YC Partner Harj Taggar's $500M mistake: A legendary startup advisor shares his lessons

Today, I’m excited to sit down with Harj Taggar, Group Partner at Y Combinator and an old friend that gave me my first job as designer-in-residence with him at YC. We talk about Y Combinator, Startups, and his $500 million mistake saying no to Facebook.
Watch my $200M mistake: • My $200 million startu...
Harj Taggar on Twitter: harjtaggar?lang=en
00:00 Harj's $500M mistake
4:34 What founders can learn from 9-digit mistakes
5:49 How to tell the difference between a Theranos and a Facebook
8:21 How Harj became a great investor
9:58 Startup quality is up a lot
13:47 How an open web form changed how startups are funded
16:12 First time founders need a community to win
19:21 One year of working with a YC batch = a lifetime in VC
I’m Garry Tan, venture capitalist and founder at Initialized Capital. We were earliest investors in billion dollar startups like Coinbase and Instacart, and I’m a Forbes Midas List Top 100 venture capitalist in the world. We want these videos to be about helping people build world-class teams and startups that touch a billion people. Our startups have gone on to create more than $200 billion in market value so far, and Initialized has over $3.2B in assets under management.
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[@akshataskitchendotcom]

Congratulations Garry for being nominated as CEO at YC💐🎉

[@davidkuo5702]

love how this video is made among 2 amazing people exchanging idea and sharing that matters to the growth of company!

[@founderkatelyn]

yayyy y’all were an instrumental part of us and yc summer 2012. i remember that heroku steak dinner btw :)

[@opshit5539]

Love this

[@alxcnwy]

Love these vids, thanks Garry! Harj is great - he was one of my fave partners in our YC batch (W22).

[@chan90s]

Applied to YC for product engineer role -Garry, your advice in the comments on building vs investing few months ago had some impact in me taking this leap

[@chrishallnyc]

It was awesome to hear Harj’s perspective over so many years of startups!

[@TalHoffman]

Loving those interviews!
Pure gold

[@iN00bman]

Love this - such high production quality too!!

[@DJ0305]

Love that MAYC shirt!
But more importantly: Great video with so many valuable lessons for folks like me that otherwise wouldn’t really have access to your minds! So huge thanks for that 🙏

[@Malgsx]

Definitely appreciate this interview Garry. Learned a lot just from this chat. Keep it up.

[@UNITEdotLOVE]

Thank you!!

[@saraeissa4954]

Garry sweet video! Will you be at LATech week 😅

[@jaymeonjones9831]

Great talk!

[@saisafetytrends]

Harj has a nice t-shirt, wonder what brand that is. I love it when tech people wear quality clothes!

[@chan90s]

Watching this video for the third time. The same content watched at different stages of your growth is interpreted differently

[@mandrivnyk-evhen]

Thank you for share that advices 👋 and hi from Ukraine

[@MichaelBabich]

Garry, great video! Thank you. Is there a contact to send a startup deck or other way to pitch to a partner from the Initialized Capital?

[@arjungoalset8442]

Garry pulled Namaste 🙏 on Harj.. epic 😂

[@magnamaine]

Hopefully they accept me startup idea I'm all the way from south africa 🇿🇦 , great interview by the way 👍 🙏 🙌 😀

[@letsself-educate6912]

Goodluck, I'm applying next year also from south africa 🇿🇦.

[@johnsmithgumbula4688]

Awesome interview, and inspiring as always!
Sending good vibes from Brisbane, Queensland-Australia.
How can I chat with you and Harj concerning our Global initiative/venture?

[@illapuproductions]

Would love to connect, do you do 15 min intros with startup founders? Based on what we've gone, I think it would be a good fit with you.

[@Danny-qh4su]

Wow!!!!! This is crazy!!!!

[@danielgetman520]

The last topic is something I've been thinking about and I'd love to get your opinion as someone interested in becoming a successful investor like yourself. Which path is more valuable to helping portfolio companies: joining a VC firm after going through an exit as a founder or spending a decade to rise the ranks at a VC firm and see how different startups play out as you've mentioned?

[@GarryTan]

Founder first always

[@leoncastillosm]

Failure is one more tool in a learning process which, with maximum concentration and performance, we can speed up.

[@sreekarshodhan8823]

wowow there is a PHP/MYSQL book in the shelf niceeee

[@Intelligence132]

don't listen to anyone. Just do it --> case closed.

[@LiquidityEagle]

Not a zero sum game 🔥

[@felicialuca6553]

People should be at the center of things, though. The fact that a company can absorb disfunctionality is not more relevant than people's well-being.
There is an enormous amount of companies/managers lacking management expertise (both business and people management expertise). They negatively impact the economic and social space, people's sanity and well-being. Lives and generations are affected. And for what?

[@SrikantShirisha]

I left my job at Rippling and regret a bit. Not 200M but around 30M.

[@GarryTan]

Hope you at least hit the cliff! :-)

[@tateprodigy26]

I actually have this idea, I'm going to sell my Blockchain tech company as a NFT

[@Marouanehimself]

12:50

[@yeeitmete]

10:00

[@goggins_amazing]

East or west, I am first

[@goggins_amazing]

[@GabrielSestrem]

If they sold it to facebook, They would end up selling the majority of the shares before reaching 500M. When you are young you need money. You'll neve leave your equity in a firm in a long term no matter what.

[@humzakhurshid1952]

Early gang

[@vulcs]

Experts were right, Facebook is cringe now

[@rajsuthanofficial7585]

Hey Garry Tan, I am working on a new Tech startup and messaged you in linkedIN, I am trying to reach Initialized Capital, please check your Network (name - Rajsuthan Gopinath)