Of the partners announced today, a lot of people know Alexis and Dalton, but my guess is that few know Qasar. I worked for him for over two years at Google. He was one of the product leads I respected the most because he was really good at product management and managing people. He'll definitely be missed.
But the truth is that I've always thought of him as a coach. I've grown so much since my time as a fresh new grad and Qasar was a huge part of that. It's crazy to think about how many hours he spent listening to my problems and I'll always be thankful for that (it's funny to think that in retrospect he was just doing office hours).
Of course he's good at what he does, but his genuine helpfulness and energy is what I've always respected and appreciated most about him. And it's that energy that finally gave me the confidence to quit and finally try out all the things I learned from him. The cycle continues...
Agree with this 100%. Qasar is one of the most dedicated and hardworking people I have ever known. I recall first meeting Qasar several years ago. We were introduced by a mutual friend and met at Google. Within a year of that meeting, Qasar put together a team, applied and successfully got into YC, and sold TalkBin to Google.
While at Google Qasar was one if the sharpest Product Managers on the team. I joined his team within a few weeks after the TalkBin acquisition. As the team, product, and scope grew, Qasar focused on building excellent product, never compromising quality. As a result he quickly rose the ranks because of his unique ability to balance product and business objectives. All the while he took great care of the people on his team.
It's truly sad to see him leave Google but he will be an incredible force of nature at YC. His passion and energy has always been on helping startups and founders succeed. He spent a tremendous amount of time mentoring and coaching his team at Google and will bring this same enthusiasm to YC. Above all else, Qasar is the quintessential example of someone that has more grit than anyone I know.
He's a no bullshit kind of person that's always helping getting things done. YC is very fortunate to have him. Even if you are not in his batch, Qasar is someone you want to get to know.
Alexis just told me about these comments. You guys know that I can't impact your careers anymore right! :) Jokes aside, thank you for the kind words. It was an amazing few years.
I'd love to receive some advice on this topic, Qasar, any chance you could forward me your pointers, too? Plenty of specifics I'd like to know, if there's potential for follow-up.
Y Combinator is on a roll. I’m in engineering and worked with Qasar and he was no doubt one of the best product managers at Google. Actually sad to see him go.
We’ve known Qasar since PG first introduced us to him during our YC summer 2011 batch. Qasar had just sold Talkbin to Google.
Though it wasn’t stated outright from the start, I believe we were used as guinea pigs to test Qasar’s potential as a future target for the YC partnership. We must’ve been one of the first such companies, though there were likely other guinea pigs in our batch as well.
Qasar’s sincere, direct, no-BS attitude blew us away from the start, and we came to understand that he genuinely wanted us to succeed. We had strategy sessions on Castro Street in Mountain View, at Qasar’s own house, and even at Google lunch when scheduling was tight.
Having provided seriously powerful insights and introductions that helped get us off the ground back then, Qasar continues to be supportive through all phases to this day - rain or shine.
I’m proud to call Qasar an advisor and couldn’t be more excited to congratulate him on becoming YC partner.
I've recently gone through a YC batch and Qasar was extremely helpful. Even though he was a part-time partner at the time, he was definitely the guy we spent the most time with at YC. I can't even begin to thank him.
Since the first time we spoke with Qasar, my co-founder and I realized how smart and knowledgeable he is. Then we spent the rest of the summer trying to learn as much from him as we could.
He knows everything about the local space, is an operations expert, helped us greatly improve our Demo Day presentation and coached me regarding how to approach our market opportunity among many other things.
I'm glad he's become a full-time partner. This is great news for YC.
Having worked with Qasar for about a year, I only wished he would have met earlier. If you are in bay area and are thinking about products or startups, Qasar is definitely a guy to talk to. He always makes the time to talk about ideas, startups and products.
Among the few things that I learnt from Qasar which has pretty much reshaped my career, few things that have stood out the most is
1. Care about the team the about the product and users.
2. Get things done. No Bullshit, no excuses!
3. Work Ethics. Weekend, Nights..whatever
Its awesome to see his as a partner at YC, his experience in startup and Google will tremendously help YC startup founders!
+1. I worked with Qasar at Google. He's a brilliant product guy and a great manager. Uncanny ability to cut through the political bullshit and get things done. Congrats to Qasar; we will miss him, but he'll do great things for YC.
Met Qasar at Startup School last year. He was happy to talk about my idea and even gave his e-mail for me to follow up. Down to earth guy and super approachable.
Completely agree with you and Shabih. Didn't work with Qasar as long as either of you two but pleasantly surprised by this news, in all the best ways. Awesome! Lucky YC. :)
As someone who recently came through YC (W2014) - I can say that Alexis and Dalton have been two of the most helpful people within the YC community for us at Beacon.
In particular, Dalton is someone that helped us when we got rejected after our first interview, stayed supportive, and always has actionable insight and advice. He's also just a legend.
As to Alexis, I honestly don't understand how he does all the things he does - he's just going at like a million miles a minute. As high profile as he is, I actually think his value is underrated in the YC community.
I wanted to quickly chime in here and second these thoughts. Dalton and Alexis have also been very helpful to 7 Cups of Tea.
Dalton is always super fast to respond to emails. I've gone back and forth with him, asking lots of questions, and really drilling down to make sure I understand what he is suggesting. Without fail, he'll get back to me within a matter of hours and respond in-depth to my questions. I think his background in psychology and experience working with younger populations gives him very insightful perspectives. He is also very honest and supportive.
Alexis is one of the people I most admire. The guy has real integrity. I think he understands what is truly important in life and lives in a manner that holds up these values. They are implicit in how he relates to others. He is also an amazing worker. I remember asking him for a consult on a Saturday morning. I was thinking we'd connect later on that next week. He got right back to me and called me on a Saturday morning. I apologized for bugging him and he said not to worry that if I'm working he is working. Then, to take things a step further, he connected me with Ashley Dawkins (his Outreach Director). She is also awesome, quick to respond, and very helpful. The last point I'll highlight is Alexis is really hopeful. Hope is pretty damn powerful and I think he gets that in manner that few people understand.
Congrats to Alexis! That dude not only created one of the greatest communities on the internet, but also does some amazing things. He's right up there with Elon Musk in my list of inspirational people.
Thanks, killswitch. There's no reddit without Steve Huffman (now hipmunk CTO+cofounder) but I will gladly accept my spot on your list, albeit undeserved, so now I need to earn it!
I come back for every home game I can when NFL is in season...
That and I'm really excited to be a voice for Y Combinator (and startups) in D.C. -- in addition to just being an advocate for the open internet as a citizen.
Do YC partners invest their own money into the batch, or do they just help to allocate a pool of YC money? "Partner" generally means that the person gets a share of the profits but I know the term is now used more loosely than that definition.
Great adds for YC. I've worked for Dalton and can attest that he is one of the best product minds around — a real visionary. Psychology and systems thinking are some of the last uncommodotized tools in this industry and he has them.
Can anyone explain how does YC's business model works? They seem to keep adding several more partners often. I would guess the current toll should be more than 50. Do these partners also invest their own money in YC or no?
Not sure where you got the number 50 from. There's a list of all of the full-time partners on the site[1], adding the ones today for 17, plus another handful of part-time partners (6 or so?).
As far as I know, the partners help choose the startups to fund and advise them. I don't think they invest their own money (except maybe after Demo Day[2]), but choose how to invest YC's money at the start of each batch.
Since HN is a site where one of the things that people learn through transparency is how different business models operate, it would be interesting to know (even roughly) how partners fit into the profits or payout from YC companies that succeed. In other words how profits are allocated.
But the truth is that I've always thought of him as a coach. I've grown so much since my time as a fresh new grad and Qasar was a huge part of that. It's crazy to think about how many hours he spent listening to my problems and I'll always be thankful for that (it's funny to think that in retrospect he was just doing office hours).
Of course he's good at what he does, but his genuine helpfulness and energy is what I've always respected and appreciated most about him. And it's that energy that finally gave me the confidence to quit and finally try out all the things I learned from him. The cycle continues...