Y Combinator's president is leaving. And the accelerator itself is leaving Silicon Valley

The president of the world's most famous business incubator, Y Combinator, Sam Altman is leaving the company, and she herself is moving from Silicon Valley to San Francisco.

More. Sam Altman, who joined Y Combinator (YC) in 2011 as a partner and took charge of the accelerator in 2014, is stepping down. On Saturday, YC announced that Altman would be stepping down as president to focus on his work at OpenAI. They will not look for a replacement for him, writes Techcrunch: YC is managed by partners, between whom its responsibilities will be redistributed. Altman himself will also continue to work at YC as a partner, but will not be in operational management.

Altman is an investor, programmer and blogger, in 2014 he became the second president of YC in history, replacing his co-founder Paul Graham in this post .

The current value of companies in the YC portfolio is about $150 billion. Over 4,000 people and 1,900 companies have passed through the accelerator.

Moving. In the same message , YC said that the accelerator, a longtime resident of Silicon Valley, has decided to move to San Francisco. YC is far from the first investor to decide to move. Investors one by one leave the valley after startups.

Context. Y Combinator has been active in the valley since its founding in 2005. In the first four years, accelerator programs were also available in Cambridge and Massachusetts, and since 2009 have remained only in Mountain View. In 2013, against the backdrop of an increasing outflow of partners and companies from the YC portfolio in San Francisco, the accelerator opened its small branch there.

Other investors are gradually leaving the valley as well, a trend that began back in 2012, when heavyweight Benchmark opened its office in San Francisco (he invested in Uber and Twitter). Kleiner Perkins have since moved there. Shasta Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Accel, GV, General Catalyst and many more. In 2018, the 500 Startups venture capital fund also decided to move to the city.
The main reasons for the flight are huge living expenses, as well as difficulties in finding staff due to high competition from giants like Facebook and Google. The number of those wishing to leave the valley has increased from 34% to 46% in the last two years alone, pointed out in its August poll. The Economist

Liana Faizova

Y Combinator&#39;s president is leaving. And the accelerator itself is leaving Silicon Valley

Y Combinator's president is leaving. And the accelerator itself is leaving Silicon Valley