CEOInterviews.AI
Start App
Try: AI strategy tariffs earnings guidance layoffs interest rates growth

Pete Koomen

General Partner, Y Combinator

Verified interview transcripts, podcast appearances, and direct quotes from Pete Koomen, General Partner at Y Combinator. AI-verified speaker identity with full-text searchable transcripts.

Recent appearances

  • The Startup Industrial Base: Building for the Next 250 — Washington, D.C.

    September 30, 2026 · 📺 YC Root Access

    The defense industrial base of the future will be built by small, fast-moving teams working on some of the hardest problems in national security. Live from Washington, D.C., Y Combinator brings together founders, senior government officials, and military leaders for a day of conversations about rebuilding America’s defense industrial base, working with the government, and closing critical capability gaps across autonomy, munitions, space, secure communications, manufacturing, and more. Full event agenda here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R... 0:00- Livestream begins 10:56 - Intro 13:…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Inside YC's AI Playbook

    May 27, 2026 · 📺 Y Combinator

    Building superintelligence inside a company isn't about adding AI as a feature. It's about making it the operating system the whole organization runs on. In this episode of the Lightcone, we sat down with YC's Pete Koomen to talk for the first time about how he led the effort to build YC's internal agent infrastructure from the ground up. We cover how giving agents unrestricted access to one database changed everything, the self-improving skill loops that get smarter overnight and why he thinks we've arrived at the personal computer moment for AI. Chapters: 00:00 — Intro 00:39 — YC's AI Stack…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • From Zapier for Devs to Powering 90% AI Agents

    May 09, 2026 · 📺 YC Root Access

    Trigger.dev lets developers add AI agents to their products with a simple SDK — handling execution, long-running workflows, and reliability so they don't have to. Over 90% of their usage now comes from agent workflows, and they recently announced their $16M Series A led by Standard Capital. In this episode of Founder Firesides, co-founders Matt and Eric sat down with YC's Pete Koomen to talk about three versions of the product before finding product market fit, how building async infrastructure for two years accidentally put them in the perfect position for the agent era, and why they think t…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Full Class 02-06-26: Guest Speaker Pete Koomen from Y Combinator

    February 12, 2026 · 📺 AI Cofounder Class at CMU

    A full class recording, recorded on February 6th, 2026. Guest speaker Pete Koomen of Y Combinator speaks about product and UX showcasing as well as growth studies.

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • How To Design Better AI Apps

    May 23, 2025 · 📺 Y Combinator

    In this episode of The Breakdown, Tom and Dave are joined by fellow YC General Partner Pete Koomen to lay out a new vision for how AI should actually work: not as a chatbot bolted onto legacy software, but as a customizable tool that helps people offload the work they don't want to do. From editable system prompts to agents that act more like collaborators, they dig into what it means to build AI-native software—and why the future belongs to products that let users teach machines how to think. Pete's essay, "AI Horseless Carriages": https://koomen.dev/essays/horseless-c... Apply to Y Combina…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Enterprise Sales | Startup School

    July 08, 2024 · 📺 Y Combinator

    Y Combinator Group Partner, Pete Koomen, led his startup, Optimizely, to $100M ARR. In this video, Pete breaks down the enterprise sales funnel and shares his top tips on how a technical founder can start closing real deals for their startup. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/SUS-apply Work at a startup: https://yc.link/SUS-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 00:00 - Intro 03:29 - Prospecting 05:15 - Outreach 10:09 - Qualification 15:00 - Pricing 18:13 - Closing 18:58 - Avoid surprises in procurement process 20:02 - Implement 22:01 - Outro

    Watch on YouTube ↗

Other executives at Y Combinator

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →