Meanings
- USaeronauticsprototype cargoplane (prefix)
- abbreviationinitialismbusinessInitialism of Y Combinator.
“If Sam [Altman] smiles, it’s super deliberate,” a former YC founder says. “Sam has smiled uncontrollably only once, when 'PG told him to take over YC.”
2025, Karen Hao, Empire of AI, New York City: Penguin Press, →ISBN1 more example
The venture capitalist Chris Dixon told me, “They created the greatest business model of all time. For basically no money”— YC gives each company just a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, to cover expenses—“they get seven per cent of a lot of the best startups in Silicon Valley!”
2016 October 3, Tad Friend, quoting Chris Dixon, “Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny”, in The New Yorker - abbreviationinitialismhobbiesInitialism of yellow card
Origin
Combination of prefix C and prefix modifier Y
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
YC. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/YC
“YC.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/YC. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “YC,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/YC.
Source: YC on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.