Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months

The head of Y Combinator's much-trumpeted push into hardware has quit, and the famous tech incubator isn't replacing him.

Luke Iseman, who joined the Palo Alto-based fund 14 months ago with the goal of helping hardware startups make products "faster and better than ever before," is leaving to work on an affordable housing startup (he's the guy famous for living in a shipping container).

YC, as it's popularly known, announced plans to better support hardware startups last year. It built a prototyping lab, formed partnerships with manufacturers, hired Iseman to lead the effort and subsequently packed its winter and summer 2016 cohorts full of hardware startups. His departure, and the fact that they're not replacing him with another similarly focused partner, doesn't mean YC is pulling back from its ambitions, the incubator's president said in a phone interview. "Luke set up a giant amount of deals for hardware and other special services for hardware companies so at this point all that stuff's in place," Sam Altman said. "We'll fund more hardware companies this batch than we've funded before."

Still, hardware is, well, hard. Silicon Valley has produced a raft of world-changing software startups, from Airbnb (a YC veteran) to Facebook. But it's a whole lot easier to beta-test an app than to prototype and then manufacture a gadget with a bunch of moving parts. Then you have to market the thing to the masses, who are already enamored of their Apple and Samsung products. Exhibits A and B: Fitbit, the fitness tracking company, and GoPro, maker of rugged little cameras. This week, both cut their sales forecasts for the crucial holiday quarter and watched their shares plunge. (Neither started life at YC.)