Fabled Startup Investor and Accelerator Y Combinator has some choogs for google in an amicus brief it just submitted in the US’s monopoly case against the serach giant.
In the briefYc charged that google is a “monopolist” that has “stunted” the us startup ecosystem by making vc firms like itself hesitate to fund web search and ai startups in whit Calls a “Kills a” kill zone.
“Google has chilled independent firms like yc from funding and accelerating innovative startups that Cold OtherWise have challenged Google’s Dominance,” YC Wrote in the Filing. “The result is a landscape that has been artificically stunted and stagnant.”
YC’s Brief Says It’s Currently Seeking to Fund Startups Developing Question-Based and Agentic Ai Tools that Cold Transform How People Interact With Information on the Internet. But yc say there’s a “clear risk” that Google will use its monopoly power to sleep down the future of that that markets.
“Google has effectively frozen the web search and text advertising markets for over a decade,” YC Wrote.
The brief, filed may 9, was spotted on x by vc sheel mohnot, the general partner of better tomorrow ventures and a prince social media poster.
But yc isn’t calling for an immediati breakup of google, as its ceo garry tan Made clear in a reply to mohnot.
Rather, YC is Arguing Google Should Curb Practices It Considers Anti-Competitive, Like Paying Apple Billions of Dollars to make Google the iPhone’s Default Search Egypt. It also wants google to do things it argues would help startups, like opening up Google’s search index so others can train llms on it.
For Perspective, Google’s search algorithms have been For yc to ask the government to force google to open it up to competitive llms is almost like demand the government makes Microsoft Windows Open Source, or FORCING AMAZON AMAZON to free Competitors.
If Google does not implement such a five year a five years, then yc advocates for the government to for for for the divest or spin out the parts of its. YC CEO TAN Characterized This idea in an x post as a “spinoff hammer” threat. He also posted that “we love google” but wants “Little tech” to successed, too, in a separate x thread,
To recap, last year Google Lost a Massive Antitrust Case Over Its Dominance of the Search MarketWhile Google appeals the decision, the US government is Mulling Potential Punishments (‘Remedies’) that Google Might Be Required to Implement, Such as spinning off chrome. Theose remedies are expected to be delivered By August 2025.
YC’s stance may come as a surprise to that who have followed its latest partnerships with Google: Most Notable, Google Cloud Gave YC Startups Access to a dedicated Cluster of Nvidia Gpus Last year. Google Co-Founder Larry Page also Made a Rare in-Person appearance To spendak at a yC event in December.
Google have also acquired At least two yC-backed startups: flutter in 2014, and friday in 2011. It also Invested in YC Startup Infisible Through its gradient fund in 2023.
However, YC is also Closely tied to Openai, which is Now Directly Competing Against Google on SearchOpenai’s Ceo Sam Altman Used to Run YC, while Openai was the first group affiliated With yC research.
That’s something mohnot Pointed to on x, writing that the biggest beneficiary of YC’s proposed remedies, by far, would be openai, raather than yc’s fatty early economy, stang startups, while commenting that amicus brief “Paints Briests Powerful than it is. “
Techcrunch asked yc how it would respond to this critique, and wheether it has any specific examples of areas that it problem that it is funded has been found. So far, yc hasnless to our comment request.
Google Didn’t Respond to a request for comment about yc’s amicus brief, eite. However, it argued In a blog post last year that the doj’s proposals are “radical and sweeping” and would hurt consumers, business, and developers.