Congratulations, Sam!<p>Though Sam himself may not realize it, he has had a big effect on
Y Combinator. One of the most important components of YC is the
alumni network. It's now quite large (over 800 people) and the
founders help one another a lot. We can affect the size of the alumni network very
directly, but we have less control over how much they help
one another-- without which of course the size doesn't matter.<p>Sam is, more than any other single person, the one
who set the standard for how much the alumni help one another. He
set it by example. After each new batch of founders got lots of
help from Sam, it seemed natural to them when they in turn became
alumni to help new founders that much. We encourage the founders
to help one another of course, but Sam's example had more effect
than our exhortations. And we lucked out in that respect because
Sam is remarkably generous with his time. He's a sort of natural
teacher.<p>He also knows everyone. He has not only done countless
introductions for alumni, but did most of the initial intros in
Silicon Valley for YC itself. He introduced us to our lawyer,
Wilson Sonsini, and he was even the one who introduced us to Sequoia.
YC now does many intros per day, but if you follow the tree back
to the beginning, Sam was the root node.