This as told essay is based on a conversation with Nicholas Charriere, the 36-year-old co-founder of Mocha, an AI app builder. He lives in the Bay Area. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I grew up in France. I studied mathematics and physics. Then I discovered Hacker newsand I started learning everything about entrepreneurship. I decided: I want to be in technology, and I want to be a founder.
With that goal in mind, I moved to San Francisco after college. It took six years to resolve visa issues. After that, I didn’t really have a co-founder and I got a great one Cruise offerso I brought that with me. I spent four years there.
When I was 29, I joined another startup where the founder had a great pitch.
I waited a very long time to start my own business, and that is a big source of regret. By the time I went to Y Combinator at age 33, my daughter was born. I really wish I had done it sooner.
I didn’t tell my YC batchmates about my daughter
I always knew I wanted to start a family. I grew up in a family with four children and had 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 business. The baby was still very young, and that made everything a lot more difficult. I had to get financing quickly.
An advantage if older founder was that I had a family tree. Getting into YC and raising money was easier than when you’re 20 and have no resume. However, I felt very old in YC. And being a father was a very different kind of old feeling. I was in a different phase of life.
At some point you go on retreat with all the other founders. Everyone is very young and there is a generation gap that makes them behave differently. My co-founder and I were like, “Want to grab a beer, 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 children. I heard some did, and were quiet about it too. We had a group chat where we sent each other pictures of the babies. We are still friends and it was a strong bonding moment. It was very difficult for them too.
I’ve been reading Hacker News, YC’s technology forum, for many years, and they don’t talk about being a dad. I thought, “I’m surrounded by founders, and founders don’t talk about this.”
In YC everyone tries to do that reinforce each other intensely. Like, “I haven’t slept in three days.” Or: “We’re flying to New York to talk to a customer.” Saying, “I just had a kid and I love spending time with them” is not the right vibe. It wouldn’t fit.
People are very nice to each other in YC, but you’re all competing. You participate in fundraising. You’re competing for the best YC startup.
I remember debating for a long time whether I should tell my YC partner: Diana Hu. They pick you, they bet on you, and if you do well, they make money. So obviously I didn’t go up to her the first night we met and say, “I’m expecting a child.” For weeks I thought about it: should I say it?
I remember bringing it up because salaries of the founders. You’re not sure what to pay yourself when you’re in YC. It was a bit difficult because I was supporting my wife and had a child. It is not greed, but there is a minimum to not be deeply in the red.
I brought it up with Diana and told her about my daughter. She said, “You should absolutely pay yourself what you need to live, because if you don’t, you’re more likely to give up, and building a business is about not giving up.” It was great advice.
If you bring it up, the responses 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 talked about 996.
The age question continues to concern me
The biggest lesson I learned is that having kids and doing this startup means everything else is gone. There is no television. There are no video games. I walked my dog, which is a blessing because it meant I was moving my body. Sleeping was difficult.
You can tell that Silicon Valley is outdated by looking at the ages of the people around you. There are fewer elderly people at companies in the startup scene.
It’s unspoken but very true: if you optimize your hires to have some experience, but young enough that they don’t have families yet (the 26 to 32 age range), you’ll get the best value.
There are no role models as a parent. You don’t meet many people who say, “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, reaching 300,000 users and a few million in ARR. It wasn’t enough. 2026 is a very strange time when the competition is insane. We were compete with Lief and Replit, both of which were absolute rocketships.
I would raise or close a Series A. My second child was born when this decision had to be made. I think it was a bad business with bad margins. Instead of taking more investor money, I thought it was better to quit.
We didn’t succeed, so we clearly could have done better. I always have a little voice in my head that says, “If you had worked more hours, if you had created a culture where people left later and worked on the weekends, you would have made it.” That voice has been nagging at me.
I always felt like we had to go faster. But there were limits I placed on myself to do right by my child and my wife. I found it very difficult to ask that of my employees.
