Welcome new YC team members
blog.ycombinator.com
blog.ycombinator.com
But the truth is that I've always thought of him as a coach. I've grown so much since my time as a fresh new grad and Qasar was a huge part of that. It's crazy to think about how many hours he spent listening to my problems and I'll always be thankful for that (it's funny to think that in retrospect he was just doing office hours).
Of course he's good at what he does, but his genuine helpfulness and energy is what I've always respected and appreciated most about him. And it's that energy that finally gave me the confidence to quit and finally try out all the things I learned from him. The cycle continues...
While at Google Qasar was one if the sharpest Product Managers on the team. I joined his team within a few weeks after the TalkBin acquisition. As the team, product, and scope grew, Qasar focused on building excellent product, never compromising quality. As a result he quickly rose the ranks because of his unique ability to balance product and business objectives. All the while he took great care of the people on his team.
It's truly sad to see him leave Google but he will be an incredible force of nature at YC. His passion and energy has always been on helping startups and founders succeed. He spent a tremendous amount of time mentoring and coaching his team at Google and will bring this same enthusiasm to YC. Above all else, Qasar is the quintessential example of someone that has more grit than anyone I know.
He's a no bullshit kind of person that's always helping getting things done. YC is very fortunate to have him. Even if you are not in his batch, Qasar is someone you want to get to know.
Unless they're planning on applying to YC ;)
Its awesome to see his as a partner at YC, his experience in startup and Google will tremendously help YC startup founders!
I've recently gone through a YC batch and Qasar was extremely helpful. Even though he was a part-time partner at the time, he was definitely the guy we spent the most time with at YC. I can't even begin to thank him.
Since the first time we spoke with Qasar, my co-founder and I realized how smart and knowledgeable he is. Then we spent the rest of the summer trying to learn as much from him as we could.
He knows everything about the local space, is an operations expert, helped us greatly improve our Demo Day presentation and coached me regarding how to approach our market opportunity among many other things.
I'm glad he's become a full-time partner. This is great news for YC.
Though it wasn’t stated outright from the start, I believe we were used as guinea pigs to test Qasar’s potential as a future target for the YC partnership. We must’ve been one of the first such companies, though there were likely other guinea pigs in our batch as well.
Qasar’s sincere, direct, no-BS attitude blew us away from the start, and we came to understand that he genuinely wanted us to succeed. We had strategy sessions on Castro Street in Mountain View, at Qasar’s own house, and even at Google lunch when scheduling was tight.
Having provided seriously powerful insights and introductions that helped get us off the ground back then, Qasar continues to be supportive through all phases to this day - rain or shine.
I’m proud to call Qasar an advisor and couldn’t be more excited to congratulate him on becoming YC partner.
In particular, Dalton is someone that helped us when we got rejected after our first interview, stayed supportive, and always has actionable insight and advice. He's also just a legend.
As to Alexis, I honestly don't understand how he does all the things he does - he's just going at like a million miles a minute. As high profile as he is, I actually think his value is underrated in the YC community.
To wit: 2 years ago Kat was my right-hand and now she's a partner + runs outreach at YC.
Dalton is always super fast to respond to emails. I've gone back and forth with him, asking lots of questions, and really drilling down to make sure I understand what he is suggesting. Without fail, he'll get back to me within a matter of hours and respond in-depth to my questions. I think his background in psychology and experience working with younger populations gives him very insightful perspectives. He is also very honest and supportive.
Alexis is one of the people I most admire. The guy has real integrity. I think he understands what is truly important in life and lives in a manner that holds up these values. They are implicit in how he relates to others. He is also an amazing worker. I remember asking him for a consult on a Saturday morning. I was thinking we'd connect later on that next week. He got right back to me and called me on a Saturday morning. I apologized for bugging him and he said not to worry that if I'm working he is working. Then, to take things a step further, he connected me with Ashley Dawkins (his Outreach Director). She is also awesome, quick to respond, and very helpful. The last point I'll highlight is Alexis is really hopeful. Hope is pretty damn powerful and I think he gets that in manner that few people understand.
"There's no reddit without Steve Huffman"
That and I'm really excited to be a voice for Y Combinator (and startups) in D.C. -- in addition to just being an advocate for the open internet as a citizen.
Edit: plus outward-facing tools like YC applications, Startup School registrations, and so on.
edit: looks like he was part time, is he full time now?
As far as I know, the partners help choose the startups to fund and advise them. I don't think they invest their own money (except maybe after Demo Day[2]), but choose how to invest YC's money at the start of each batch.
[1] http://www.ycombinator.com/partners/
[2] http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-yc-partner-investment-policy