This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nicholas Charriere, the 36-year-old cofounder of Mocha, an AI app builder. He lives in the Bay Area. It’s been edited for length and clarity.
I grew up in France. I studied math and physics. Then I discovered Hacker News, and I started learning all about entrepreneurship. I decided: I want to be in technology, and I want to be a founder.
I moved to San Francisco after my studies with that goal. It took six years to sort out visa issues. After that, I didn’t really have a cofounder, and I got a great offer from Cruise, so I took that. I spent four years there.
Then, when I was 29, I joined another startup where the founder had an amazing pitch.
I waited really long to start my own company, and that’s a big source of regret. By the time I went into Y Combinator at 33, my daughter had been born. I deeply wish I had done it before.
I didn’t tell my YC batchmates about my daughter
I always knew I wanted to have a family. I grew up in a family of four kids with a very happy childhood. I married my wife 10 years ago. She was my one and only match on Hinge.
I had to have a big conversation with my wife about starting my own company. The baby was very young, and it made everything a lot harder. I had to secure funding quickly.
One advantage as an older founder was that I had a pedigree. Getting into YC and raising money was easier than when you’re 20 and have no résumé. I felt very old in YC, though. And being a dad was a whole other type of feeling old. I was in a different stage of life.
At some point, you go on a retreat with all the other founders. Everybody’s really young, and there’s a generation gap where they behave differently. My cofounder and I were like: “Want to grab beers, guys?” They were like: “We don’t drink.”
That weekend, I told a few people about my daughter because I had a feeling they had kids. I learned some did, and that they were also being hush-hush about it. We had a group chat where we sent each other pictures of the babies. We’re still friends, and it was a strong bonding moment. It was also very hard for them.
I’ve been reading Hacker News, the tech forum owned by YC, for many years, and they don’t talk about being dads. I thought: “I’m surrounded by founders, and founders don’t talk about this.”
In YC, everyone’s trying to up-intense each other. Like, “I didn’t sleep for three days.” Or, “We’re flying to New York to just talk to a customer.” Saying “I just had a kid and I love spending time with them” is not the vibe. It wouldn’t fit.
People are really nice to each other in YC, but you’re all competing. You’re competing for the fundraise. You’re competing to be the best YC startup.
I remember debating for a long time whether to tell my YC partner, Diana Hu. They choose you, they bet on you, and if you do well, they make money. So, I obviously didn’t go up to her the first night we met and say: “I’m expecting a kid.” For weeks, I debated: Should I say it?
I remember bringing it up because of founder salaries. You’re not sure what to pay yourself when you’re in YC. It was a bit awkward, because I was supporting my wife and had a kid. It’s not greed, but there’s a minimum here to not be in the deep red.
I brought it up with Diana and told her about my daughter. She was like: “You should absolutely pay yourself what you need to live, because if not, you will give up more readily, and building a company is all about not giving up.” It was great advice.
When you do bring it up, the reactions are actually fine. Most of the fear of bringing it up was in my own head. I didn’t want people to think I’m not as intense or hardcore as the founder who just talked about 996.
The age question still nags at me
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that having kids and doing this startup means everything else is gone. There’s no TV. There are no video games. I walked my dog, which is a blessing, because it meant I moved my body around. Sleep was tough.
You can observe that Silicon Valley is ageist by looking at the ages of the people around you. At companies in the startup scene, there are fewer older people.
It’s unspoken but very true: If you optimize your hiring to have some experience but young enough that they don’t have families yet, which is the 26-32 age bracket, you get the best value.
There are no role models when you’re a parent. You don’t meet a lot of people like: “This is me, but 20 years ahead.” I never found that in Silicon Valley.
I was CEO of Mocha for three years. We had some success, got to 300,000 users and a few million in ARR. It wasn’t enough. 2026 is a really weird moment where competition is insane. We were competing with Lovable and Replit, both of which were absolute rocket ships.
I was going to either raise a Series A or shut down. My second kid was being born when this decision had to happen. I think it was a bad business with bad margins. Rather than take more investor money, I thought it was better to quit.
We didn’t succeed, so we clearly could’ve done things better. I always have a voice in my head saying, “If you put in more hours, if you created a culture where people left later and worked weekends, you would’ve made it.” That voice has been nagging at me.
I always felt we should be going harder. But there were limits I was putting on myself to do right by my kid and my wife. I had a really hard time asking that of my employees.
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