Main Function
Main Function by Y Combinator brings together an outstanding lineup of founders, technologists, and thinkers who are redefining how startups and AI shape our world. Explore interviews and in-depth conversations that unpack the journeys behind building transformative companies, pushing the limits of AI and compute, and scaling ambitious ideas. Whether you’re seeking practical strategies or forward-looking inspiration, Main Function is your window into the ideas and people moving tech and startups forward.
All Episodes
Anthropic Head of Pretraining on Scaling Laws, Compute, and the Future of AI
Ever wonder what it actually takes to train a frontier AI model? Ankit Gupta, YC General Partner, sits down with Nick Joseph, Anthropic's Head of Pre-training, to explore the engineering challenges behind training Claude—from managing thousands of GPUs and debugging cursed bugs to balancing compute between pre-training and RL. We cover scaling laws, data strategies, team composition, and why the hardest problems in AI are often infrastructure problems, not ML problems.
Fintech 3.0: Now Is The Best Time To Build In Crypto
We are entering the era of Fintech 3.0. Regulatory clarity, growing consumer adoption, and low-cost chains have paved the way for a golden age of building in crypto — and at YC, Base, and Coinbase we want to fund builders to seize this moment. In this episode of Main Function, YC's Harj Taggar and Base's Jesse Pollak sat down to discuss what kinds of companies they're most excited to see, why this is such an exciting time in crypto, and what the future could look like onchain.