Qasar Younis
Qasar Younis is a Pakistani American entrepreneur and venture capitalist, and the CEO of Applied Intuition, a technology company that builds AI and advanced software for vehicle manufactures. Prior to Applied Intuition, he was the COO of Y Combinator during Sam Altman’s tenure as President. He was also the co-founder and CEO of Talkbin.
Early life and education
Younis was born on a farm in Pakistan, and emigrated to the United States in 1988. He grew up in the Detroit area. After graduating with an engineering degree from Kettering University, he then went on to complete his MBA at Harvard Business School.Career
Younis started his career as an engineer at General Motors and then Bosch in Japan. After completing his MBA at Harvard Business School, he started Cameesa.com. In 2010, he moved to the San Francisco bay area to start his second startup, TalkBin, a platform for customers to send messages to businesses. The company graduated from Y Combinator and was acquired by Google in 2011. After the acquisition, Younis joined Google for 3.5 years as a product lead on Google Maps.Y Combinator
After the TalkBin acquisition, Younis continued advising other startups, particularly through Y Combinator. In early 2013, he became a part-time partner at YC. In early 2014, he became a partner at Y Combinator. In 2015 he was promoted to COO.In his time at Y Combinator, the firm invested in OpenAI, Cruise, Scale AI, DoorDash, GitLab, Coinbase, Flexport, Checkr, and others. He also helped start and create some of the most important initiatives inside the accelerator including raising the $700m Continuity Fund, starting the software team, and creating Investor Day.
Applied Intuition
In January 2017, Younis started Applied Intuition, along with co-founder Peter Ludwig, a former Google product manager and software engineer and an engineering graduate of the University of Michigan. Marc Andreessen joined also as a board member in 2017.Applied Intuition builds software tooling to support the development of autonomous vehicles, and cites work with 18 of the 20 largest global OEMs, autonomy startups, and defense companies to accelerate autonomy programs.
Applied Intuition is currently valued at $15 billion following a $600 million Series F and tender offer announced in June 2025. The funding was co-led by BlackRock-managed funds and Kleiner Perkins, with new investors including Franklin Templeton and Qatar Investment Authority. This represents an increase from the company's previous $6 billion valuation in 2024. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity Investments, Lux Capital, General Catalyst, Ray Dalio, Henry Kravis, Mary Meeker, Reid Hoffman, and Mustafa Suleyman.