The Five States of Mind during Y Combinator Demo Day

 

The Y Combinator Winter 2025 cohort featured 160 startups, neatly arranged into four blocks of ~40 each. As the pitches rolled in, so did the emotional rollercoaster - predictable, inevitable, and slightly absurd.

𝟭. 𝗘𝘅𝘂𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲

Every single one of these startups is about to change the world. Artificial human societies? Agents grading AI generated school papers? Doesn’t matter. The future is here, and it’s going to be insane. Forget the minor daily inconveniences—who cares about your inbox when agents will rule the planet?

𝟮. 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻

Wait… I can’t possibly invest in all of them. There are too many. How do I even pick the future decacorn? Is it the startup with 200% growth during YC? The one with the 'math Olympiad at 15/chess prodigy at 16/Harvard dropout at 17' founders? The one with actual revenues? Existential dread kicks in.

(Enter the lunch break. Founders pitch you aggressively over excellent grub. The cognitive load is real.)

𝟯. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

Post-lunch reality check. These valuations are ridiculous. Half of these founders have never held a real job. Some literally just dropped out of school. And they’re asking for a $30M cap?! What am I doing here? Am I part of the problem?

𝟰. 𝗘𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁

Okay, deep breath. I can’t invest in all of them, but I don’t need to. A few of these actually fit my thesis. The game isn’t to spray-and-pray—it’s to get into the right deals for me.

𝟱. 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲

The pitches end. YC CEO Garry Tan takes the stage. He reminds us, yet again, that somewhere in this batch is the next Airbnb or Stripe. The FOMO is real, but so is the relief. At least I will buy a lottery ticket with higher odds than Powerball.

Demo Day over.

Back to figuring out what part of the future I want to help shape.

This post was first published on LinkedIN in March 2025