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Michael Seibel announced<\/a> late Wednesday on X that after more than 12 years at the famed accelerator Y Combinator, he is transitioning to a \u201cpartner emeritus\u201d role.<\/p>\n Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan shared the news separately in a company blog post<\/a>, highlighting Seibel\u2019s long history with the outfit. Seibel first joined YC as a founder, going through the program twice \u2014 once with the streaming startup Justin.TV and later with the streaming app Socialcam. Seibel later served as a group partner, managing director, and CEO of the YC accelerator.<\/p>\n Notably, Seibel had already stepped back into a less operational group partner role recently. In a YC blog post last year, he wrote that he was ready to \u201chand over my leadership responsibilities,\u201d with the transition becoming \u201ceffective\u201d after the accelerator\u2019s winter batch of startups completed the program.<\/p>\n A dozen years is a long tenure for anyone, but Seibel\u2019s departure may have been set in motion as early as 2022, when Tan was appointed President and CEO. The move reportedly<\/a> surprised some YC employees \u2014 partly because Tan was running a separate<\/a> venture fund at the time outside of YC, but also because they believed Seibel to be next in line for the role.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve reached out to Seibel for comment. In the meantime, he shared in his X post that after taking this coming summer to relax, he\u2019s eager to \u201chelp government better serve its citizens.\u201d He added, \u201cGovernment was the passion of my youth, and I\u2019m excited to reengage.\u201d Seibel signed off by thanking Y Combinator founders Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston for \u201cchanging my life.\u201d<\/p>\n The news comes roughly two weeks before YC\u2019s spring batch of founders kick off their own tour of duty; the program will run from April through June.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n