Unconventional Advice for Founders [Entire Talk] - Garry Tan (Y Combinator)

### TL;DR Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan returns to his alma mater Stanford to share unconventional advice for founders: face your childhood trauma, seek therapy, say yes to big opportunities, and embrace the humanities alongside engineering. --- ## Background: From Stanford Student to YC CEO Garry Tan graduated from Stanford in 2003 with a degree in Computer Systems Engineering. Two decades later, he is the CEO of Y Combinator, which has backed startups now collectively valued at over $600 billion. Before YC, he was an early employee at Palantir (designing the logo), co‑founder of Posterous (acquired by Twitter), and co‑founder of Initialized Capital. In this talk at Stanford’s ETL (Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders) seminar, he shares the hard‑earned lessons from his journey—especially the mistakes he made and the personal struggles he had to confront. --- ## The Rejections That Shaped Him Tan reminds the audience that even he—now a top venture capitalist and YC CEO—faced rejection at Stanford. As a senior in 2003, he applied for the STVP Mayfield Fellows program and **was rejected**. He also applied for the joint master’s program in computer science and **did not get in**. At the time, the dot‑com bubble had burst, and “the web seemed dead, it seemed dark.” He wanted to reassure the students: “You have skills, you believe in yourself, you believe in the power of technology, and it will be okay.” In his freshman year (1999), he and his roommate tried to start a company and pitched to VCs. They received feedback that the idea was good but the team was too young. “This is something that’s going to happen to you—and it happens to me—and you basically have to keep believing.” --- ## The Hidden Burden: Childhood Trauma and the ACE Test Tan shared a deeply personal story about his upbringing. His father, an engineer and Chinese immigrant, struggled with alcoholism and keeping a job. “It was a very difficult childhood,” Tan said. Growing up, he spent many hours trying to act “normal” and hide his family’s struggles. He described Stanford’s “duck syndrome”—calm on the surface, but pedaling furiously underneath driven by “a lot of trauma you’d rather not think about.” He later realized that this shaped his own behavior as a manager. When his co‑founder told him that a direct report said Tan was “the worst manager he had ever met,” it was a wake‑up call. Tan saw that his conflict‑avoidance style came from 10,000 hours of learned behavior at home. He took the **Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) test** and scored very high. “It took years of therapy and coaching to get to a point where I could healthily handle conflict. I’m still improving, but it changed my life.” His key message to founders: **“If you have a high ACE score, it’s okay. You don’t have to pretend to be normal. Get help.”** Startups eventually reflect the founder’s personality, and unexamined demons can destroy a company. He emphasized that therapy is “cheap compared to other things you spend money on to fill a hole inside.” --- ## The $200 Million Mistake (Now $500 Million) Tan’s biggest professional mistake: **turning down an early offer to join Palantir.** In 2004, while working at Microsoft as a product manager making $74,000/year, he was recruited by friends to join a new startup backed by Peter Thiel. At a dinner, Thiel wrote him a check for **$774,000 cash**—one year’s salary plus ten times leverage—to quit Microsoft immediately. Tan, socially awkward, said no because he might get promoted to level 60 the next year. “It was a huge mistake.” At the time, he was offered about 1% of the company. Today Palantir is worth roughly $360 billion, making that stake worth hundreds of millions. But Tan eventually joined as employee #10 and learned invaluable lessons about building from scratch. He still regrets saying no the first time. ### Why did he say no? - Surface reasons: health insurance, parents’ pride. - Deeper reason: **his reality was constructed by the media** (Wall Street Journal at the time, today it would be Twitter/TechCrunch). He didn’t understand that the world’s most important institutions lacked good software. The founders told him that even top organizations had to rely on Dell or consultants like Deloitte because they couldn’t get great engineers. He didn’t believe them. --- ## The Value of Humanities for Engineers Tan took **Structured Liberal Education (SLE)** as a freshman—a 9‑credit, residential humanities program. He joked that being a “nerd” was fine, but learning about human nature and communication became critical later. Many top VCs he knows also took SLE, including Hans Tung of GGV. “It’s not just about being a software engineer, designer, scientist, or tech person. Being able to understand and communicate with other human beings is extremely valuable.” --- ## Unconventional Advice for Founders 1. **Expect and embrace rejection early.** Even the most successful founders face repeated No’s. Keep believing. 2. **Don’t ignore your own psychology.** The ACE test and therapy are more important than you think. The startup will reflect the founder—so fix your inner demons before they break your company. 3. **Say yes to big opportunities.** When you see a world‑changing idea and a great team, don’t let fear, status, or safety hold you back. 4. **Learn the humanities.** Deep understanding of people is as crucial as technical skill. 5. **Don’t pretend to be normal.** Your background may give you a unique drive, but only if you process it. Tan concluded by thanking the audience and reminding them that the journey is long and full of hits—but that with belief and help, they can build remarkable things. --- ## Source Garry Tan – Unconventional Advice for Founders, presented at Stanford ETL. [Watch the full talk on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4yMc99fpfY).