ClaimsSam Altman

“As of January 1, 2017, YC has funded over 3,200 founders and 1,470 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

As of January 1, 2017, Y Combinator had funded over 3,200 founders and 1,470 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?

The second judge said mostly true; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

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

What would count as true or false

True: YC's official figures (e.g. its website, blog or annual letter) as of 1 January 2017 show more than 3,200 founders and about 1,470 companies funded. Since the companies figure is stated without 'over' at that precision, counts within about 1% of 1,470 qualify. Mostly true: one figure is slightly off, e.g. the founder count is just under 3,200 or the company count is within about 3%. Mixed: one figure is accurate and the other is clearly off. Mostly false: both are notably off but of the right order (within about 15%). False: the figures differ substantially from YC's records.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (1)

  1. E1 Y Combinator says its companies are on target for $100B total valuation Fast Company · 16 February 2017

    “As of January, Y Combinator has invested in 1,470 companies led by 3,200 founders.”

Reasoning

Fast Company (E1, February 2017) reports that "as of January, Y Combinator has invested in 1,470 companies led by 3,200 founders." That matches the claim's company count exactly and its founder count of about 3,200. The report appears to pass on YC's own figures, but it is a dated independent account for the right period, and nothing in the evidence contradicts it.

Cite this claim

Sam Altman, “As of January 1, 2017, Y Combinator had funded over 3,200 founders and 1,470 companies.” (said 1 January 2017). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_cf610019f3f8, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_cf610019f3f8

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.