Paul Graham ’86, co-founder of Y Combinator, one of the most influential startup accelerators in the world, will return to Cornell Oct. 28 to give a lecture titled “How to Turn Yourself Into a Startup Founder.”

The event, open to the Cornell community, will take place from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Kennedy Hall’s Call Auditorium, with doors opening at 4 p.m. Registration is required.

Graham co-founded Y Combinator in 2005, helping establish a model for supporting early stage startups that has since funded thousands of companies, including Airbnb, DoorDash, Dropbox and Reddit. He previously co-founded Viaweb, a web-based software company that was acquired by Yahoo in 1998.

A programmer, writer and investor, Graham is also known for his essays on startups, technology and entrepreneurship. His writing has explored topics ranging from how to develop startup ideas and find co-founders to the characteristics and habits that help entrepreneurs build companies. He has written extensively about his own path from Cornell, where he studied philosophy, to computer science and entrepreneurship.

During his Cornell years, Graham became interested in artificial intelligence and taught himself the programming language Lisp. He later earned a Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard University before turning his attention to entrepreneurship.

The Cornell talk will offer students, faculty, staff and other members of the university community an opportunity to hear directly from Graham about making the transition from having an idea to becoming a founder.

The lecture will include an introduction and a question-and-answer session moderated by Provost Kavita Bala. Attendees are encouraged to submit questions when registering.

The event is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, and the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering.

Syl Kacapyr is associate director of marketing and communications for Duffield Engineering.