ClaimsSam Altman

“We still see significant dropoffs at the stages after YC (e.g. raising late-stage capital).”

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

YC sees significant dropoffs of underrepresented founders at stages after YC, such as raising late-stage capital.

Own records only Only the person's or their organisation's own records speak to it, so it is not scored.

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.

Reasoning

Only YC's internal observations of its alumni could show this.

Cite this claim

Sam Altman, “YC sees significant dropoffs of underrepresented founders at stages after YC, such as raising late-stage capital.” (said 1 January 2017). Verdict: own records only. Reliability API, claim c_e7f33da15e18, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_e7f33da15e18

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.