YC founders who only want Sequoia: Instinct raises $1B at a $10B valuation

By AI Secret (Magna Ding) · 16 Oct 2026.

AI Secret's Friday Deep Dive opens with an observation about the culture among Y Combinator founders: some clearly have a preference. Tim Wijaya, who heads growth at a YC-backed startup, wrote in a post: "I've met YC founders who told me they'll give up if they can't raise from Sequoia or a16z." According to the newsletter, the post has racked up more than 158,000 views.

The email contrasts that obsession with Sequoia's recent activity. A week before Wijaya posted, Sequoia Capital joined Benchmark and Coatue in a $1 billion round for Instinct, a personal AI agent. According to the newsletter, Instinct is built by a 14-person team led by a 23-year-old, and the round valued it at $10 billion.

The newsletter closes on an ironic note: Sequoia, the "dream date" of YC founders, ended up investing in a company that, according to the text, doesn't even have an app.

A note on scope: the body of the email received contains only this opening; the rest of the article is behind a paywall ("Upgrade to continue reading"), so it is not possible to summarize further details without making them up.

The email also lists other AI Secret content: "CoreWeave's Lenders Want Out" (with mentions of Linux no longer asking about the bot and of states treating OpenAI like Facebook), "A Tool Claims to End All Software" (with mentions of Anthropic blaming OpenAI for the apocalypse and of Musk wanting the user's credit card) and "Character.ai Is Bankrupt", which, according to the headline, did not make it to its fifth birthday. Only the headlines are known, with no further detail.