AI Engineer
Every company should have a Brain — Garry Tan, Y Combinator
Garry Tan argues the leverage isn't the model — it's how you wire the work — and puts numbers on what AI-native founders are already doing.
GT
Garry Tan
President & CEO · Y Combinator
21:08
The numbers, across the talk5 moments · 21:08
01 · One engineer's coding output
Y Combinator (Garry Tan)
Tan compares his own 2013 output as a near full-time engineer with his output today running YC full-time. Even under the harshest verbosity discount he applies himself, the gain stays large.
00:02:02
▲~400x
Productivity
Output multipleestimated
“I did the math on my output, and it's about 400x”
00:02:47
▲8–80x
Productivity
Conservative floorestimated
“assume I'm flattering myself. It's still 8x at the floor and 80x in the middle.”
00:01:13
●14 lines/day
Other
2013 baseline
“when I was doing that, I could maybe do about 14 usable logical lines of code a day”
02 · AI-generated codebases
YC Winter 2025 batch
A year ago, a quarter of the Winter 2025 batch had codebases that were almost entirely AI-generated — and that cohort became YC's fastest-growing, most profitable batch.
00:02:47
▲95%
Quality
AI-generated code
“In the winter 25 batch, a quarter [of] the companies had code bases that were 95% AI generated, and that was a year ago.”
03 · Revenue from a seed check
YC portfolio (all-time)
Across YC's history, 94 companies have crossed $100M in revenue starting from a seed check.
00:03:36
▲94 → $100M+
Scale
Companies past $100M revenue
“94 companies total have now crossed 100 million dollars in revenue from a seed check in the history of YC”
04 · Revenue per head
AI-native YC companies (Emergence, Retail)
Tan cites revenue-per-head that he says never existed before in software: Emergence reached nine figures of ARR eight months after launch and was only 15 people at $15M; Retail runs at $60M with about 40 people.
00:06:19
▲9-figure ARR / 8 mo
Revenue
Emergence ARR
“Emergence[,] an AI App Builder out of Summer 24, they went from public launch to nine figures of ARR in eight months.”
00:06:19
▲$15M @ 15 people
Productivity
Emergence revenue/head
“When they crossed $15 million, they were only 15 people.”
00:06:19
▲$60M @ ~40 people
Productivity
Retail revenue/head
“Retail, out of Winter 24, it's at $60 million with about 40 people.”