YC Wants Your Hard Tech Solutions
Startup accelerator and venture capital firm Y Combinator has a long history of backing early stage healthcare startups, with a particular focus on technical founders tackling difficult problems. In this episode, YC partners Jared Friedman and Ankit Gupta share their insights on healthcare investing, the potential of AI in our industry, and why they believe young, tactical founders can play a role in reshaping healthcare.
We cover:
🔬 How YC defines "hard tech" as companies where tactical risk outweighs market risk
🏥 YC's consistent approach to healthcare investing over the years (and what they've learned from failures)
⚕️ Why AI is being adopted faster in healthcare than previous software waves
💻 The potential for AI to automate healthcare's administrative burdens
🧠 How AI will eventually provide universal access to medical knowledge
🌍 The opportunity to bring primary care to billions who currently lack access
🔄 Why an outsider's perspective can be valuable when rebuilding healthcare systems
🚫 How patient privacy regulations might be hindering healthcare innovation
—
About our guests:
Jared Friedman is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was co-founder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web. Jared previously worked at a pioneering AI company and studied computer science at Harvard.
Ankit Gupta is a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator and former Co-Founder and CTO of Reverie Labs, a small molecule therapeutics company that leverages machine learning to develop oncology treatments. Ankit led the team through its acquisition by Ginkgo Bioworks in February 2024. Ankit studied computer science at Harvard.
Listen