Just realizing that in more than a decade of perusing Hacker News, I may not have ever visited the homepage.

Really love the new site and how it highlights founders so well.

Only minor tweak I'd make is for the desktop viewport size - make it so you can also click the company names instead of needing to precisely scroll for the images to show up for that company. With notched mouse wheels it's all too easy to skip one even with a regular scroll. Or increase the scroll distance.

Also might suggest using a gradient mask to fade out the company logos as you scroll the primary text block up. Some of them get very close to the text and the one-by-one removal feels a tad distracting.

And really minor but kept finding myself trying to click the photos to see things larger. Would be nice if they could come up in a media viewer with a small caption, and let me arrow key or swipe through.

Impressive collection of embarrassingly young founder pictures :-)

The design looks good. The quote is so kitch it could be on a self-help book.

"YC turns builders into formidable founders" - and then a bs faux-definition of formidable.

Interesting pattern to see how many IPO photos on the right are missing an original founder or two.

Clean design. I like how it puts founders front and center instead of just listing company logos.

One suggestion: adding a quick filter by batch year or industry would make it easier to browse. Sometimes I want to see what's new in a specific space like AI or dev tools.

Great history, hopefully some of these successful founders will stay in the loop here for all us up and comings.

I love that the founders are so prominently featured on this new version.

Looks cool, though I have to be honest that I'm not a big fan of showing only the survivor stories.

The "Be in the room with …" image hover effects triggering the video are neat.

Is there a way to see all the inactive companies? Some have great names and addresses. I wonder if there's a way to efficiently use them - even keeping all the paperwork intact.. like buying a shell company and saving a lot of the overheads and registering/signups.

Brands are resurrected in fashion all the time with new designers, CEOs and owners while keeping the name, heritage (codes/motifs/archive,) goodwill and stores intact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_house) is 70% owned by the Qatari royal family.

You could even have the ex-founders sit on a steering committee or advisory board for the switcheroo mob who could be their new bosses.

With all the unemployment around, startup musical chairs could be a solution. Isn't founders' equity the only valuable thing left in the startup world? No chance in getting rich as an employee - and with AI, who is/will not be replaceable? Also, finding the right people from the get-go is another significant challenge, and users of course.

Why don't those inactive companies share their failure stories to find some value-add? It's 2026: they could be mere hours away from an IPO horizon :)

some of the design interactions are really polished. the section written with the quotes from founders is really cool. the hover effect with the before and after of the YC partners is a great touch too!

Looks good.

A minor piece of feedback, though: might be just me, not sure if anyone else has this pavlovian conditioning, but seeing the black banner/bar on top with the YC logo/color below and HN background color immediately makes me think someone passed away.

the "Be in the room with..." hover videos are cool but seem AI-generated.

This looks good. Almost makes me want to apply...but nah. Maybe, idk.

I think I was on HN for at least three years before I realized they even had a homepage. I might check this one out in the next couple of years.

sama's double collar is legend

The company features on the front page was a great opportunity to point out their positive impacts on the world. Instead, they focus on $BBB. Nice new site though.

Curious -- was any AI used? No shame in that.

Impressive! Seeing all the before and after photos is a nice touch. With regards to the actual web page, white text on light background (partners part) makes it nice easily readable.

Clean and AI

Love the emphasis on people behind successful companies and humble beginnings that all of them have!

There's a homepage? Kidding aside, it looks like a good landing page highlighting the top success stories and the purpose of YC.

Visiting HN brings me back when to when I just started my career as a entrepreneur, I look forward to the nostalgic design it has. Have been familiar w/ YC's & HN design since 2008.

New YC page looks great – but it just doesn't feel "yc" to me.

It's a nice website. I still despise ycombinator. They make a hell of a forum though!

Redo the co-founder match sub-site next!

That thing hasn't been updated in years, and could really use some love. If they don't want to do it themselves, just open source the sub-site and I'm sure a bunch of tech founders will happily do it for them (if only to be able to say they contributed to YC itself).

Crazy talented people. Crazy good products. I really like the redesign, I am a bit old now, but I can see how inspiring it might be for people coming into tech.

The “YC/Now” timer starts (and sometimes flips) before the image actually loads.

There’s something that bothers me about reducing achievement to stock price and exit valuations. Yet, it is sobering to witness the machinery laid bare.

The whole aesthetic of startup success—those triumphant IPO bell-ringing moments—celebrates money, not wisdom or authentic progress. I’m aware this is the dominant framework, but that doesn’t make it feel less hollow. Welcome to Heartbreak.

So good!

“A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.”

Yeah, especially laws and regulations.

The implication that OpenAI is a YC company in the same sense as the other listed companies is somewhere between misleading and dishonest. Even more distasteful to show founding teams for all the others, then just Sam for OpenAI.

What stood out to me more than how impressive the carousel of companies was, was the order of them. Wild that they have OpenAI and Stripe second and third to Airbnb.

Very cool!

Not sure formidable founders getting whatever they want whatever the obstacle (sure market obstacles but what about laws, morality, etc) is a good thing to be honest.

Sometimes folks need to be stopped. Sometimes those walls are there for a reason.

And after IPO, maybe a founder should consider the good of the world instead of what you think you want next for yourself and just bashing down more walls.

But I dunno… I’m just a rando.

The "before" pictures occasionally hint at what might be optimism and individuality.

The "after" pictures display a uniformly grim corporate homogeneity.

Maybe this is because the "before" pictures are unguarded, taken before the kool-aid sank in. But they still show people who queued up to drink that kool-aid.

It's a "no" from me.

[flagged]

I mean trying to insinuate oai is a yc company is just shady right?

I get that the subtext isn’t dishonest, but cmon, you know what you’re doing

Doesn't seem to display anything with JS disabled so it's a fail in my book, but I accept that I'll be in the minority here.

Displays a blank page unless scripts are allowed. :(

“A formidable founder is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way.”

Dictator is another name.

I found the switch of focus from startups/businesses to founders/CEOs particularly strange. Looks like a political campaign to me.

Gary Tan shows up in a photo at the bottom but nowhere by name. Gotta hand it to YC, whoever handles their PR needs a raise.

didnt know they had a website. Do lobsters have a website too ?

A great sentence needs no explanation.