Fabled startup investor and accelerator Y Combinator has some option words for Google in an amicus brief it just submitted in the U.S.s monopoly case against the search giant.In the quick, YC charged that Google is a monopolist that has stunted the U.S.
startup community by making VC companies like itself hesitate to money web search and AI start-ups in what it calls a kill zone around Google.Google has cooled independent companies like YC from financing and speeding up ingenious startups that might otherwise have challenged Googles supremacy, YC composed in the filing.
The outcome is a landscape that has been synthetically stunted and stagnant.YCs brief says its presently seeking to money start-ups developing question-based and agentic AI tools that could change how individuals connect with information on the internet.
YC states theres a clear risk that Google will utilize its monopoly power to slow down the future of those markets.Google has successfully frozen the web search and text advertising markets for over a decade, YC wrote.The brief, submitted May 9, was spotted on X by VC Sheel Mohnot, the general partner of Better Tomorrow Ventures and a respected social media poster.But YC isnt calling for an immediate break up of Google, as its CEO Garry Tan made clear in a reply to Mohnot.Rather, YC is arguing Google should suppress practices it thinks about anti-competitive, like paying Apple billions of dollars to make Google the iPhones default search engine.
It likewise wants Google to do things it argues would assist start-ups, like opening up Googles search index so others can train LLMs on it.For point of view, Googles search algorithms have been its highly prized secret since its creation.
For YC to ask the government to require Google to open it approximately competitive LLMs is practically like demanding the federal government make Microsoft Windows open source, or forcing Amazon to easily deliver bundles for competitors.If Google doesnt implement such changes within a five-year time frame, then YC supporters for the federal government to require Google to divest or draw out parts of itself.
YC CEO Tan characterized this concept in an X post as a spinoff hammer threat.He also published that we like Google however wants little tech to prosper, too, in a separate X thread.To recap, in 2015 Google lost a massive antitrust case over its dominance of the search market.
While Google appeals the choice, the U.S.
government is mulling potential punishments (treatments) that Google might be needed to implement, such as spinning off Chrome.
Those treatments are anticipated to be delivered by August 2025.
YCs stance might come as a surprise to those who have followed its latest collaborations with Google: Most especially, Google Cloud provided YC startups access to a dedicated cluster of Nvidia GPUs in 2015.
Google co-founder Larry Page likewise made an uncommon in-person appearance to speak at a YC occasion in December.Google has also gotten a minimum of 2 YC-backed startups: Flutter in 2014, and Fridge in 2011.
It likewise bought YC start-up Infisical through its Gradient fund in 2023.
However, YC is likewise carefully connected to OpenAI, which is now straight competing versus Google on search.
OpenAIs CEO Sam Altman used to run YC, while OpenAI was the very first group connected with YC Research.Thats something Mohnot indicated on X, writing that the most significant beneficiary of YCs proposed solutions, by far, would be OpenAI, rather than YCs notoriously early-stage start-ups, while commenting that the amicus short paints Google as more powerful than it is.A Technology NewsRoom asked YC how it would react to this critique, and whether it has any particular examples of areas that it probably would have funded had it not been for Google.
So far, YC hasnt responded to our remark request.Google didnt respond to a request for comment about YCs amicus brief, either.
Nevertheless, it argued in a blog post last year that the DOJs proposals are radical and sweeping and would injure consumers, organization, and developers.