The State of Startups in 2026
YC partners Garry Tan, Jared Friedman, and Diana Hu break down how hard tech and agentic AI are reshaping startups in 2026, with median batch revenue more than doubling.
The gist
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Hard tech now makes up 20% of YC batches, with robotics, defense, and semiconductors each growing several times over from just a few years ago.
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Median startups now hit $20K monthly revenue by batch end, up from $8K, with some hitting $1M in just 3 months by automating entire job functions.
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Agentic coding tools let solo founders run full development workflows alone, shifting the key skill from technical ability to product taste.
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Experienced founders in their late 30s to 50s are outperforming younger cohorts, partly because managing AI agents draws on the same skills as managing people.
Garry Tan uses it
"Just start prompting. Opening up GPT-6 today was pretty wild. Just that moment where your agents are, you know, palpably smarter. A bunch of things that you've been annoyed about, like these bugs that you haven't had time to deep dive yourself — you just say, 'Could you just g..."
▶ Play at 35:06159 creators recommend it, including John Coogan, Riley Brown, and Peter Yang.
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"Just start prompting. Opening up GPT-6 today was pretty wild. Just that moment where your agents are, you know, palpably smarter. A bunch of things that you've been annoyed abou..."
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