ClaimsSam Altman

“In 2016, we funded 68 female founders at 52 companies.”

Sam Altman, President of YC Group, in YC annual letter 1 January 2017 2017 YC Annual Letter (Sam Altman's blog) archived copy

Factual Their own work or organisation

In 2016, YC funded 68 female founders at 52 companies.

Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

Judged as of early 2017, on YC's records for its 2016 batches. True: YC's published figures (for example its diversity or annual statistics post) show that it funded 68 female founders across 52 companies in 2016. Mostly true: one of the two numbers differs by a small amount (no more than about 5%), or the figures cover a slightly different scope (for example core batches only) while the substance holds. Mixed: one number matches and the other is clearly off. Mostly false: both numbers are wrong by more than about 5% but are in the same rough range. False: YC's records show substantially different figures.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (1)

  1. E1 Y Combinator's quest for diversity | TechCrunch TechCrunch · 20 March 2017

    “Last year, YC funded 68 female founders at 52 companies and 52 black and Latinx founders at 29 companies.”

Reasoning

E1 is a TechCrunch article from March 2017 on YC's diversity efforts. It states that "last year" (2016) YC funded 68 female founders at 52 companies, which matches both numbers in the claim exactly. The article reports these figures as fact [E1], and no evidence gives different figures.

Cite this claim

Sam Altman, “In 2016, YC funded 68 female founders at 52 companies.” (said 1 January 2017). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_802e38908210, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_802e38908210

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Sam Altman, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

More factual claims by Sam Altman

  1. Mostly true Factual 4 September 2026
    “The very end of 2015, we announced it, and then the first day of work was like January of 2016.”

    Altman said OpenAI was announced at the very end of 2015 and that its first day of work was around January 2016.

  2. Resolved true Factual 4 September 2026
    “I was always an AI nerd. I was a real sci-fi nerd as a kid.”

    Sam Altman was a sci-fi and AI enthusiast as a child.

  3. Mostly true Factual 11 September 2025
    “he later decided that we weren’t on a trajectory to be successful and he didn’t want to.”

    Elon Musk later decided OpenAI was not on a trajectory to succeed, told its founders it had a zero percent chance of success, and stopped participating.

  4. Resolved true Factual 11 September 2025
    “He helped us start OpenAI.”

    Elon Musk helped start OpenAI.

  5. Resolved true Factual 14 August 2025
    “When we started, it was four and a half years before we had our first product and it was very uncertain.”

    When OpenAI started, it took four and a half years before it had its first product.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.