Y Combinator, which is one of Silicon Valley's most famous startup accelerator programs, announced in a blog post that its President Sam Altman is stepping down and transitioning to Chairman.  

The blog post stated, “Sam is transitioning to Chairman of YC and has shifted his operational responsibilities at YC to other partners. This change will allow Sam to spend more time focusing on OpenAI while still being responsible, along with the rest of the partnership, for the long-term social and economic success of YC. Because YC is run as a partnership, there will be no significant operational change.”

In addition, Y Combinator also confirmed plans to relocate its offices to San Francisco from Mountain View in California’s Silicon Valley. 

The accelerator stated, "The center of gravity for new startups has clearly shifted over the past five years, and although we love our space in Mountain View, we are rethinking whether the logistical tradeoff is worth it, especially given how difficult the commute has become. We also want to be closer to our Bay Area alumni, who disproportionately live and work in San Francisco."

Altman joined YC as a partner in 2011 and was named the President in 2014.  Under Altman's leadership, Y Combinator expanded its accelerator program from hosting two batches of startup companies each year to working with companies at more stages of their growth process. His move comes at a time of many changes at the accelerator. Given the largely expanding size of its cohorts, Y Combinator plans to split its Demo Day presentations into two stages running in parallel over two days, allowing more time for investors to interact with founders off-stage.

Image Credits: Fortune