An interview with VC Paul Graham of YCombinator

Paul Graham believes we’re not in a bubble, that startups shouldn’t worry about their business models and the best companies are the ones with potential to kill old monopolies. Graham is a partner at YCombinator, a Mountain View venture capital firm that invests in very early tech startups. Companies that YCombinator has funded include the social news site Reddit, online form creation tool Wufoo (our coverage), and the online calendaring startup Kiko, who’s controversial sale on eBay last month ended with a quarter million dollar winning bid. The next YCombinator funded company to launch will be loopt, a mobile presence service also funded by Sequoia. YCombinator’s site says, “We’re the right choice for a group of two or three young hackers who have an idea, and want some money and advice to get it launched.”

Graham is known for making strong statements about innovation and economics in technology. He’s the author of three books, most recently Hackers and Painters, published by O’Reilly. His essays can be found at PaulGraham.com. The picture of Paul on the left is from his keynote talk at this year’s RailsConf.

In the following short interview, we talked about the growing trend of small investments from VCs, Paul’s thoughts on startup business models, Kiko, the bubble and Web 2.0.

Marshall Kirkpatrick

Full Story: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/02/an-interview-with-vc-paul-graham-of-ycombinator/