Welcome x 11

by Sam Altman3/11/2016

We have a lot of new additions to the
team to announce.

Tim Brady is joining YC as a
Partner.  Previously, he was a Partner at ImagineK12.  Tim was Yahoo’s
first employee and spent 8 years as the company’s Chief Product Officer. 
Tim was also the CEO of QuestBridge, an educational startup that helps bright
low-income high school students gain admissions and aid to many of the nation’s
best colleges.  Tim has an MBA from Harvard and a BS in electrical
engineering from Stanford.

Chris Clark is joining YC Research as head of operations.  Chris previously ran operations at Loopt, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2005 and acquired by Green Dot in 2012.  More recently, he was Mayor of Mountain View and still serves on the city council.  Chris has a BA in Political Science from Stanford University.

Bill Clerico is joining YC as a
Part-time Partner.  Bill is the co-founder and CEO of WePay (YC S09), a
payment company for two-sided marketplaces and software platforms that helps
them manage risk.  Previously, Bill was a technology investment banker and
studied CS at Boston College.

Cadran Cowansage is joining the YC
software team.  Cadran most recently worked for MongoDB, Inc. in
NYC.  She has a Master’s in Biomedical Informatics
and previously worked in several industries,
including healthcare, intermodal transportation and finance. 

Jason Kwon is joining YC as a
lawyer.  Before joining Y Combinator, Jason was the Assistant General
Counsel at Khosla Ventures, and prior to that, an attorney at Goodwin
Procter.  In his past life he was also a coder and product manager at
several startups.

Karen Lien is joining YC as Edtech
Principal.  Karen was previously at Imagine K12,
which she joined in 2011 to help launch its first cohort of edtech startups.
Before Imagine K12, Karen was the Director of College Relations at QuestBridge.  Prior to QuestBridge, she briefly
taught high school chemistry, getting a first-hand taste of the challenges and
rewards of working as an educator.  Karen has a B.S. in astronomy and
physics from Yale University and an M.S. in astronomy from UCLA.

Brad Lightcap is joining YC
Continuity.  Brad brings experience in both finance and operations. 
He joined Dropbox in 2013 where he worked on projects ranging from
product/partnership analytics to corporate finance and M&A.  Prior to
Dropbox, Brad was an analyst with J.P. Morgan’s Healthcare Investment Banking
group in New York.

Sharon Pope is joining YC as a
Part-time Partner.  Sharon is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at
Green Dot Corporation (a pro-consumer financial technology innovator),
where she has worked to conceptualize and launch products for
Americans who seek alternatives to big banks. Prior to Green Dot, Sharon
was the head of marketing and communications at Loopt (acquired by Green Dot,
2012).

Tom Sparks is joining the YC software
team.  He is a systems and network engineer with over 20 years of
experience in the field. He’s worked for Microsoft, realtor.com,
some of the Fortune 100, an early groundbreaking music startup and was one of
the founders of one of San Francisco’s largest ISPs. He cofounded Cryptoseal
(YCS11), which was later acquired by Cloudflare.

Finbarr Taylor is also joining the YC
software team.  Finbarr previously co-founded Shogun and worked for
Pebble, Exec and Groupon. Before that, he studied CS at Strathclyde University
in Scotland. 

Catherine Uong is joining YC as an
Associate.  Catherine was previously at
ImagineK12, and is passionate about learning and the power of creativity to
help unlock students’ potential.  Catherine has a B.S. in Business
Administration and a B.A. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from University
of Southern California. 

Welcome, everyone!

Author

  • Sam Altman

    Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI. He was the president of YC from 2014-2019. He studied computer science at Stanford, and while there, worked in the AI lab.