TAN
Garry

• 1. Career

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

He previously co-founded Posterous and Posthaven.

He was an early employee at Palantir Technologies, and previously a partner at Y Combinator. Tan is also known for his engagement in San Francisco politics, both as a commenter on social media and as a political donor.

Career

Tan worked at Microsoft and then became the 10th employee at Palantir Technologies. In 2008, Tan co-founded Posterous, a blogging platform, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012 for $20 million. He co-founded Posthaven after the shutdown of Posterous. He joined Y Combinator in 2011 as a designer in residence and partner. At Y Combinator, 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. While at Y Combinator, Tan and fellow Y Combinator partners raised $7 million in venture capital funding to support Y Combinator alumni companies, including Instacart and Coinbase.

Tan was a founder of Initialized Capital, a venture capital fund. In 2012, Tan raised $7 million for Initialized Capital’s first funding round. In 2013, Tan, Harjeet Taggar, and Alexis Ohanian raised $39 million for Initialized Capital. In 2016, Initialized Capital raised a $115 million third fund. The latest fund was closed in December 2021 for $700 million. Through Initialized, Tan led investments in Instacart, Coinbase, and Flexport.

Tan has been listed on the Forbes Midas List from 2018–2022.

In August 2022, Y Combinator announced that Tan would become president of the company in January 2023, replacing Geoff Ralston.