Science is building a retinal implant that restores vision to people who have gone blind. One patient has already used it to read a 300-page novel.
Building a company like that requires a lot more than getting the technology right. At Startup School 2026, Science CEO Max Hodak explains how the company buys things and hires people, and why those systems determine how fast it can move.
He also gets into why founders can’t delegate their judgment, and why there’s no set of five bullet points that makes a startup work.
Transcript: https://open.substack.com/pub/ycrootaccess/p/max-hodak-there-are-no-blanket-rules
Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply
Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs
Chapters:
00:00 – Infrastructure at Startups
01:02 – Science’s Retinal Implant
02:41 – The Hidden Infrastructure of a Startup
03:25 – How Your 17th Employee Buys Things
06:15 – How Infrastructure Creates Speed
07:03 – What Does an Experiment Actually Cost?
09:27 – How the Best Startups Hire
10:18 – Building a Rigorous Hiring Process
13:26 – Judgment, Horsepower, and Agency
16:17 – Rethinking Performance Reviews
18:53 – Rate of Iteration Separates Success From Failure
20:43 – You Can’t Delegate Your Judgment
22:47 – Action Produces Information
24:31 – The Operating System of a Company
25:10 – Q&A
