Michael Seibel announcement Late Wednesday on X, that after more than 12 years at the famous Accelerator Y Combinator, he passed to an “emeritus partner” role.
The CEO of Y Combinator, Garry Tan, shared the news separately in a company bloghighlighting the long history of Seibel with the outfit. Seibel first joined YC as a founder, browsing the program twice – once with the streaming startup Justin.tv and later with the SocialCam streaming application. Seibel was then a group partner, managing director and CEO of the YC accelerator.
In particular, Seibel had already returned to the role of a less operational group partner recently. In a blog article YC last year, he wrote that he was ready to “put my leadership responsibilities”, the transition becoming “effective” after the accelerator winter lot completed the program.
A dozen years is a long term for anyone, but the departure of Seibel may have been launched in 2022, when Tan was appointed president and chief executive. The move would have surprised some YC employees – partly because Tan directed a separated Venture capital fund at the time outside of YC, but also because they thought that Seibel was the next online for the role.
We contacted Seibel to comment. In the meantime, he has shared his X post that after taking next summer to relax, he was impatient to “help the government to better serve its citizens”. He added: “The government was the passion of my youth, and I am delighted to re -engage.” Seibel signed by thanking the founders of Y Combinator Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston to “change my life”.
The news occurs about two weeks before the set of Spring Founders in YC launched their own service tour; The program will take place from April to June.
