Coinbase Reddit Brian Armstrong Airbnb Fred Ehrsam Coinbase, from YC S12, is a Bitcoin money transfer service.  Coinbase serves as a Bitcoin wallet, which is a personal virtual piggybank for saving, spending, and receiving Bitcoins.  Bitcoin is decentralized, not backed by any government, and presently lacks legal regulations or any form of deposit insurance like FDIC.  Therefore, choosing [...]

9Gag Makr.io There are legitimate medical benefits to enjoying funny jokes.  Seriously.  Internet sites like 9Gag and Makr.io, both from YC S12, therefore serve an important purpose in the world.  Warning, though:  9Gag and Makr.io both have infinite scroll.  Proving that laughter is not only the best medicine, but it’s also addictive.

PG In a new essay, Paul Graham suggests Silicon Valley adopt standards for doing handshake agreements.  The goal is faster deal flow.  Startups and investors would be able to confidently reach a meeting of the minds on the essential terms of a transaction prior to drafting and signing any paperwork.  The need for such protocol [...]

Y Combinator’s universe is more vast than you might initially think.  There’s Y Combinator itself, consisting of at least 14 partners and advisors.  Paul Graham inherently means YC’s universe includes the Lisp programming language and Arc dialect.  The other partners are also all interesting characters, like Robert T. Morris and the Gmail creator, Paul “Don’t Be Evil” [...]

Thalmic Labs Thalmic Labs is a startup in YC’s current batch.  Demo Day is still a few weeks away, but Thalmic Labs’ MYO Armband has already gotten buzz from press like Engadget, Wired, and NewScientist.  MYO (rhymes with Leo) gets its name from the Greek “myos”, meaning “muscle”.  Wearing the one-size-fits-all armband allows gesture control of your computer or [...]

Jellyfish Art AnyVivo Jellyfish Art, from YCW12, sells moon jellyfish, jellyfish tanks, and jellyfish tank accessories.  They also have a Twitter account.  Alex Andon began Jellyfish Art based on his research catching jellyfish and building aquariums while finishing his B.S. in Biology and Environmental Science at Duke University.  Moon jellyfish require special tanks because they are mostly water.  The [...]

Flutter Apple Microsoft PowerPoint Google Chrome YouTube Pandora Grooveshark NetFlix Flutter has released an update on the Apple Mac AppStore.  This new version adds support for Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Chrome, through an extension.  Flutter’s Chrome extension enables support for YouTube, Pandora, Grooveshark, and NetFlix.  Flutter’s latest release also includes a new option for “Preferred [...]

Justin Kan Kiko Justin.tv Exec Twitch.tv SocialCam Valley Girl Jesse Draper Justin Kan has been a co-founder of no less than three YC companies: Kiko, Justin.tv, and Exec. He’s also been involved with the founding of Justin.tv spin-off Twitch.tv and Socialcam. Beyond all that, Mr. Kan is a partner and part-time advisor at Y Combinator. I [...]

PG Virool Alex Debelov PagerDuty Andreessen Horowitz 42 Floors NEA Bessemer Venture Partners Thrive Capital Columbus Nova Technology Partners Jason Freeman Cloudant Samsung Venture Investment Corp. The 464 startups prior to YC’s current batch have each raised an average of $3.18 million dollars, according to a recent tweet by Paul Graham.  The math on that [...]