Y Combinator's new COO Qasar Younis is from rural Pakistan
Younis has previously worked with Google and automobile industry
(Web Desk) – Y Combinator, a renowned tech incubator from Silicon Valley, has appointed its new Chief Operating Officer (COO) who hails from rural Pakistan.
Qasar Younis who hails from Lala Musa of Gujrat district is the new second in command is all set to manage all Y Combinator’s events, operations, finance and legal functions. Younis will also advise the startups being incubated.
He was one of the incubatees at the Y Combinator and graduated in 2011 before he went on to work with Google.
33-year-old Younis was born in rural Pakistan but his parents emigrated to the US in 1988. His parents took jobs in the auto industry in Detroit. He was working towards the goal of becoming an engineer and working in an automobile company when he ended up in Kettering University where students work in the auto industry while pursuing their degrees.
During college and afterwards, Younis was advised by the peers and mentors to look beyond the auto industry which he did and then went on to attend Harvard Business School. He went on to work for another company before he decided to finally take the plunge in 2010. That is when he packed his car, made temporary accommodation arrangements and left for San Francisco.
Younis teamed up with a few friends and pitched Y Combinator an idea which was to build a way for customers of small to medium sized businesses to leave feedback. They were accepted where they built the app TalkBin and graduated from Y Combinator’s 2011 class.
His startup had already attracted funding offers of $7 million even though he only needed 1.5 million. Just when his startup company was about to enter into a deal, they attended a meeting their incubator had arranged with Google. Tech giant Google not only showed interest, it made them a formal offer days later.
That is how Younis ended up working with Google where he was made key part of the Google Maps team. He didn’t stay with Google for that long and officially joined Y Combinator as full time partner after leaving Google in 2014.
Qasar Younis was made COO on Wednesday. His new role will entail him directly handling key affairs of the incubator as second in command.
Y Combinator is an organization that guides startup companies and has successfully helped launch giants like Dropbox and Airbnb when they were only taking off.
Qasar along with both co-founders belief Y Combinator is not any other venture fund
“We are a company that helps startups—yes, we help them with capital but that’s just one of the ways we are helping build companies,” says Altman in an interview.
