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Abhimanyu Ghoshal
Managing EditorAbhimanyu is TNW's Managing Editor, and is all about personal devices, Asia's tech ecosystem, as well as the intersection of technology and Abhimanyu is TNW's Managing Editor, and is all about personal devices, Asia's tech ecosystem, as well as the intersection of technology and culture. Hit him up on Twitter, or write in: [email protected].
After having incubated the likes of Dropbox, Reddit and Airbnb over the past decade, startup seed accelerator Y Combinator is launching a research lab to fund and enable moonshot projects that focus on fundamental technologies that will be freely available to everyone.
YC Research will work with small groups on “open-ended questions.” YC president Sam Altman said, “At the risk of sounding cliché, this is for the benefit of the world.
Altman is kicking off the program with a personal donation of $10 million. The first research group will be announced in the next couple of months, and the lab will raise funds for specific groups. Researchers will be full-time employees and will receive salaries as well as equity in Y Combinator.
Altman says that YC is in this for the long haul: “If some of these projects take 25 years, that’s perfectly fine with us,” he notes.
➤ YC Research [Y Combinator Posthaven]
Image credit: “Paul Graham talking about Prototype Day at Y Combinator Summer 2009” by Kevin Hale
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