YC's Garry Tan launches “Garry's List”, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting “moderate/pragmatic” political candidates and pro-growth policies in California
New operation is part-PAC, part-blog, part incubator for Silicon Valley politics — and latest entry in big-money network
Mission LocalJoe Rivano Barros
Context & Ripple Effects
Garry Tan’s California initiative extends a political turn already visible in his push to move San Francisco politics toward centrism and in YC’s broader policy activity. It gives that orientation a dedicated state-level organization rather than leaving it to public advocacy alone.
The launch also follows YC’s Washington lobbying for “Little Tech” and a California campaign against an AI safety bill led by YC’s public-policy chief. Together, the coverage shows startup leaders treating policy as a direct operating concern.
First-order effects
Garry’s List creates a standing nonprofit vehicle to promote pro-growth policies and back California candidates aligned with its moderate/pragmatic framing.
California candidates and policy advocates now have a new tech-linked channel for political support, messaging, and incubation.
Second-order effects
Competing California political networks may face more coordinated engagement from startup-aligned actors on candidate selection and policy debates.
The organization can connect YC-adjacent concerns—such as regulatory burdens and capital mobility—to state and local electoral politics, broadening the arena in which those arguments are made.
Third-order effects
If such vehicles become durable, Silicon Valley’s political influence may shift from episodic lobbying and individual donor activity toward permanent, institution-building operations.
California policy could become a more important bottleneck for startup interests, prompting more founders and investors to organize around regulation, taxation, and growth policy; the scale of that shift remains uncertain.
The trend: Tech leaders are building dedicated political infrastructure to shape the state and local rules they increasingly view as constraints on company formation and growth.
Garry Tan is launching a new dark-money group to influence California politics he wants to replicate the success of the Chesa Boudin & school board recalls of 2022 & bring that “energy” statewide the effort is also part of his aim to create “parallel media” & institutions [image]
One of my top pieces of advice to founders is “care deeply about your customers”. Garry is a great example of this — he deeply cares about making SF and California a place for prosperity for everyone. He even built an entire publication in his spare time to do it!
A lot of people are surprised to hear that YC partners code. Garry not only manages the content for Garry's List, he built the entire web app himself with Claude Code.
Now announcing: Garry's List We're starting a citizen's union for radical centrism. We proved local politics is winnable in SF. Now we're building the community to do it everywhere — news, commentary, and accountability for policies that affect California and our society. [video]
Venture capitalist @garrytan is launching a 501(c)4 organization called “Garry's List.” It is part media organization, part a fundraising organization for California politics, part social network. This is how the advocacy world works these days. The lines between media + [image]
Want to come to the Garry's List launch party? We're hosting a big, invite-only launch party on March 4 with some very special guests. If you want in, you need to apply. If you're a radical centrist like me, I would love to see you there. https://garryslist.org/apply
If you want your local politicians to just be gd normal and stop being lapdogs for fringe interests, join Garry's List and get your normal, centrist interests represented.
p interesting from gt, i fully expect tech folks to run ca politics inside the next five years — for ex https://sfstandard.com/... maybe we'll even get wifi on caltrain??
One of the best things about YC partner meetings these days is we've just been sharing what we're building with coding agents. Garry shared this with us a week ago. It's now shipped.
Garry's List does three things. It tells you what's actually happening. We take the real information that's already out there — the tweets, the budget documents, the board meeting transcripts, the receipts — and turn it into sourced, readable stories in plain language. [image]
YC's @garrytan is taking his political ambitions statewide with a “Rotary Club for radical centrism.” The impetus for Garry's List, he told me yesterday, wasn't the billionaire tax but Claude Code! [image]
The time of idea to prod has arrived. If Garry can build a product while running YC. You can do it too. I am hacking away nights and weekends to solve some internal tooling and it's the best feeling in the world.