of motivation make founders less or more resilient from your experience as well in YC? Yeah, basically in, you know, extrinsic motivation just doesn't sustain. Mm-hmm. Like if, I mean, even like the solving the money problem, like, man, there's so many other ways to solve the money problem than like trying to start a startup these days. So I guess the interest-- here's a very interesting thing that I've learned from being very, very addicted to Cloud Code in the last week or so. I stopped coding in 2000 maybe '14, '15, about 10 years ago, and then I picked it up about nine days ago. And then in the last nine days, I've produced like 40,000 lines of code in, I mean, and this is, like, probably bad because it was like 6:00 P. M., you know, after, after dinner, like 6:00 PM to like 2:00 AM. Like I was not doing my Don't Die protocol properly. I'm sorry, Brian Johnson. And but like the result was one person, me sitting in front of Cloud Code created basically a code base that I, I took like, you know, five million dollars and, you know, a dozen engineers two years to create. [INTERVIEWER] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And it's better than that thing actually. It's fully tested for one thing. And I think we're at sort of this very different moment where you know, the technology is still there, it's still important But it's about to become a lot less important. Mm-hmm. And what's more important is your ability to, like, feel, like to be a designer is like to sit across from someone and to feel what they feel. To understand like, oh, they're trying to get promoted. They don't wanna be fired. You know, maybe they wanna teach their kids something. Like, whatever that motivation is, to be able to have that, to take off the hat of like, I need to solve my own problem of being a startup founder-- [INTERVIEWER] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And to wear their hat, to walk a mile in their shoes, and then to translate that into something that actually solves their problem and solves their needs. Like, that's way, way more important. And that's agency And then it's taste, right? [INTERVIEWER] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And which is prompting and evals. [INTERVIEWER] Yeah. I mean, that's really validating to hear. And as you said, especially in health tech, there's so many other motivations with patient impact and doing good that really sustain founders. And now I'll take you to the embodied space, like the, the last part of our conversation. And we saw what helps resilience, what hurts resilience, but this doesn't act in a vacuum. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] It is also affected by identity and the context in which founders are building. And we saw in our research that identities such as gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, immigration status can really change the entrepreneurial game and tilt it one way or another, you know. For some, it could be a boost of confidence and access to networks. For others, it could be facing bias or financial precarity. Would you mind sharing, in your entrepreneurial journey, which identities have shaped more positively or negatively the outcome? [GARRY TAN] Let's see. I mean, look around in tech. I mean, you know, guess the interesting thing is like I never felt, I mean, an engineer, growing up in the Bay Area, being Asian American, in full transparency, I actually wasn't sure if I could get into Stanford. So when I got in, I was very, very pleasantly surprised and I'm glad. I mean, it changed my life. It's incredible debt to Stanford that I, you know, would love to be able to repay someday. It's like incredible. I mean, I guess I just, I do recognize like not everyone is like on a level playing field. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And so, I mean, if at YC that's one of the reasons why we decided to increase the amount of money to give to people. You know, YC started with only, like, when I did YC back in 2008, they gave us $12,000. So that was basically, you know, if you had a family, you probably couldn't do it. If you had any needs whatsoever, if you had, like, poor parents who you needed to support, if you had siblings who you're still putting through school, like anything like that, it's just like starting a company wouldn't be for you. So I, you know, I feel really proud about like YC, you don't have to have any traction, connections. You go on the internet and fill out YCombinator. com/apply And we will try to give, like, you know. To me, like, I think that merit and meritocracy is a very, it's like a slur that people are starting to treat it like a slur. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And I don't want that. Like, I think that you can simultaneously agree and

believe that you cannot achieve a perfect meritocracy, but at the same time, you can also believe and try to achieve it. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And then if you can do both, hold those two like opposing ideas in your head, like that's sort of the world, that's the best that we could possibly hope for. So I'm not so stupid as to like claim that getting into YC is a meritocracy. It clearly isn't. And maybe you know, and I cannot promise that we'll ever, it will ever be, but I can say like, we are trying and there are so many like sort of measures. You know, I think there are two things. One is like, you know, I'm a big fan of the Rooney Rule. I practiced it at Initialized Capital. I think that, you know we also do things like that in selecting people to interview. But we do not change the standard. [INTERVIEWER] Mm. [GARRY TAN] Like the standard is the same. And I think that's how you hold this idea that like, it is not a meritocracy, but we should try to establish one. Because if you do not have the standard, then like, you know, what are we saying? Are we saying that like you know, identity and where people came from matters even more than what people are capable of doing? Like, you know at the risk of being controversial, like, you know, I don't want that to be controversial. I wanna say like excellence above all. [INTERVIEWER] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And then, but, like we should try to level the playing field, everything up until the standard. [INTERVIEWER] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And I think that gives people dignity, right? Because without doing that, like you risk tokenization. So anyway, like thanks for-- I mean, I, that's what my, what I believe. That's what we are trying to do. And I think that that's the society I wanna live in. And that society, you know, I think that you know, brings back the SAT. Because the SAT it turns out is one of the greatest equalizers in terms of socioeconomic background and ethnicity and so many other things. And so I don't know if I exactly answered your question. Like, I f-- I don't think that like being an Asian American man hurt me. [INTERVIEWER] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And but I also recognize like, hey, there are a lot of different backgrounds and it is not like we can try to make it in a level playing field. a meritocracy, but it is not any of those things. [INTERVIEWER] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. And thank you for sharing your perspective. Another problem we saw that founders voiced was how from the investment side really getting access to an investor is all about warm intros and getting that credibility from a network. So a lot of founders that come from outside these networks are finding it hard to go there. [GARRY TAN] How do, have you seen from the experience in Initialized Capital, how are you maybe judging the credibility of the founders and like how are you getting access to all these-- Yeah. Founders? I guess two things. Well, one thing is like that's why YC is so cool. Like, you don't have to know anyone. Mm-hmm. have gone to any schools. You don't have to like know anyone. You just apply. You know, everyone has access to a phone, you record a one minute video. Mm-hmm. Like I love how equalizing that is. We just celebrated our most recent IPO was Equipment Share and the Schlax brothers, the two co-founders, they're not from, they're not cut f-- they, they escaped a cult in the middle of the country, you know. They did not go to any of the top schools. Like they came from like the, a definition of like a non-traditional background. Mm-hmm. But they rang the bell on the NASDAQ, right? And so I'm super proud of that. Like, I actually you know, the other thing that's interesting going back to Claude Code, like when if people apply to YC now, we actually now give people the option to upload a transcript of that their chat with Claude as they vibe coded or-- I mean, honestly like Yeah, It's you, I mean, Oh, I neglected to say the 40,000 lines of code I made, I didn't write a single line. I was directing it, I read all the code, I, like, did a lot, I, you know, it went off on like weird architectural things And I was like, "Don't do it that way, do this way. " But like, I think that that's actually a very interesting equalizer. Like, your ability to actua-- like, it's, you know, the, the Claude code chat we think is a little bit like the SAT. It's, it just, like, you can look at what, how someone prompts and you can understand, like, do they have a theory of mind of the user? Do they, can they think ahead? Are they logical and reasonable? You know, do they have a systems understanding of like what's going to happen? Like, I mean, I spent like an entire day on you know, concurrency, which is, like, one of the most annoying problems in, if anyone's had to do

multi-thread programming. It's like, oh, yeah, this is one of the most annoying things that you have to do. But I think that someone who looked at my chat log would be like, "Oh, yeah, that person has taken that Stanford class, actually. " So I don't know. I'm always on the lookout for things that are not your resume, not what you look like, not what your connection is. Like, it should just be like, what is your raw ability? And then I think it, at the sort of dawning of AGI, like, it's more that than anything else. It's like, what can you do? Like, can you inhabit the body of the user? Can you derive, like, your real understanding of what they want? And then actually manifest it. And then now, the, the roadblocks to you doing that are, like, nonexistent, at least for software. I mean, we'll see if Periodic Labs and these other LLM companies are, you know, can apply it to science. We sure hope so because I can't wait for fus-- un-- unlimited fusion energy. That sounds great. Sign me up. Someone in this room might invent it. Someone on this campus right now might be working on it, you know? I'm very optimistic for the future, and like a lot of the future is in this room, and it's you know, within a couple mi-- square miles of where we're sitting right now. Amazing. And is there any way YC is also evaluating the resilience of the candidate founders or monitoring their well-being in any way? Definitely. I mean, I think that the number one thing for, on our partner side is, like, we just have to stay in touch with people. And I, you know, the great thing is, like, AI is actually helping us do that to a much greater degree. I mean, I'm sort of experimenting with, like, I actually think that we should maybe do a YPO style program for post-Series A. And so, that, you know, that's one of the experiments that I'm thinking of doing soon. Do you see differences between, like, first time founders and repeat founders in how they handle the resilience and well-being? I mean, the interesting thing is like, yes, like, I think that that's why second time founders can be so, so great. Like, they basically have seen all the things that could go wrong, and they can sort of skip ahead. And then what's interesting is, like, second time founders period are by definition really, really resilient 'cause if the first, even if the first one doesn't work, they're like, "I'm gonna go back in that cave and I'm gonna do it again. " That's insane. That's, but, you know, but founders are insane. It requires, like, a little bit of irrationality to want to say, like, "I was there. " You know, what does Elon say? Like, it's like eating glass and staring at the abyss of death. I mean, to say, to go through that and then to say, "I'm gonna do it again," is pretty wild. I mean, one of the crazier stats that we realized at YC recently, like, I, 99. 3% of people who apply to YC do not get in any given batch. Which is very crazy, and I feel horrible about it. And then about half of the batch has been rejected previously, and then the average number of times they were rejected if they were rejected in the batch previously, they were rejected three times. So, it means that they were rejected, they received three mortal ego wounds (Anastasia laughing) before finally getting in. And then, actually, we should track the stat, like, you know, what are the outcomes for the people who were accepted immediately versus rejected three times. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Interesting. Yeah, maybe they build their resilience through that. We're gonna find out. You're helping them, actually. [GARRY TAN] I need to ask my chatbot. (Anastasia laughing) [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] And then you mentioned before a little bit about the tech hustle culture. We see sometimes the 24/7 availability being glorified or romanticized. Do you see, how do you see this culture affecting even positively or negatively the founders today? [GARRY TAN] Yeah. I mean, I will say having children changed everything for me. And I think, you know, what's interesting is, like, actually if I was going to be a father or, like, had become a father before I started my startup, I wouldn't have made any of the mistakes around, like, you know, taking off-label substances and, you know, coding for 20 hours at a time. Like, I would have needed to learn to manage, to delegate, to communicate with my team, to hire the best possible people. And that would've brought me much farther to success versus not. And I think that that's sort of the trap. You know, yes, when you're going from zero to one, like, you know, you have to do things that are unscalable. That's like, you know, page one of coming to YC is, like, do things that are unscalable. And then the thing is, after that, after you've done it, and like, you start getting product market fit, then you gotta scale it. So, don't forget that second step. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Yeah, it's definitely a marathon Not a sprint, I would say. [GARRY TAN] YC itself is often a sprint, but, like, after that, it's, like, marathon time. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] And then if we stick to the part that

resilience is partly about structures and systems, what would you like to see changed in the next couple of years at a systemic level, and what's the role of investors and accelerators to that? [GARRY TAN] I guess the most controversial thing I would say is, like, I really hope that more investors spend more time thinking about it. Actually, going back to the meritocracy point, like, I think that much has been made of, like, investor bias around, you know, all of these demographics, and I think they're probably true. Like, I have seen age discrimination. I actually have a case of that right now. Like, there's a company that is growing extremely fast, and then when I look at it, it's like, "Oh," like, if they were, like, 22-year-old Blue Flames, like, they would have, like, eight term sheets right now. Hmm. What's going on? Um, and I think, like, you know, I'm seeing resilience in those founders right now because they're like, "You know what? " Like, "We don't need investors. We're profitable. " Like, actually, it's their loss, like, you know, maybe they will beg to buy some secondary later when we're making hundreds of millions of dollars. And I'm like, "Yes, that is the kind of resilience. " Like, you know, the systems are not fair. The systems will never be fair. Mm-hmm. There are some people who will try to make it a little bit more fair. But, you know, given that, like, you still have to choose to run your race. And it might not mean that particular founder will raise venture capital. But it will mean that it doesn't matter, and they're gonna ring the bell on the NASDAQ, anyway. Mm-hmm. And what are your personal support systems now? I mean, obviously, my family and my wife. I mean, I wished that I got a personal trainer even when I had, like, no money. (laughing) I should've done that a lot earlier. Um, I thought of it as a crazy luxury, and then what I should've thought about it, like, you know, I, as a, you know, a lover of technology, I always have to have the brand new, newest MacBook Pro. My argument is that you know, a great samurai must have the greatest sword. (laughing) And I believed this, like, since I was, you know, at 22, you know. I was like, "Whatever the newest MacBook Pro is, like, I got it. " You know? I just traded in every single-- Newest iPhone, MacBook Pro. And then I realized, like, sometimes, like, maybe five years ago, and I was like, "Oh, I treat my tools like that, but I really treat myself-" Hmm. Not like that at all. " And so it's pretty obvious, like, I should've done that earlier, and I would've been able to just be my best self. And I mean, there's a point that I think is very important. It's, like, not just about you. Like, it's not just about wellbeing. It actually, it is not, like, a nice-to-have. It is actually deeply integrated into whether or not your startup and what you try to do in your life will be successful, because, you know, going back to my mistake. Like, I mistook my company for just me, and me being a hero, and coding everything, and doing it all myself, and, you know. But also, like, that came from my pre-training. It's like, I had such a hard time with my parents and my upbringing, I had to be that for my family growing up. Like, I had to, you know, fill out the resumes or, like, send, you know, mail the resumes in, you know, those 8 1/2 by 11, like, manila folders to try to help my dad get a job because he kept losing his job. We moved around, like, 10 times as a kid. Like, I got amazing at helping my dad get a job. [INTERVIEWER] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] Like, I had to, like, over-function in such fundamental ways. And I just, it made me a great startup founder right at the very beginning, when you had to do unscalable things, 'cause, like, I didn't know what scaling things meant. [INTERVIEWER] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] I thought it meant, like, you do it all, right? And then once that-- it was right when it was like we had product-market fit and we needed to scale it even to just stay in the game with Instagram, had come out. Like, it all fell apart, right? And, like, when I work with founders, I want them to be thoughtful and to do this kinda work beforehand, before they start their startup, because once it starts, it's too hard. Like, you can still do it and you can still get an exec coach and things like that. But it's a little bit too hard. And then the decisions that you make with you and your co-founder and your team they determine whether or not you keep, you get product-market fit, whether you keep product-market fit. It is a perfect marketplace out there, and everything compounds. Like, if you are a better communicator, if you're more integrated, if you're more perceptive, if you're more in touch with yourself, the team, you can hire better people, you make better decisions.

You make 10,000 better decisions in the first year. [INTERVIEWER] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And it's like, year by year, like, you know, my theory would be, like, if you can handle this and be a better person, then your team will be better-- [INTERVIEWER] Mm-hmm. [GARRY TAN] And you'll make better decisions. Your product and service will be better. Your business will be better. And you will succeed. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Such an important reminder to treat our well-being as a non-negotiable, and you know, a team is only as strong as its leader. So thank you so, so much for this wonderful conversation. To close us off, one last question. If you could uninstall one belief from every future founder in this room and replace it with a different question, or practice, what would that be? [GARRY TAN] That my pre-training is my destiny. It's not true. You know? I feel like I'm living proof that, like, you know, earlier I was mentioning, like, I rage-quit multiple things. I stopped rage-quitting, which is good. Now it's stewardship and building time, and I wish I got to it earlier, but better late than never. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Thank you again. This has been really inspirational. Thank you for being so open. (applause) [ASHLEA WALLINGTON] Thank you so much, Gary and Anastasia for this incredible discussion today. I think this deserves another round of applause. (applause) Thank you so much. (applause) My name is Ash Wellington. I'm the executive director here at Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and I'm so thrilled to have been able to co-host this today with our partners. Garry, the journey that you've shared with us, your wisdom, the fact that you're able to do so vulnerably to show us that you know, success is marred with some programming glitches, some bugs is certainly appreciated, and it is an inspiration to us all. I think, personally, I'm taking away that you can't change your pre-training, but you can change the prompt. I think that's very timely for us at the moment. This discussion has really exemplified the spirit of the SIER program. That the spirit of innovation and resilience that we strive to nurture here at STVP and Biodesign and at SIER is, you know, is core to our mission here. So with that said, it is my pleasure to present you with this plaque. My gosh. Thank you. This is to recognize you as our SIER distinguished lecturer, and to thank you for taking the time to come back to the farm to share your story with the community, both on campus and abroad. It's greatly appreciated. [GARRY TAN] Thank you so much. Applause. Thank you so much. Thank you. [ANASTASIA NTRACHA] Thank you so much, Garry. Thank you.