30 Facts About Garry Tan

Garry Tan is an American venture capitalist and executive who is the CEO of Y Combinator and a founder of Initialized Capital.

Garry Tan was an early employee at Palantir Technologies, and previously a partner at Y Combinator.

Garry Tan was born in 1981 to a Chinese Singaporean father and a Burmese-Chinese mother in Winnipeg, Canada.

Garry Tan's father worked in a machine shop as a foreman, and his mother was a nursing assistant.

The family settled in Fremont, California in 1991, and Garry Tan graduated from American High School.

Garry Tan started programming at 14 and found his first job by cold-calling the Yellow Pages.

Garry Tan attended Stanford University from 1999 to 2003, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in Computer Systems Engineering.

Garry Tan worked at Microsoft and then became the 10th employee at Palantir Technologies.

In 2008, Garry Tan co-founded Posterous, a blogging platform, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012 for $20 million.

Garry Tan joined Y Combinator in 2011 as a designer in residence and partner.

At Y Combinator, Garry Tan helped compile a directory of "the best and the brightest interaction designers and visual designers" and wrote Coinbase's first seed round check in 2012.

Garry Tan was a founder of Initialized Capital, a venture capital fund.

In 2012, Garry Tan raised $7 million for Initialized Capital's first funding round.

Garry Tan has been actively involved and influential in San Francisco politics, both by directing attention to various topics via his social media presence and through donations.

Examples of causes espoused by Garry Tan include increased funding for police, and opposition to regulation of self-driving cars, changes to education, decelerationism, Apple's monopoly on apps, and censorship by YouTube.

Garry Tan has especially focused on increased housing development in San Francisco.

Garry Tan has donated to YIMBY groups such as the San Francisco Bay Area Renters' Federation, YIMBY Action, and YIMBY Law.

In 2020, Garry Tan said in an interview that he followed San Francisco housing news, and supported housing of all kinds, including market-rate housing, affordable housing, and homeless shelters.

Garry Tan is a board member of GrowSF, a San Francisco pro-growth political group, donating at least $54,500 to the organization He promoted and raised funds for the recall of members of the San Francisco School Board.

Garry Tan himself donated $20,000 to the campaign, and fundraised from friends like Cyan Banister.

Garry Tan promoted the recall and raised money from his Twitter following.

Garry Tan supported the 2022 recall campaign against progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

Garry Tan alleged that Boudin failed to hold violent criminal offenders accountable and failed to protect the general public, particularly the least advantaged.

Garry Tan has encouraged tech leaders to participate in San Francisco local politics in 2023.

Garry Tan is vocally critical towards what he describes as legacy media, specifically newspapers.

Garry Tan has described The New York Times as upholding "Woke Capital".

Garry Tan called Y Combinator a "prototype model" of Balaji Srinivasan's Network State concept, which proposes creating new countries that start as digital communities and grow into sovereign entities by amassing members, wealth, and physical land.

Garry Tan has publicly expressed support for Israel's actions in the Israel-Hamas War.

Garry Tan led a boycott of the 2023 Web Summit in protest of Web Summit co-founder Paddy Cosgrave's statements, which described some of Israel's actions as war crimes.

In 2024, Garry Tan posted a tweet wishing death on seven of the 11 members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.