In 2018, Pew Research Center reported that 57% of Americans believe that children in America today will be worse off financially than their parents. Since 2013, this number has been as high as 65% — even though we are experiencing our 10th straight year of economic growth.

We believe this mindset is the result of increased family debt, stagnant wages, and a lack of government commitment to provide equal access to the basic services families need to thrive. These services include access to quality education, affordable housing/healthcare/food, physical safety, accurate news and information, a social safety net, and a livable environment.

We believe that a new generation of technology startups are emerging who will start to address these needs (both in America and around the world).¹ Existing YC startups that fit this category include:

• Codeacademy, Make School, and Lambda School are expanding access to education.
• Landed and Zerodown are helping to make housing more affordable.
• Gusto and Lively are helping to make healthcare more accessible to workers.
• Remix, Token Transit, Skip and Grin are all improving transit — whether the affordability, infrastructure, or coverage.
• Promise is attacking mass incarceration.
• mRelief helps people get access to food stamps.
• The Human Utility helps people needing assistance with water bills.
• VotingWorks creates secure and affordable voting machines.
• Bonfire helps city and county procurement teams make faster sourcing decisions that deliver value to citizens.

We want to invest in many more of them and have refreshed the Request for Startups, which are concepts we believe are important in the coming decades, to reflect this newest addition: Government 2.0.² If you are creating a startup with the goal of making America a better place, we want to talk to you.

Notes
1. To be clear, we do not seek to replace the government and its policymakers but seek to fund startups that create solutions that provide Americans the foundations for economic growth.↩
2. You should not start a company just because it is on this list. It is mostly here to help stimulate you to think about ideas.↩