Daniel Bakirov

1 episode · 1 moment · last on 19 Jan 2026

19 Jan 2026Europe’s Newest Unicorn, Hiro Capital Deep Dive, Thinking Machines Drama, Listen Labs does $100M

2:49:2811 min

Daniel Bakirov: Sparkles.dev, YC W26 & Dropping Out of UCL

Daniel Bakirov, the 20-year-old founder of sparkles.dev ("Lovable but for existing projects"), joins at 5:50am San Francisco time between back-to-back demos after his Y Combinator acceptance went viral on X. He describes dropping out of UCL after hackathons and a stint at a startup founded by Monzo's ex-CTO, applying to YC on the last day and pivoting a day before his interview, and targeting $150k ARR by demo day, with Tower Research among recent demo bookings. The hosts wrap the show after promising a check-in once his 90-day batch ends.