Y Combinator: A program so nice, these founders did it twice

Parker Conrad may be best known as the founder of both Zenefits and Rippling, but he is also arguably the best-known founder to have gone through Y Combinator’s accelerator program twice. Of course, he’s not the only one to go through the program twice; some founders have even gone through three times.

Y Combinator has been around for over a decade and is still largely considered the premier startup accelerator. Now that founders from its earlier cohorts are starting new companies, it only makes sense that the number of repeat founders has grown.

The accelerator is an intensive 11-week startup building program with the aim of propelling startups to the next level. YC also gives its company cohorts $500,000 in funding across two SAFE — simple agreement for future equity — notes.

There were eight repeat YC founders in this latest summer batch, per my count (check out our faves from Day 1 and Day 2). Some recent batches like winter 2023 and summer 2022 had even more. But is the program really worth doing a second time? For repeat YC founders, the answer is a resounding yes.