Michael Seibel (born October 7, 1982) is a partner at Y Combinator and co-founder of two startups – Justin.tv/Twitch and Socialcam.[1][2] He first joined Y Combinator in 2013, advising hundreds of startups, and has been active in promoting diversity efforts among startup founders.[3][4]
Michael Seibel | |
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| Born | October 7, 1982 New York City, U.S. |
| Education | Yale University |
Education & Startups
Seibel was born in Brooklyn and calls New York City his favorite city.[5] He moved to East Brunswick, New Jersey as a pre-teen and is a 2000 graduate of East Brunswick High School.[6] At Yale, he majored in political science and became friends with Justin Kan. After his graduation in 2005, he worked as a finance director for Kweisi Mfume's unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate in 2006. He then moved to Silicon Valley to co-found Justin.tv, and became CEO at the company (from 2007 to 2011). He then became CEO of Socialcam,[7] a social video-sharing app that launched in March 2011 and sold to Autodesk for $60 million in 2012 (after existing for only 18 months). In 2014 Justin.tv was renamed Twitch Interactive[8] and later that year sold to Amazon for $970 million.[9]
Startup Mentoring, Y Combinator, Investments, Board Seats
In 2008, Michael Seibel was a key mentor to the co-founders of Airbnb and recommended them to Y Combinator.[10][11]
In 2013 he became a part-time partner at Y Combinator and joined Y Combinator as its first African-American partner in October 2014.[12][13] He became CEO of the Y Combinator Startup Accelerator in 2016.[14] On March 15, 2024, Seibel announced that he was stepping down from his leadership role at Y Combinator after 8 years and returning to his original role of partner.[15]
Some of Seibel's personal startup investments include Cruise, Brex, Figma, Rippling, Reddit, Clipboard Health, and Promise.[16][17][18][19]
On June 10, 2020, it was announced that Seibel was named a Reddit board member, replacing Alexis Ohanian, who resigned on June 5, 2020, in response to the murder of George Floyd.[20] In his resignation announcement, Ohanian had urged Reddit's board of directors to fill his vacant board seat with a black candidate.[21][22] Reddit later named Seibel as the "first black board member in the company's history".[23]
On December 15, 2020, it was announced that Seibel was named to the Dropbox board of directors.[24]