Dalton Caldwell

Co-Founder and General Partner at Standard Capital

San Francisco, CA

About

Dalton Caldwell spent more than a decade at Y Combinator as a managing director and group partner, running admissions and advising thousands of founders across 25 batches. A founder himself (imeem, App.net), he stepped back to emeritus status in 2025 to launch Standard Capital, an AI-native Series A firm, with Gmail creator Paul Buchheit and Bryan Berg. His YC office-hours videos on pivots and 'tarpit ideas' have become standard viewing for early-stage founders.

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Podcasts & interviews

featuring Dalton Caldwell

Lessons from 1,000+ YC startups: Resilience, tar pit ideas, pivoting, more | Dalton Caldwell (YC) - YouTube

Lenny's Podcast

Introducing Standard Capital with Dalton Caldwell and Paul Buchheit - YouTube

Standard Capital

Colleagues at Standard Capital

Bryan Berg

Investor at Standard Capital

Paul Buchheit

Co-founder of Standard Capital

Photo: TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons ↗