September 15, 2025
Source
Inside Standard Capital: New $425M Series A Fund, Explained
Think about how much of our job at YC has been decoding VC speak into English.
Any words that aren't yes is a no, but like with all this like extra accoutrements on the edges.
If you get an email and it's like lots of words in it, that's a no.
Hello, this is Dalton Plus Michael, and today we're going to talk about Standard Capital, the new fund by Dalton and PB.
As a kind of 30 second preview, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you decided to start this fund and why is it different?
I think to start with, as you know, I give a lot of advice over the years as a YC partner on pivots.
And one of the things I try to do when giving someone advice about a pivot is I try to imagine of all ideas this person can work in the world, where do they have the most unfair advantages?
Where do they have the best network?
Like I believe that every person has like a perfect idea for them and that my job is to try to pull out of any founder what their ideal idea is.
I have stolen that line.
Maybe a hundred times.
Yeah.
Maybe a hundred times.
It's helpful, especially in the sea of where I could do anything.
Yeah.
There's too many choices.
Too many choices.
But if you think about it this way, everyone has one really good idea.
And so... By the way, I love that too because it's kind of like, in a really hard competition, you want to play games you're good at.
Yeah.
The world is a really hard competition.
So this is an idea that I crafted very specifically for this founding team, which is PBE myself and Brian Berg.
And kind of the idea is to take a lot of what makes YC work at the seed stage and apply it to the series A.
Um, the way I like to explain this is 20 years ago I raised a seed round.
Yep.
And when I raised a seed round, I had to get a lead investor.
Yep.
I had to get a priced round term sheet.
Yep.
I had to sell 25% of my company.
Yep.
I had to give up a board seat and it took seven months.
For a seed round.
For a seed round.
And Michael, let me be honest.
It was a miracle.
Like, I'm so thankful.
No, I mean, I really mean this.
Yeah.
Like, when I think back, I'm like, how did I get that done?
Like, I think I was just lucky.
Yeah.
It was it was so hard.
Yes.
When you were doing it coming out of the 01 craziness.
Yeah.
It was it was really hard.
Yeah.
And it was basically a miracle that I got it done.
And so when you compare that to today, where there's YC, YC invented the safe, there's this really vibrant ecosystem of angel investors that are used to taking risks on younger founders, on technical founders.
It's totally different.
It's a lot of my experience of raising a seed round, not applicable, not relevant in any way to founders.
Conversely, I also raised a series A 20 years ago,
And it was like, I had to get warm interest to people.
I put them in my CRM.
I had to go on coffee dates to get to know people and go through this complicated process.
I'm sure you love those coffee dates.
Oh, I love, you know me.
I love that.
There's one thing I love.
There's one thing I love with random investors.
Oh yeah, that's like, love that stuff.
Go my calendar.
And then the crazy thing about the process that I remember, and I'm sure this still stings you, is where you would spend all this time with people over weeks or months and they would like wanna go out to dinner and be your best friend and talk about how great you were.
And then like, oh, you know, we're definitely coming in.
And then they would like pass at the very end.
Often silently.
They would ghost you.
Yes.
Or they would be yeah they would be like oh this is just a perfunctory like we're definitely in and then you get like the very weird pass at the end after literally months of time and effort.
Yes.
And it was crushing and it was a huge time waste and
I felt horrible because I wasn't working on my startup when I was doing these fundraisers.
I was said fundraising one to that point I was told like this was an important part of being a founder, but I'd always found it a little confusing.
Well, you weren't adding any value.
My company was not getting better.
Yeah, the company was getting worse.
You know there's a side quest and then you need money But like I feel like that was a bit of a lie like oh this side quest is gonna help you with your guns like yeah No, it's gonna give me money.
I liked YC's PG was the only person was honest about this in his blog posts Yes, which is like yeah fundraising the waste of time don't do it.
Yeah, like to do it is do it It's a short amount of time as possible.
This is like core in the YC Bible.
Yes is this stuff.
Yes Anyway, so to complete the thought Michael that was all what I remember guess what?
It's the same now.
Like all of the advice, all of my experience as a founder raising an A is precisely what I still hear as a YC group partner on what it's like to raise an A, which is like, oh, you get this inbound from people and they act like they're really interested, but then you get into these really long complicated processes.
And most of the time it's a lot of very complicated flowery words, which mean no.
Yes.
Yes.
Think about how much of our job at YC has been decoding VC speak.
And to English.
And again, I'll tell the audience.
If it's not any words that aren't yes, it's a no.
But like with all this like extra accoutrements on the edges.
Okay.
Like if there's lots of words, if you get an email and it's like lots of words in it, that's a no.
Yes.
Okay.
It's so funny because it's like a plate full of garnishes.
There's just a no in the middle of it.
There's just a no in the plate.
Why would these spend so much time?
They must be really interested.
Like, no, I don't, that's just a no.
That's just a regular no.
So yeah, so the process is still awkwardly slash maybe needlessly painful?
Hey, look, if we want to humanize the investors on the other side of the table, this is just how it's always been done.
So I would argue it's, I don't think they're evil.
Yeah, yeah, but I'm saying the word awkward.
It's the process
that has been the process since the 1980s.
And so when Steve Jobs was raising money for Apple Computer, this is the same process that he used in the 1980s.
Well, let's absolve them.
VCs have to go to other investors to raise money.
Precisely.
And so needless to say, it's a little bit easier.
Especially if you don't have a stellar track record to just say, I'm doing it like almost.
Yeah.
Why would you want to do something different?
That's like the worst thing you could do.
Yeah.
Especially in an asset class that seems like it's working and blah, blah.
Yeah.
And so that's the context, which is, look, we saw what made YC work.
PB was the second demo day as an angel investor.
We should probably introduce PB.
You should say who PB is.
Yeah, yeah.
So, PB Paul Buhite.
I often tell founders that Paul Buhite gave both of my startups the single most important pieces of advice.
which is crazy.
Cause it was like, you know, it was like infinite value creating the first time.
And then like, I still remember the second time being like, wait, I think he might've just like, what is happening?
He just drops truth, truth bombs on you, Michael.
Just dropping a truth bomb.
So Paul was a very early employee of Google.
23.
He was an angel investor in a lot of companies, Twitch and social cam included.
I always respected his
his style.
He, you know, he's not going to hold your hand and give you like eight hugs and be like, oh, how do you feel today about the experience of a startup?
He's not going to do that.
But like, when you give him a problem,
there's like an 85% chance he will give you a better solution than you're gonna come up with.
And like, he's been doing it for like 20 years.
Like, yeah.
I mean, it's one of those things when you meet someone that's really smart, you can just tell that they're just operating with more horsepower.
Like whatever's going on, he's got a lot of horsepower up there.
And so if you can kind of direct him the right way, you're gonna get a nugget.
And like, you know, it turns out companies don't need like a hundred nuggets.
So to make it explicit, right, so one, for Twitch, like PB inspired us to build our own video server, built on top of FFMpeg, which meant that we were running our own video streaming software, which meant that our structural costs for streaming live video were 10x lower than our competitors.
Back then, this is in the days before video ads, so it was very hard to run a video company, and that was the difference, like that's,
I mean, if you're watching live video on Twitch, like PB was the one who told Kyle, go do that.
It's not going to vendor for that.
Yeah.
And then second for social cam, we had this incredible run where we got about 30 million downloads in three months.
And PB was basically the one who told us how to kind of measure our viral loops so we could optimize it.
And the second time I was wouser, like he said something and we were like, no, that's wrong, PB.
And then he's like, have you tried it?
And then I was like, dammit, like that's when it clicked.
I was like, you know, like.
You gotcha.
You gotcha.
We haven't tried it because we're dumb.
And then we tried it and it worked.
I don't want to go into the details, but it was always very interesting because I would always think about what I would call the PB, PG continuum.
I think founders, we tell them not to shop for advice, but I think they always shop for advice.
You go to different people for different things.
I always felt like you go to PB to feel better about your startup.
PG.
PG, sorry.
Yeah, to feel better about it.
You think it's this, but it could be this.
And you'd be like, ah, I could be.
Thanks, PG, I'm great.
PG things can be.
That's like maybe it can be, right?
Amazing, right?
PB would not give you any of those vibes.
Like, he'd be real with you.
It's like, I remember with social cam, he was like, I will never use your product.
That was the first thing he said.
I would never use your product.
And I would never tell my friends to use your product.
And then he gave us the thing that made the thing worth the actual money.
And so PB was always like,
Give him your hardest problem.
Yeah.
And so the fact that you're, you're getting to work with him.
And I would say honestly, the fact that his talents are going to be used on companies that are a little further along when, you know, your hardest problem is not like, Oh, how do I get my first user?
Like, yeah, what did this investor say?
And like, that's pretty powerful.
And he was also known as somewhat of a savant in YC interviews too, which is, which is kind of, um,
Most of us who've been around for a while.
learned like our tricks.
I remember being in the interview room in PB and like, I just was like, I'm not gonna say anything.
Yeah, just let him cook.
Let him cook.
Just gonna watch this.
I feel out of my death.
So no, so I mean, that's incredible.
And then you've got your old co-founder joining as well.
Yeah, Brian was, you know, the CTO of I-Meme and he was the CTO of my second company, Mixed Me Lab.
So we ran a company together for over a decade.
And you know, when I started at YC, I introduced him to Patrick Hollison.
He became employee 70 at Stripe.
And that's pretty good.
He's been an engineer there the whole time, writing code, you know, he was reporting to the CTO strike.
But wait, Dalton, you're starting to be a C fund.
Why would you need something like what, you know, we all know that you need to get Microsoft 365.
Microsoft Teams.
I've been having to use a lot of Microsoft Teams recently, man.
It's not good.
It's one package.
Why do you need a software developer?
Well, I mean, look, we saw what made YC great, which is at its core.
is it was a software company created by a person that loved software and didn't love people.
Just kidding.
Didn't love hiring a bunch of people.
It's a nicer way to say it.
Didn't love like a whole bunch of human process.
Especially for things that software was good at.
Yeah.
So he would, every time there was a problem with YC, PG would build software for it.
And a lot of the software that we worked on for all these years can all be traced back to software that PG wrote.
And so I think we're heavily inspired of having software at the very center of things.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think that's such an interesting point.
Like only in hindsight, do I really appreciate how different it was at YC, how often we asked, how can software help us?
And like coming out of a startup that felt like a very natural question, but talking to other investors, I've realized that is one of the most unnatural questions.
Like how can software help us?
Well,
We need to hire these young people so they can scout investors.
We need lawyers.
We need this.
I think a lot of investors build side projects and they're vibe coding.
I think there's a lot of vibe coding going on now.
Yeah.
But it's core, you know, if what you're doing is you have, you have an email inbox that comes with warm intros and it's sending you pitch decks.
That's not super soft for a centric.
Like I, people have been trying to send me pitch decks and I'm like, no thank you.
Because I'm so trained to read YC applications, right?
Like we're all trained to see the information in a very specific format.
Yes.
And we're very good at it because all in the same format.
Yes.
When I have to parse information on a pitch deck, it's really hard.
I think one of the funny things is like y'all are unpacking so many things where I feel like this awkward process has been created around series A is it's not obvious it makes the series A investor's lives easier either.
Well, I think so much of the classical series of investor is relationship based and reputation based, where a lot of what they do is they have people they trust and they trust the people that they trust to tell them who to give money to.
And that's kind of the business.
Again, that's not a great, you know, but that's at the end of the day, that's the business.
It's just sad.
Like when I hear that, it's sad because it's like, you know, for better or for worse, especially in a lot of these kind of shotgun processes, like, these people don't know each other that well.
No, and then it's no big deal.
They're just gonna be on your board and they can fire you, right?
No big deal.
Oh, you're just meeting a stranger and maybe they invest and then they fire you someday.
Oh yeah, that's a, I mean, facetious again, but look, it's closer to the truth than not.
We have a lot of secret stories that we can never tell that we learned at YC around bad board members Yeah, and what was that quote?
Not this is not my quote But I remember a founder of being like look a board member is either a plus one a zero or a minus one There's only a handful of plus ones in the whole world.
So try to get a zero
Try to get a zero board member.
And like, if you can get a zero, then at least you don't have the minus ones.
That wasn't a joke either when that founder was telling the story.
It's so hard because I think that like, I don't blame founders for believing that boards can help.
What I do wish is that I wish there was a way for a founder to kind of be in one public board meeting.
Yeah.
Well, for context, Michael, you're on the board of Reddit.
Yeah.
And you're on the board of Dropbox.
Yeah.
And like I just wish I could bring them into one meeting and then be like, well, this is like, this is how this is gold.
Like this is fine.
Like if this is.
Like, what are you gonna have?
And if this isn't winning, what are you gonna have?
But let's be clear, everyone's searching for an oracle.
If you present anything in an oracle-like shape, whoa, the board, whoa, the phone calls, recruit your executives.
And it's just so sad when people realize, like, there's no oracle.
Like, you just kind of have to finish it out.
Yeah, they don't have the answers.
No, yeah, the best oracle could do is probably tell you, don't quit.
Yeah, that's true.
That is actually the best advice.
Just keep going.
Yeah, keep going.
Tomorrow will only be as painful or less painful as today.
Most of the time.
That's actually really good advice.
You're starting this new fund.
Yeah, so let me just tell you the actual features.
That seems real, because we're not dancing around.
Let me, here's the features.
How's it different?
Number one, you're gonna apply on our website.
We're creating an application process just like we had at YC, which has been the thing I've been working on all these years.
And so you won't need a warm intro.
It'll just be a website.
Anyone in the world can apply.
Put yourself in the mindset, we've seen founders invest easily a month.
in creating a deck, editing a deck, and the deck is bad.
So it's like, hey, I shouldn't say.
I'm basically often the first draft of decks we see could use some improvement.
Is that a really bad?
It's not for lack of effort.
Decks are hard.
Decks are hard.
Decks are hard.
And this isn't like the job, which is like making your users.
Yeah.
Better off.
Yeah.
So how long should it take to find an application?
Hour or two?
Yeah.
Just like, you know, for a lot of the YC people that get into YC, it's been like an hour on the up sometimes less.
How many founders have you talked to?
They're like, I applied the day of the deadline 15 minutes before the deadline came due.
And then we got in.
Especially for YC that's so early stage right for some extent there is a little bit of less is more yeah, right like there is a little bit of like If this is early stage, you have a 50 page deck like what what could you pretty much all downside?
Okay, so one will be an application.
Great.
And so the whole point is to have the time cost to a founder to be minimal.
Yes.
So the downside is minimal.
Yes.
You know, no one will know you applied.
Yes.
You spend an hour to fill out the application.
And then the upside is great.
You get money, you know, fast.
Yeah, okay.
Okay.
Here's some of the other features.
Number two, the reason it's called standard capital is that we're creating a standard series A term sheet.
YC created the safe and it's just on our website.
So I don't have to spend $250,000 with my lawyers?
Well, they might still try to... I'm scared.
But what's cool is you can just, anyone in the world can go look at the safe document and know what the terms are before you talk to any investors.
Before anyone applies to standard capital, they can just go read our term sheet.
They can read our terms.
I love that.
Isn't that cool?
And so you'll know exactly what the deal is before you apply.
Instead of it being this opaque thing where they show you the terms at the very end of the process.
After you said yes.
Well, that's the crazy thing.
It's like they show you like some terms in the term sheet.
And then, because obviously as a founder you've had time to go to law school, they show you this huge document that's full of things that they've spent a lot of time thinking about.
And you haven't.
And you're thinking of the process.
So what are you going to do?
Tell them no?
Yeah.
Like you have no leverage.
You already signed.
It's like it's awkward.
It's time-consuming and stressful and and no one benefits But I guess the lawyers benefit but other than that like no one really enjoys that process So so again, yes called standard capital because it's the standard as a term sheet the term sheet will be on the website You can see it before you apply.
Perfect.
The other thing that's super cool Yes, is that the standard deal will be for 10% of the company.
Yes for our lead check.
Yeah, and then the founder is part of the application
will choose their price of how much money they want to raise from us in exchange for 10%.
So picture a text box where you can type in six million dollars in exchange for 10% of the company.
And that's just probably the application.
You're just filling it out.
You're like, okay, it's six, seven.
How often have we sat down with the founder?
And they've said, well, I think I need this much money, but should I ask for this much money so that they can do this?
And then if I ask for a smaller amount, then they get multiple people.
And it's this fucking- It's used car sales.
It's a used car thing.
It's like going to the market and bartering at the flea market.
Literally.
I don't do the flea markets easy.
You get the deal done that day.
It's true.
It's like such a weird, awkward.
Again, I'm gonna use that word awkward.
It's a very awkward process to do a negotiation like it's like the olden times.
Because founders always ask me, I don't know if they ask you this, but they're like, Dalton, what's the equation to determine our valuation?
And I'm like founder, I'm gonna, it's like I'm telling them Santa Claus isn't real.
Let me rule with you.
There's no equation.
Everyone just makes up numbers and you make up a number and they make up a number and you keep making up numbers till somehow there's an equilibrium and then the deal's done.
And they're shocked.
Founders are shocked to hear that's actually the science behind this stuff.
Well, isn't it, you know, 25 times forward estimated revenue?
Not in an early stage.
When you're a series, whatever.
Yeah.
Basically public company.
Yeah.
But no, in the early stage, this stuff is all made up.
So that's the reason why.
I think that's interesting as well.
It reflects so much what we were telling founders at YC, which is like you set your own price.
Yes.
So this is, we're designing something that is legible to YC founders because at demo day, we tell the founders, set your cap.
This is my cap.
You tell investors the cap and they're either in or out.
Yes.
So do you see how this is extremely like,
Intuitively, like I'm designing an intuitive process.
Yes.
For YC folks.
Yes.
Fill out an application, standard term sheet.
Yep.
Name your own price.
Yep.
We're going to have a quality of service where it'll tell you how many days before you get a firm yes or no from us.
That's impossible to do.
I know.
How could you ever, there's vacations.
There's the hot deal you have to chase.
Yeah.
Because imagine, when you were a founder, Michael, imagine if someone could actually promise you by what date that you would know they were confirmatively in or out.
Even if they weren't, even if it's a no, what a gift to know where you stand versus just getting stretched out, oh, I need one more meeting.
Oh, I need to schedule the partner meeting.
Oh, I need to do that.
There's always these extra steps that get added at the very end.
It's just so weird because like, I'm gonna say, if slash when this works.
And people tell the stories about how, like, people are gonna be like, it never, this isn't how it was.
Dalton, you must be exaggerating.
Like, this is not, like, how, how did companies even happen if they had to go through this?
And sometimes I think like companies succeed despite this bullshit.
Yes.
That's a good way to say it.
This has always been a necessary evil.
Yes.
Still is kind of a necessary evil, but there's some hair on the process.
And you know, this is what founders like to talk about when they get together.
It's like all their horror stories.
God knows I have some.
I think it's been so interesting because I think oftentimes
I'll talk to a VC and they will say, our process is amazing.
And then I will be like, I have talks to founders who've pitched your firm.
There's one firm was like, went to a partner meeting, full partnership meeting, no contact for two weeks.
They were thinking about it.
No, they weren't thinking about it.
But it's almost they're blind.
Yeah, and like to lightly defend investors.
I think that there's no upside for anyone ever telling you to your face they don't like your process and that they don't appreciate it.
And so both sides want to preserve optionality.
Because if you're a founder, you're like, I don't like you and I don't like your process and I'm mad at you.
What?
I would never advise a founder to tell an investor that.
It's all downside.
And so I genuinely think some of these folks
aren't aware of how much psychic damage they inflict on people.
So here's the thing.
Let's say I'll give you that.
Enough of these people were founders.
They know.
Those people know in their heart.
I think the game is the game.
And again, I'm sure there's people out there that are like, oh, well, the YC process frustrated me.
What I would say about YC, though, is we always had a date we would tell you on the website when you applied where we would send you a no or a yes.
You know what it reminds me of?
This is a government aside.
When Obama was running for president in 08, one of the things that was said was that organizing the campaign was almost a test for how effective he would be as president.
And I think that like the VC industry has kind of internalized this idea where it's like.
how you organize your fundraise and how you do these kind of like mind games is like a test on how good of a founder you're gonna be.
And I think that like, that's maybe the idea I want to attack.
Like I don't actually think that's true.
And I think that, you know, and we've talked about this at YC, like perhaps as the need for capital reduces, as AI becomes more and more powerful,
I think that investors are going to have to kind of rethink this math because like if the need for capital halves and these processes stay this awkward, you know, I'm working with a company that's doing eight million dollars in revenue and they're profitable and they're like, maybe we should raise a series A, maybe we shouldn't.
Yeah.
And you know, especially if it seems high pain, especially if it seems maybe not likely to succeed or have negative reputational damage.
Like if you go and raise and your fund raise fails, the VCs just tell each other, like they basically just talk all day.
Yes.
About who's raising and what's going on.
Yes.
You kind of, you actually take damage.
You do.
If you try to raise and it doesn't work.
when we have to advise founders was like, you got to go, you got to go away for six months and you do your shit and like, yeah, let's talk about community.
So yeah, we, you invested in the company.
So if you think about why, why C really worked, you go look at the first batch that Justin was in, and that Sam Altman was in, and it was just like six companies, you know, and with the benefit of hindsight, those were some of the most important people in the world.
Yep.
And those people had a good experience and they told other people about it and that ultimately the reason someone wants to be a part of YC is to opt into being a part of the community and the other founders.
It's not just the advice from the partners.
That's only a small part of it.
It's kind of like joining the club.
Yes.
And so the community aspect is the following.
And this is, you know, kind of bold, you know, one, we're not going to take a board seat.
Yep.
Founders don't want someone who might fire them.
It's weird to, to be begging for money from someone that might fire you.
Yeah.
Very, very awkward situation again.
And you don't really have time to get to know them well.
No, certainly not to pressure test a relationship.
No.
There's great board members out there.
I'm saying it's a tricky situation.
And instead of just saying, well, we're not going to take board seats, whatever, we're actually going to create these subgroups, kind of like group office hours at YC, where the founders will bring them together once a quarter, once every three months.
And they will present their, their company metrics and their board update type things and their biggest problems to each other.
And so it's almost like this group therapy thing.
Um, you're very familiar with it.
I mean, a YC, if anyone, this YC alum will be familiar with group office hours.
Believe it or not.
PB invented group office hours.
I didn't know that until he told me that.
Um, and the idea is, look, man, let's be real.
What do you respect more?
other people operating companies.
In the trenches.
In the trenches, they're actually dealing with problems in real time.
Or people who just kind of repeat stories they hear from other investors or what have you.
It's tricky.
And the way I think about this man is, Zuck has infinite resources for Meta.
He can get advice from anyone in the world.
Think about it.
He could call someone and get them on the board of Facebook.
Who does he choose to put on his board and who does he get advice from?
Founders.
Coney from DoorDash, Brian from Airbnb, Drew from Dropbox or all directors of Facebook.
And we know this from behind the scenes.
That's actually who Zuck has been consulting with on how to run Facebook as well as the AI strategy.
And who did he bring in to run the whole Facebook AI strategy?
the other founder.
And these are all YC people.
These are all people that we know.
And so I really think that that is just such hard proof that ultimately the best advice you're gonna get as a founder is from other founders and from peers that you respect.
And so it's the extent standard capital is about curating this peer group and creating a structured way for these peers to help each other.
I think it's actually just a better product.
If we think of this in terms of our product,
I want that wearing my founder hat.
I want to be a part of that thing and I don't want a board member.
You don't want a recently graduated MBA who's picking up their first couple of companies while their VC firm is testing whether or not they're going to be good or not.
And again, those are very nice people and I like them and I would love them to create people.
Hope in some way, but come on.
As a founder that's not who you're gunning for.
Yeah, like that's not your dream situation of who you want advice from.
You know, I remember Pedro from Brex came in to talk to the batch and he said a version of this.
He said, I started accelerating so much more quickly when I stopped asking investors to summarize what they saw other great founders do.
And I started to just ask those founders directly, what do they do?
Most people go into YC, they're coming out of college and they have a peer group that's like this.
And then you just give them this peer group that's like, yeah, we all want to make the next Google.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's different.
Like, you know, like you, you just up leveled everyone's ambition.
We've talked about this for years, like.
The same thing doesn't quite exist for later stage folks.
Well, think about it.
We're curating the peer group of AI builders that have product market fit.
Like, right?
Like that's the bar to get in to this is you have to have PMF.
Yeah.
That's like pretty cool.
There's not, you know, that's a much.
Yes.
That's a much more rare thing.
Because think about how many of the really successful folks we know, they don't even have, they have their peer group in the batch, but they're all, people are at different levels of success, okay?
This is like, whoa, these people are all on my level.
I think that's pretty powerful.
And again, I'm super excited that we get to power this for people.
You know, a lot of times when I have conversations with investors, I think that they
overvalue the money they're giving and they overvalue their personal advice.
What I like about this is like you're creating a structure where you're almost forced to not overvalue this.
Like you're almost forced to create value not in those areas.
Exactly.
Yeah, we're happy to give advice, but the value prop is not.
We're the best advice givers.
That's not the value prop at all.
And the value prop is it's like, oh, like the company with the biggest check always wins because it's never true.
The other thing I feel like we learned from YC is PG is deeply anti-zero sum thinking.
And so the zero some way to think about startups is there's only one good startup that started every year and that if you don't fund that one startup you're bad and He had real issues of skepticism around why comedy or when he started it because they're like, oh you're just gonna fund all the bad startups
This is the worst idea like a lot of people were like you should just give up man You're gonna build a baseball team with all the worst
You're selecting for bad companies.
Are you nuts?
Okay?
Seriously, and again, that really was the public perception around it.
And his point, which he's written about a lot, is that there could be more success in the world, and there is not a fixed amount of successful startups, and there's not a fixed amount of wealth, and there's not a fixed amount of growth, and then in fact, these things feed on each other, and that by funding lots of startups and funding a lot of talent,
the net effect would be have more, you know, abundance in the world, more growth in the world, more successful startups.
And he was right.
Yes.
Because it's not like if PG wouldn't have funded those early companies, they would have gone on to work without YC, right?
Like in companies.
Twitch.
Like none of them.
Reddit wouldn't exist in Twitter.
Like there's not a parallel universe where they didn't do YC and some other investor funded those companies.
with this kind of non-zero sum thinking, we need more software companies.
Yes.
So my thesis is that there's going to be a lot more big companies than there ever were.
Not one or two a year, there's going to be more.
My thesis is also, I think that a lot of the VC firms will be fine
and that us funding more great founders.
Why say didn't kill the rest of the story?
Basically, I think us funding more great founders is going to create more abundance and wealth in the world.
And this isn't zero-sum thinking.
And it's actually disappointing how zero-sum thinking is pervaded a lot of this industry.
Especially because like,
You're not seeing something profound.
Like this kind of positive some thinking is why tech exists.
It's literally why this stuff works.
And so I think it's so awesome to be able to basically get more people funded and to have them have a really fast process.
And I don't think that necessarily means that there's gonna be negative side effects to other folks.
I think it's just gonna be great.
So this thing's kicking off.
I think the last thing that I loved when you described this to me is like any software startup, this is the MVP, but you know, we got to get out there and figure out what needs to be built next.
And I think that's kind of the exciting thing is that, I remember we always used to say at YC, we want to try to earn our 7% every year.
And so we were trying to make the product better.
Yeah, and we did every year.
It was a lot better.
I mean, I think we could objectively
And so I love that you're kind of bringing your stat spirit into this.
Exactly, because think about it.
We're using the AI tools themselves to write the code to power this thing.
We are intentionally trying to use AI in every decision we make.
I don't know.
We're treating ourselves as guinea pigs to kind of create an organization of the future and how we operate and to be self-similar with our own portfolio companies.
It's how you would do this.
If you were operating in the new technology paradigm, you liked software and you liked founders, which all tells back to the original point, which is all things I could work on.
Like of the entire universe, what should I be doing to give myself advice, to give myself office hours?
This is pretty much it.
And this is same with PB and same with Brian.
That's on the nose.
So as a last thing, how do they, how do people find you?
with standardcap.com.
Probably there'll be a link next to this video when we talk about it.
And there you go.
There's just be an application and it'll all be documented in Super Transparent.
And the first 10 people who apply get 10 million bucks each.
From Michael.
I like what you did there.
Dalton, great chat.
All right.
Appreciate it.
Thanks Michael.