Inside the ex-YC partner’s $15B self driving car company | Qasar Younis
In Depth
Intro
This chapter explores the journey of a founder who became an investor and later returned to entrepreneurship, specifically through the lens of founding Applied Intuition. The discussion highlights the significance of feedback, strategic fundraising, and choosing ideas wisely in the entrepreneurial process.
Qasar Younis is the co-founder and CEO of Applied Intuition, a leading vehicle intelligence platform that helps companies develop and deploy autonomous systems at scale. In June 2025, the company raised $600M at a $15B valuation. Before Applied Intuition, Qasar was the COO and a group partner at Y Combinator, and earlier founded TalkBin, which was acquired by Google. He’s also held engineering roles at General Motors and Bosch. In today’s episode, we discuss: • The two founder traits Silicon Valley undervalues • How to get 1–3 extra months of work done every year • Lessons from YC on pattern matching and founder feedback • The battle-tested startup formula Qasar used at Applied • Why co-founder fit is make-or-break • Applied’s playbook: vertical SaaS, product-led GTM, and leveraging VC networks • Why Applied went multi-product in the early days • Contrarian takes on startup culture, compensation, and cost control • Why domain expertise is making a comeback • And much more… Referenced: • Applied Intuition: https://www.appliedintuition.com • Ansys: https://www.ansys.com • Bilal Zuberi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bzuberi • Bosch: https://www.bosch.com • Elad Gil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eladgil • General Motors: https://www.gm.com • “Google’s Acquisition of TalkBin”: https://techcrunch.com/2011/04/25/google-acquires-talkbin-a-feedback-platform-for-businesses-thats-only-five-months-old/ • “High Output Management”: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884 • Kyle Vogt: https://x.com/kvogt • Marc Andreessen: https://x.com/pmarca • “Only the Paranoid Survive”: https://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Strategic-Inflection/dp/0385483821 • Paul Graham: https://x.com/paulg • Peter Ludwig: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterwludwig • Sam Altman: https://x.com/sama • TalkBin: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/talkbin • “The History of the Standard Oil Company”: https://www.amazon.com/History-Standard-Oil-Company-Volumes/dp/1519455860 • Waymo: https://waymo.com • Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com • Zoox: https://zoox.com Where to find Qasar: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/qasar/ Where to find Brett: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson Where to find First Round Capital: • Website: https://firstround.com/ • First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital • This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast Timestamps: (01:26) Two founder traits Silicon Valley undervalues (04:23) Gain 1-3 extra months of productivity yearly (05:52) Why founders should read outside the startup canon (07:27) Lessons from YC (13:44) Why it's harder to start than to quit (15:52) The moment you become a real founder (20:24) How great founders master luck (21:46) Qasar’s battle-tested startup formula (25:37) The founding insight for Applied (31:42) How Applied expanded beyond automotive (38:05) Why Applied went multi-product early (45:45) What no one says about startup secondaries (49:02) Why being cheap is a startup superpower (51:04) The myth of "competition doesn’t matter" (53:50) Early scrappiness: The Sunnyvale house setup (54:50) Why domain knowledge is making a comeback (58:32) The mentors who shaped Qasar
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