Standard Capital’s $100B Seed Group

TL;DR

We are accepting applications from startups to join our $100B Seed Group.

We are looking for the most impressive founders working on the most ambitious ideas. Traction and revenue are unimportant.

The $100B Seed Group is a distinct offering from the Standard Series A, which caters to post-PMF startups.

Key details

  • Applications are due by May 28th at 9pm PT.
  • Any startup from YC P26, W26, F25, or S25 is eligible to apply.
  • Standard Capital will make a decision after a single meeting.
  • The first cohort is limited to 10 companies.
  • Interested startups should apply via our shortform “$100B Seed Group” application, which is different from our Series A application.
  • Selected startups receive:
    • An invitation to an in-person group office-hour session with Paul, Dalton, and other selected companies
    • A $200K uncapped SAFE with MFN and pro-rata rights
    • Featured placement on StandardDB

More context on what this is

During his time as a YC partner, Paul Buchheit would offer something he called “$100B office hours” to current-batch companies. This was a structured conversation with Paul to help founders recognize just how large and important their startups could one day be.

For context, Paul was employee #23 at Google, the creator of Gmail, and a cofounder of FriendFeed (with Bret Taylor), which Facebook acquired before its IPO. He invested in YC startups from the second batch to the present day, notably selecting DoorDash at YC interviews and investing in OpenAI long before it was called OpenAI (at the time, a non-profit called SummerSafe). Seeing those companies from the beginning gives Paul a unique perspective on what an early-stage founder should think about to build something very large.

What it takes to reach $100B

Fewer than 0.1% of startups will ever be worth more than $100B, but those that do will have an outsized impact, so it’s worth understanding which companies have the potential and what it takes to get there.

Examining the history of these massively successful companies, it becomes clear that there are two ingredients necessary to reach $100B.

First, they must be building in a rapidly growing market of unlimited size. For example, Microsoft, Apple, Intel and AMD all emerged as part of the exponentially growing microcomputer market. These companies started when microcomputers were still relatively new and obscure. Micro-soft’s first product, Altair BASIC, was incredibly niche — MITS only ever sold about 25,000 Altairs, but that was the start of what is now a $3T company.

Likewise, Amazon, Google, and Facebook all became $T companies by growing with the Internet. Stripe ($160B) makes this dynamic explicit in its mission statement: “Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet”.

Why now? $100B opportunities only exist for a limited time. If a company could have been started 20 years earlier, then it’s unlikely to have $100B potential. Important new technologies create massive new opportunities, but those windows of opportunity don’t last forever. For example, it was not possible to start Uber or DoorDash five years earlier because mobile platforms such as the iPhone did not yet exist, and it wasn’t possible to create them five years later because the opportunity had already been captured.

Large but slow growing markets rarely produce $100B companies. For example, startups selling to dentists or auto mechanics are not good candidates to reach $100B. A simple test is to ask if demand will increase 10x or 100x in the next ten years. Startups thrive when capturing a slice of a rapidly growing pie, not fighting zero-sum games against incumbents.

The second ingredient is defensibility, a durable control point in the market. If your company is making billions of dollars, that will attract a lot of interest from potential competitors.

This defensibility is typically provided by one or more of the following dynamics:

  • Marketplaces like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Uber aggregate supply and demand.
  • Platforms like Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Salesforce, and OpenAI provide a foundation for large ecosystems to grow.
  • Foundational infrastructure companies like TSMC, AWS, Stripe, and Arm become hard-to-replace dependencies.
  • Workflow systems like ServiceNow, Intuit, SAP, Oracle, and Workday become the default systems of record and action.
  • Deep tech companies like ASML, Tesla, and SpaceX require extraordinary technical, manufacturing, operational, regulatory, and capital execution to reproduce.

Competing head-on with these companies is nearly impossible. They effectively “own” their slice of a large and rapidly growing market, which earns them high revenue multiples, lower cost of capital, and the ability to acquire smaller companies and hire top talent.

Probably fewer than 1% of startups have the potential to reach $100B, and of those, fewer than 10% will ever realize that potential. However, it is our belief that we can improve those odds by building a community of the most impressive founders working on the most ambitious ideas. We are creating the “$100B Seed Group” to bring together these early founders in our group office-hours format, to periodically meet, review, revise and strategize their Path to $100B. Apply now if you would like to be a part of the program. The first cohort will be limited to 10 companies.

FAQ

What is the $100B Seed Group?

$100B Seed Group is the first application cycle for founders who want to work with Paul Buchheit and Standard Capital to explore how large and important their startups could become.

Who is eligible to apply?

Any startup from YC P26, W26, F25, or S25 is eligible to apply.

What do selected startups receive?

Selected startups receive a $200K investment via an uncapped SAFE with MFN and pro-rata rights, an invitation to an in-person group office-hour session with Paul, Dalton, and other selected companies during the summer, and featured placement on StandardDB.

Is this the same as the Series A application?

No. Interested startups should apply via the shortform “$100B Seed Group” application, which is different from Standard Capital’s Series A application.

How will Standard Capital make decisions?

Standard Capital will make a decision after a single meeting.

Will there be future groups?

$100B Seed Group is the first group; more groups may follow.