![](https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2023/10/Pete-Tweet.png/")
Optimizely was acquired</a>, Pete and his team had climbed up to nearly $120M in ARR. </p><p>(Fun fact: Pete is also a<em> literal </em>climber. Check out <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.instagram.com/p/BqJPCM8gg_B//">this picture</a> of him conquering El Capitan.)</p><p>Pete first came back to YC last year as a Visiting Group Partner — a similar role, but one that asks for a commitment on a batch-to-batch basis. As with Pete, a number of Visiting Group Partners have gone on to join YC as full-time Group Partners.</p><p>On that note, <strong>I’m also very happy to welcome two more YC alumni back home as Visiting Group Partners</strong>: Tyler Bosmeny and Nate Smith.</p><p><strong>Tyler </strong>is the co-founder and former CEO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/clever/">Clever (S12), which lets students and teachers access all of their learning software in one place. If you have a kid in K-12 in the U.S., they probably log into Clever all the time — 60% of them do. In 2021, Clever was acquired for half a billion dollars. Besides his uniquely deep expertise in EdTech, Tyler brings a ton of experience in B2B sales (he was already leading a YC/Stanford class about sales and marketing <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHAh6WKBgiE&t=7s\%22>eight years ago</em></a><em>.)</em></p><p><strong>Nate </strong>is the co-founder and former CEO/CTO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/lever/">Lever (S12), an all-in-one system that helps companies like Netflix and KPMG (and 5000+ others) handle everything in the talent recruiting process. Lever was acquired by Employ Inc. last year. Before starting Lever, Nate was a Product Manager on Google Search and Google Analytics, and he authored the JavaScript application framework <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://github.com/derbyjs/derby/">DerbyJS. Nate and his husband live in San Francisco with their two bernedoodles, Walnut and Brownie.</p><p>Even before today’s news, YC had more Group Partners than at any point in its history. Every addition brings more experience, more insight, and more personalized attention for each and every YC founder.<em> </em>As an increasing number of YC founders hit their grand slams, more of them are coming home to help the next generation of founders at bat and we <em>love it</em>.</p><p>Yet we’re very deliberate in who we bring on, and we’re just as deliberate in why we call them “Partners”. They’re not just partners at YC; they’re partners<em> with their YC companies</em>.<em> </em>Each of us thinks and acts like long-term owners in these companies, because <strong>that’s the right way to do this</strong>. Any insight, any experience, any strengths we can bring to help these teams succeed, we will. Anyone in startup land can offer you “mentorship”; this is so much more.</p><p>Welcome, Tyler and Nate — and congrats, Pete!</p>","comment_id":"651deaddb7f98e0001a1d5d5","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/10/Nate-Pete-Tyler.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-10-04T15:44:45.000-07:00","updated_at":"2023-10-06T09:10:46.000-07:00","published_at":"2023-10-06T08:58:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"I'm thrilled to welcome YC's newest Group Partner and Visiting Group Partners. Welcome, Tyler and Nate — and congrats, Pete!","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"}],"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d2","name":"Garry Tan","slug":"garry","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/03/Instagram-Image-Template--Square---21-.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Garry is the President & CEO of Y Combinator. Previously, he was the co-founder & Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Before that, he co-founded Posterous (YC S08) which was acquired by Twitter.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":"@garrytan","meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/garry/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d2","name":"Garry Tan","slug":"garry","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2023/03/Instagram-Image-Template--Square---21-.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Garry is the President & CEO of Y Combinator. Previously, he was the co-founder & Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Before that, he co-founded Posterous (YC S08) which was acquired by Twitter.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":"@garrytan","meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/garry/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/meet-ycs-newest-group-partner-and-visiting-group-partners/","excerpt":"The command center of YC is growing even stronger. ","reading_time":3,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":"An image of Y Combinator's Nate Smith, Pete Koomen, and Tyler Bosmeny","feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"626b07a754a948000183a4e2","uuid":"ebf26b06-b133-419d-9373-175a5f20af27","title":"Welcome S22 Visiting Group Partners","slug":"welcome-s22-visiting-group-partners","html":"<p>Every batch, we invite founders and executives to advise YC companies as Visiting Group Partners. These advisors bring valuable insights and recent operational experience to YC’s early-stage companies. Throughout the batch, they take on a variety of responsibilities, including application reading, interviews, group office hours, individual office hours, demo day prep, and more.<br></p><p>Welcome to JJ, Liz, Pete, and Puneet. And <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/welcome-surbhi-nicolas-divya-ashu-and-tom/">welcome back</a> to Divya, Ashu, Tom, and Rich who joined us after the W22 Visiting Group Partners were announced.<br></p><p><strong>JJ Fliegelman</strong></p><p>JJ was co-founder and CTO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/wayup/">WayUp (W15), the leading DEI recruiting platform used by millions. WayUp raised $40 million and was named by CNN as one of the 30 most innovative companies changing the world. JJ has been featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30, Silicon Valley 100, and as a speaker and advisor on technology and hiring topics. Prior to WayUp, JJ spent a year as a freelancing backpacker in 16 countries, then joined McKinsey as a consultant in New York. JJ received his BA in International Studies and BS in Economics from Penn and enjoys languages and linguistics, cooking with his flamethrower, fancy coffee, and decidedly unfancy $1 pizza.<br></p><p><strong>Liz Wessel</strong></p><p>Liz was co-founder and CEO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/wayup/">WayUp (W15), the leading Diversity & Inclusion recruitment platform used by 6+ million candidates (71% of whom self-identify as underrepresented) and thousands of employers. WayUp raised $40M, and after 7 years, merged with Yello, another recruitment software platform. Liz has been featured in various publications from Forbes 30 Under 30 to Business Insider’s “18 Coolest Women in Silicon Valley.” Prior to WayUp, Liz was in the APMM program at Google (in San Francisco and India), and before that, Liz attended the University of Pennsylvania where she studied political science, mathematics, and Japanese. With her free time, Liz enjoys hiking with her husband and their cavapoo, volunteering on a weekly basis, traveling, and working with / investing in great founders.<br></p><p><strong>Pete Koomen</strong></p><p>Pete co-founded <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/optimizely/">Optimizely (W10) which helps companies run experiments on their websites and apps. For more than a decade, he helped Optimizely grow from inception to $100M+ in ARR and, ultimately, an acquisition in 2020. Pete holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. An avid rock climber, he lives in Reno with his wife.<br></p><p><strong>Puneet Kumar</strong></p><p>Puneet was the founder and CEO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/supr-daily/">Supr Daily</a> (W17), a consumer grocery startup based out of India that was acquired by Swiggy. Supr created the daily delivery model by reducing the last mile costs by 10x. Before exiting Supr, he scaled the company to $100M in annual revenue run rate. He is a 2x founder, an alumnus of IIT Bombay, and a maker by background. He currently lives in Bangalore with his wife.<br></p><p><strong>Rich Aberman</strong></p><p>Rich co-founded <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/wepay/">WePay (S09), a multi-party payments API for B2B SaaS platforms, POS systems, and online marketplaces. As Chief Product and Strategy Officer, he helped raise $75M in venture capital, grow the company to 300 employees, and achieve profitability before being acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2018. Following the acquisition, Rich was a Managing Director at Chase Payment Solutions until 2021. He holds a degree in economics, political science, and philosophy from Boston College, and lives with his wife and young son in Santa Cruz, California, where he is an avid surfer and golfer.</p>","comment_id":"626b07a754a948000183a4e2","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/05/BlogTwitter-Image-Template.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-04-28T14:31:19.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-05-11T09:14:00.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-05-11T09:14:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Welcome to our newest YC S22 Visiting Group Partners: JJ, Liz, Pete, Puneet, and Rich! We’re excited for them to bring their insights and operational experiences to our next batch of companies.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"}],"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71070","name":"Aaron Epstein","slug":"aaron-epstein","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Aaron-E-2.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Aaron is a Group Partner at YC. He was the co-founder and CEO of Creative Market (YC W10), a marketplace for graphic design assets, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2014.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/aaron-epstein/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71070","name":"Aaron Epstein","slug":"aaron-epstein","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Aaron-E-2.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Aaron is a Group Partner at YC. He was the co-founder and CEO of Creative Market (YC W10), a marketplace for graphic design assets, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2014.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/aaron-epstein/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/welcome-s22-visiting-group-partners/","excerpt":"Every batch, we invite founders and executives to advise YC companies as Visiting Group Partners. These advisors bring valuable insights and recent operational experience to YC’s early-stage companies. Throughout the batch, they take on a variety of responsibilities, including application reading, interviews, group office hours, individual office hours, demo day prep, and more.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/05/BlogTwitter-Image-Template-1.jpg","twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":"First row: JJ Fliegelman and Liz Wessel. Second row: Pete Koomen, Puneet Kumar, and Rich Aberman."},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71604","uuid":"d6368269-bcb2-4bc8-9fdc-e4521f97777b","title":"Two New YC Partners: Justin Kan and Aaron Harris","slug":"two-new-yc-partners-justin-kan-and-aaron-harris","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><div class=\"posthaven-post-body\">\n<p>I’m delighted to announce that Justin Kan and Aaron Harris are joining Y Combinator as Partners.</p>\n<p>Justin was in the very first YC batch with me in the summer of 2005, and has been a part-time partner since 2011. Justin founded Kiko, Justin.tv/Twitch.tv, Socialcam, and Exec. He took the “do what it takes” directive of startups unusually far with Justin.tv, when he wore a webcam on his head and broadcast his entire life for 8 months, 24 hours a day.</p>\n<p>For some time now, Justin has been who we send startups to with questions about growth and marketing. But he knows a ton about nearly every part of startups.</p>\n<p>Aaron was in the YC Winter 2011 batch doing Tutorspree, which moved back to New York after their batch. He’s actually been a partner since October 2013—sometimes it takes us a while to get around to announcing things.</p>\n<p>Aaron will also advise startups on all topics, but he’s especially good with anything related to finance.</p>\n<p>We’re all very happy to have both of them on the team.</p>\n<div></div>\n</div>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"665460","feature_image":null,"featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2014-03-19T09:30:08.000-07:00","updated_at":"2021-10-20T14:12:47.000-07:00","published_at":"2014-03-19T09:30:08.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"}],"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710c1","name":"Sam Altman","slug":"sam-altman","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/eifaoe14zqiueje28oo9.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI. He was the president of YC from 2014-2019. He studied computer science at Stanford, and while there, worked in the AI lab.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/sam-altman/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710c1","name":"Sam Altman","slug":"sam-altman","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/eifaoe14zqiueje28oo9.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI. He was the president of YC from 2014-2019. He studied computer science at Stanford, and while there, worked in the AI lab.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/sam-altman/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/partners/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/two-new-yc-partners-justin-kan-and-aaron-harris/","excerpt":"I’m delighted to announce that Justin Kan and Aaron Harris are joining Y Combinator as Partners.","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null}]},"url":"/blog/david-lieb-group-partner","version":"86a82864a2e98321858efc8147c8b7f9287218a4","encryptHistory":false,"clearHistory":false,"rails_context":{"railsEnv":"production","inMailer":false,"i18nLocale":"en","i18nDefaultLocale":"en","href":"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/david-lieb-group-partner","location":"/blog/david-lieb-group-partner","scheme":"https","host":"www.ycombinator.com","port":null,"pathname":"/blog/david-lieb-group-partner","search":null,"httpAcceptLanguage":"en, *","applyBatchLong":"Spring 2026","applyBatchShort":"X2026","applyDeadlineShort":"February 9","ycdcRetroMode":true,"currentUser":null,"serverSide":true},"id":"ycdc_new/pages/BlogPage-react-component-40b16e28-dc2c-47c9-a268-05841dac606b","server_side":true}" data-reactroot="">After creating Google Photos and Bump, David Lieb is our newest Group Partner
by Garry Tan4/18/2024
Today Google Photos has more than a billion users. Most of those users probably don’t know that Google Photos' story begins at a startup called Bump — part of YC’s Summer 2009 batch.
Bump was a mobile app used by more than 150M people to share photos and contact info by bumping their phones together — something that, at the time, was an absolute game changer. Bump was acquired by Google in 2013, and an unreleased photo sharing app they were building became the foundation of Google Photos.
David Lieb, Bump’s CEO and co-founder, led the product from inception all the way past the billion user mark. And today, after three batches as a Visiting Group Partner at YC, he is our newest full time Group Partner. I’m so proud to welcome him.
Just as mobile unlocked new ideas like Bump, today we’re seeing AI unlock an entirely new wave of consumer companies. Google Photos might be the very first example of this — a mass consumer product built with AI search, face recognition, and editing at its core. Dave is an expert at knowing how to use AI to make something people want. Having him on your side to help navigate this new world is an incredible advantage.
As an advisor, he often reminds me of PG and Jessica, who brought founders back to the basics again and again. He pushes founders to focus on the things that matter. Who are you building this for? Not the imaginary silhouette of a customer — the real people, with names you know, that want this. And when did you last talk to them? As a founder, he admits that he let himself get distracted with big-name investors and app store ranking. Today, he can say with authority that nothing ranks higher than your customers coming back to your product again and again.
When Dave was interviewing for YC back in 2009, PG put his head down in the middle of the interview. He looked up and asked how Bump would be bigger than Google. It was this simple question that honed Dave’s focus and made his ambitions grow. We are so thrilled Dave has come back to YC to also encourage founders to think big.
Hear more about how Dave transformed his app into one of the biggest photo services in the world on The Social Radars.
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Garry Tan
Garry is the President & CEO of Y Combinator. Previously, he was the co-founder & Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Before that, he co-founded Posterous (YC S08) which was acquired by Twitter.