PANews reported on March 20 that according to Techcrunch, Michael Seibel announced on X on Wednesday evening that after working at Y Combinator (YC) for over 12 years, he will transition to the role of "Honorary Partner". YC CEO Garry Tan also shared this news in a company blog post, emphasizing Seibel's long-term collaboration history with the accelerator. Seibel initially joined YC as a founder and participated in the program twice - once for the streaming startup Justin.TV, and another time for the streaming app Socialcam. Subsequently, Seibel served as a group partner, managing director, and CEO of the YC accelerator. It is worth noting that Seibel has recently stepped back into a less operationally involved group partner role. In a blog post last year, he wrote that he was preparing to "hand over my leadership responsibilities" and that this would "formally take effect" after the accelerator's winter startup batch.

According to reports, this move has surprised some YC employees - partly because Tan was running an independent venture fund outside of YC, but also because they believed Seibel was the next in line to take on the position. This announcement comes about two weeks before the founders of YC's spring batch are set to start work; that program will run from April to June.