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Last week I had the chance to talk withHarjeet Taggarwho previously foundedAuctomaticand is now a Partner atY Combinator (YC). This is his first in-depth interview since he joined. We talked about YC, startup advice andStart Fund, the joint venture between Yuri Milner and SV Angel to invest in Y Combinator startups. The conversation flowed for over an hour and this is part one of two posts from our chat. Part 1: Start Fund....

Companies that have emerged from the Y Combinator accelerator program are some of the most buzzed-about startups in Silicon Valley, with truly standout products. Wired called it “a bootcamp for startups” and graduates includeAirbnband DropBox who are members of the $1 billion valuation club. Getting your startup selected to participate in the Y Combinator accelerator is not a guarantee of success, but it can fast-track a promising company, or add polish to founders with tremendous potential, even if their idea may not make it....

We came acrossYahki, a Cairo-based alternative toStorify, through aninterviewon ArabNet with Ashraf Tawakkol, the CEO ofTaya IT, the company behind the site. Yahki, an Arabic word related to story-telling, makes it easy to create a summary of an event or story using content from all over the web. The site launched its public beta in July, and is expected to come out of beta in late 2012, at which time more features will be added....

Yahoo has announced it is entering the ‘Digital newsstand’ bunsiness with an app calledLivestand, which is due to launch on iPad and Android tablets soon. To us, it all sounds like a cross between existing tablet magazines and a Flipboard-style, customisable service. Here’s how Yahoo describes it: Livestand is a digital newsstand that’s always fresh and effortlessly personalized. Sit back and enjoy the news, entertainment, and local information you love, right on your tablet....

Yahoo has responded to claims that its email service was theroot cause for phantom data issueson Windows Phone 7 devices, admitting that although Yahoo Mail was causing issues for Windows Phone 7 customers, it was actually Microsoft’s implementation of IMAP for the service that encouraged excessive data use. In a statement, the company noted: “Yahoo! Mail is widely available on tens of millions of mobile phones, including those running on Apple iOS, Android, Nokia Symbian, and RIM....