DC’s political class doesn’t know Y Combinator exists, but they’re trying to change that

Washington DC may be the center of legislation and regulations affecting startups, but many people in the city are unaware of one of the most prominent accelerators fueling the industry: Y Combinator. At a JS Strictly VC event on Tuesday evening, YC Head of Public Policy Luther Lowe said the startup incubator is looking to raise its profile in DC.

Lowe, who joined the accelerator last fall from Yelp, where he was SVP of Public Policy, said his role at YC is like “YC 101” for the DC audience.

“So many people in DC don’t actually know what it is,” he noted.

Founded in 2005, Lowe called YC the “original accelerator.” He explained his roots in the industry to the audience at the event, noting that the accelerator was co-founded by Paul Graham, who had successfully sold a company in the 1990s and helped founders by writing essays to help them avoid pitfalls to avoid. When Graham put out a call for startup applications, a dozen startups participated in YC’s debut class. Reddit and Twitch emerged from that first cohort, and the program continued to grow in the years that followed.

“The way it actually works now is that if you and I had a nice idea, we could apply. There is an acceptance rate of approximately 1%. You could give up roughly about 10% of the equity, get half a million in financing, and then move to San Francisco – where it is now anchored – for about twelve weeks. And you just get intense guidance, and you get like zero-to-one product-market fit,” Lowe said.

The organization has now founded about 5,000 companies and has 11,000 founders in its network — something Lowe called “just a crazy impact on the American tech economy.” And yet, he noted, “the most surprising thing about the new role is that many in Washington don’t even know it exists.”

Lowe said he is working to educate policymakers about YC’s impact and how the accelerator has touched “virtually every congressional district” in the United States.

Garry Tan, president and CEO of YC, is also raising the accelerator’s profile in his own way — with spirited tweets, as moderator and JS GM/editor-in-chief Connie Loizos noted.

Lowe did not confirm whether that was a strategy on Tan’s part, but he praised Tan for his cordiality and dedication.

After educating the DC market, YC is looking to increase its influence, especially in areas such as competition policy. “We really need to get our competition policy right first… If you look at Europe and the Digital Markets Act: not perfect, but at least they are making an attempt to figure out how to curb the most blatant forms of self-gratification. the preference of these large companies? And if we don’t do that, it’s pretty easy to see how this plays out,” Lowe said.

He pointed to the startups and small tech companies that Apple is negatively impacting with its software launches, as announced during Monday’s WWDC 2024 keynote — a practice so common it even has its own name: sherlocking.

“There’s an alternate universe where we embrace interoperability, where we force these companies to stop following their own preferences, and that’s better for everyone… it’s not too late,” Lowe said.