Year One

About Year One

Every billion-dollar YC company survived a brutal first year after Demo Day. Year One captures those twelve months as they happen, tracking one founder's make-or-break decision per episode: the pivot that saved the company, the co-founder fight that almost killed it, the fundraising round that closed at 2am on a Thursday. Two hosts (one former YC founder, one startup reporter) sit down with recent batch founders while the wounds are still fresh, then bring in YC partners to dissect what went right, what went wrong, and what the founder couldn't see from inside the fog. If you're an aspiring founder, an early startup employee, or an investor trying to understand why 90% of startups stall while a handful become Stripe or Airbnb, this is the show that replaces hindsight polish with the version founders tell each other at 1am on Bookface.

Publisher

Year One

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

6 May 2026

Latest episode

6 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

18 of 26 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   6 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Anonymous Founder: Extension or Default Alive

   Hosts Miles and Grant interview an anonymous founder about navigating a Series A funding gap by exploring extension, priced round, or default alive options.

2. 

   29 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Two Founders, One Year Out: The Series A Cliff

   YC Partner Brad Feld interviews two founders about navigating the challenging Series A landscape one year after their seed rounds, revealing what separates successful startups from the rest.

3. 

   22 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Nadia: Walking Into the Room After the $200M Number

   Year One hosts Grant and Miles interview Nadia about navigating the pressure of a $200 million valuation as her startup Nine Mothers begins its Y Combinator journey.

Inside a recent episode

Anonymous Founder: Extension or Default Alive

Published 6 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] Right. No new hires, no surprise cloud bill, and revenue just keeps climbing at the pace it currently grows. Which is a big if for anybody who's been guessing at growth for a year. Yeah. I've built that model for portfolios. The inputs always look calmer on the spreadsheet than they do in real life. And YC doesn't leave it as a private exercise, does it? No. The same page asks founders to say which one they are. default alive or default dead right at the start of their investor updates huh before the good news before the logo slot before anything it forces the founder to run the check and it tells investors you've already run it okay so that's door three what about the extension is that just a cheaper down round this is where people get tangled one aggregator calls guide on down rounds and bridges explains that a bridge or extension generally sets no new valuation. […]

Who has been a guest on Year One

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Nadia
• Jordan Khoo
• Alexander Benz
• Jorge B Macías
• YC partner

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

28 ratings

Spotify

2.8 / 5

20 ratings

Contact Year One

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Questions about Year One