Request for Startups</a>.</p><p>The RFS is a YC tradition — you can find examples going back as far as 2009. Each one offers up ideas we’d want to see made real, in spaces that we believe will be important in the coming decades. The world is full of founders with expertise that could be tapped into something new and great; our hope is that this list inspires some of those people to do so — or if they’re already building, to apply to YC.</p><p><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/">This new RFS</a> lists 20 categories, each suggested and explained by at least one YC Group Partner:</strong></p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#applying-machine-learning-to-robotics\">Applying machine learning to robotics</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#using-machine-learning-to-simulate-the-physical-world\">Using machine learning to simulate the physical world</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#new-defense-technology\">New defense technology</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#bring-manufacturing-back-to-america\">Bring manufacturing back to America</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#new-space-companies\">New space companies</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#climate-tech\">Climate tech</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#commercial-open-source-companies\">Commercial open source companies</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#spatial-computing\">Spatial computing</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#new-enterprise-resource-planning-software\">New enterprise resource planning software (ERPs)</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#developer-tools-inspired-by-existing-internal-tools\">Developer tools inspired by existing internal tools</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#explainable-ai\">Explainable AI</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#llms-for-manual-back-office-processes-in-legacy-enterprises\">LLMs for manual back office processes in legacy enterprises</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#ai-to-build-enterprise-software\">AI to build enterprise software</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#stablecoin-finance\">Stablecoin finance</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#a-way-to-end-cancer\">A way to end cancer</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#foundation-models-for-biological-systems\">Foundation models for biological systems</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#the-managed-service-organization-model-for-healthcare\">The managed service organization model for healthcare</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#eliminating-middlemen-in-healthcare\">Eliminating middlemen in healthcare</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#better-enterprise-glue\">Better enterprise glue</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#small-finetuned-models-as-an-alternative-to-giant-generic-ones\">Small fine-tuned models as an alternative to giant generic ones</a></li></ul><p>These are by no means the only ideas we’ll accept — many of the best ideas are the ones we would never expect — but if you aren't sure what you want to work on, these RFSs should provide a useful jumping off point to begin your ideation process. </p><p>Applications for the YC Summer 2024 batch are open now and the early deadline to apply for the batch is February 21. Apply <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/apply//">here.

","comment_id":"65cbd413377b9c0001ddf10e","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/02/RFS-top.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-02-13T12:41:55.000-08:00","updated_at":"2024-02-15T13:41:05.000-08:00","published_at":"2024-02-14T05:55:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"These are some of the things we want to see more founders working on.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71085","name":"Dalton Caldwell","slug":"dalton-caldwell","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Dalton.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Dalton is Managing Director, Architect and Group Partner at YC. 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","feature_image_caption":null},"mentions":[],"related_posts":[{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71647","uuid":"a0db1bd9-0fdb-4515-b550-47469a5e1635","title":"New RFS: One Million Jobs","slug":"new-rfs-one-million-jobs","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><div class=\"posthaven-post-body\">\n<p>We want to fund companies that have the potential to create a million jobs.  There are a<br />\nlot of areas where it makes sense to divide labor between humans and<br />\ncomputers—we are very good at some things computers are terrible at and vice versa—and<br />\nsome of these require huge amounts of human resources.</p>\n<p>This is both good for the world and likely a good business<br />\nstrategy—as existing jobs go away, a company that creates a lot of new jobs should be able to get a lot of talented people.</p>\n<p>(We aren&#8217;t looking for companies that plan to have a million employees.  Probably the easiest way to do this is to create a platform that lets a million people create their own jobs.  Uber may do this, for example.  Healthcare or education platforms that let people provide services are other examples of what might work.)</p>\n<p>View other <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs//">Requests for Startups</a>.</p>\n</div>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"709977","feature_image":null,"featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2014-07-02T10:11:28.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-12-05T12:03:58.000-08:00","published_at":"2014-07-02T10:11:28.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"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/"}],"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":"638a7d499132af0001d1aee9","name":"rfs","slug":"rfs","description":"Request for Startups","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/rfs/"}],"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. 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Read the RFS <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://carbon.ycombinator.com//">here.

/n

Climate change is one of the biggest problems we face as humans and we want YC to be part of driving these solutions. <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-report-half-degree.html/">Research indicates that stopping climate change requires both emission reduction and removing CO2 from the atmosphere.</p>\n<p>While we&#8217;ve funded a lot of great companies working on renewal energy like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.thinkbright.mx//">Bright, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://buypower.ng//">Buypower, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.advanotech.com//">Advano, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.helionenergy.com//">Helion and will continue to do so, we&#8217;ve identified four frontier technologies to remove CO2 that we think deserve more research and attention. We worked with scientists on preliminary research into each category. These ideas press on the limit of what&#8217;s possible, and we&#8217;re not sure which side of that line they&#8217;re on. We know there are a lot of ideas out there, and want to take an expansive approach.</p>\n<p>We have conviction that it&#8217;s a worthwhile endeavor to remove CO2 from the air and transform it into something else useful or figure out how to store it safely, long-term. They may seem like moonshots now, but our goal is to try to come up with technically feasible solutions at realistic costs. It&#8217;s time to take big swings at stopping climate change and put more resources into work already being done.</p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1103201","feature_image":"https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611273426858-450d8e3c9fce?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGNhcmJvbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzAyNzI3NjU&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2018-10-23T03:16:16.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-12-05T12:39:42.000-08:00","published_at":"2018-10-23T03:16:16.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"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. 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