The news
Y Combinator has added Vivian Midha Shen and Raphael Schaad as general partners, YC president and chief executive Garry Tan announced on October 1, 2026. Y Combinator general partners work with startups from their first weeks in a batch through their later growth, according to the announcement.
Both are former YC founders who had already spent a year inside the accelerator. YC named them visiting partners, experienced founders who step away from their own companies to advise a batch alongside the general partners, in a blog post dated October 14, 2025.
Shen co-founded Juni Learning, an online academy teaching children coding and math, which went through YC in the Winter 2018 batch. She later founded Acely, an AI tutor for college readiness. YC said the businesses she built have generated more than $50 million in revenue and reached millions of users, and that Acely grew from zero to a $10 million run rate with a small team. She previously worked as a software engineer at Google, a consultant at McKinsey and director of product at Operator, and studied computer science and creative writing at Stanford.
Schaad founded Cron, a calendar app that went through YC in Winter 2020 and was acquired by Notion in 2022. At Notion he grew Notion Calendar to millions of users and served as head of design for growth and new products, according to YC. He earlier worked at Flipboard and on iA Writer, a Markdown text editor, and holds a computer science degree from Bern University of Applied Sciences and a master's in media arts and sciences from MIT.
In the announcement, Tan said the two "combine deep technical experience with strong product judgment." YC did not say which sectors or batches each will focus on.
The numbers
- Announced
- October 1, 2026
- Named visiting partners
- October 14, 2025
- Revenue from Shen's businesses
- More than $50 million (per YC)
- Acely run rate
- $10 million (per YC)
- Cron acquired by Notion
- 2022
Why CEOs should care
For founders considering YC, the people in the room matter. General partners help select companies and advise them through the batch, so their backgrounds shape which pitches resonate. Both new partners built consumer-facing products, in education and productivity software, and YC stressed their product judgment. Founders of AI applications aimed at learners, knowledge workers or everyday productivity may find especially experienced listeners.
For corporate development leaders and investors who source deals from YC Demo Day, the appointments are a signal about the kind of company YC will keep backing: small teams using AI to grow revenue quickly. YC highlighted that Acely reached a $10 million run rate with a small team, the kind of efficiency metric YC partners point founders toward. Buyers scouting for acquisitions can expect more startups pitching revenue per employee alongside growth.
For executives at larger companies, Schaad's path is also a reminder of how YC startups end up inside incumbents. Cron's acquisition by Notion and its relaunch as Notion Calendar shows a common exit route: a well-designed point product bought to fill a gap in a bigger platform.
The bigger picture
YC is the most closely watched startup accelerator, and its partner bench influences where early-stage capital flows. Promoting visiting partners who are recent operators, rather than hiring career investors, keeps the partnership filled with founders who have built and sold companies in the current AI cycle.
The move also shows YC using the visiting partner role as a trial period. Both Shen and Schaad advised batches for about a year before being named general partners.
What’s next
Shen and Schaad will begin working with companies in upcoming batches. Founders applying to YC can expect to see them in interviews and office hours, and their early investments will show which sectors they back.
What “Fact-checked” means
Fact-checking means testing a story’s facts against the evidence before it is published. This story went through at least two separate checks before this version was published.
- What we checked
- Its names, figures, dates, job titles, quotes and who said what were checked against the story’s sources, including its main source where it could be opened. The headline was checked for accuracy and overstatement.
- How
- A first check reviewed the whole story. If it passed, a second, skeptical check went back to the sources to look for mistakes in the most important facts. If a check flagged the story, it was edited to fix the problems found, and a separate re-check then reviewed the whole story again.
- Who
- The checks are made by our newsroom, as steps kept separate from the writing, under rules set by our editor, Hussein Mukhtar. A story the checks still flag is held for the editor, who decides whether it is fixed, published or dropped.
- If something is wrong
- “Fact-checked” does not mean error-free. If a material error is found after publication, we correct the story and add a note saying what changed. Report an error
