Carbenes remain important and intriguing reactive intermediates in organic chemistry despite years of study for many reasons, among them the access they provide to unusual product compounds, their differing chemistry depending on spin state, and their mechanistic complexity. Photochemical precursors to carbenes, such as diazo compounds and diazirines, are often favored, because they can yield carbenes by photolysis at low temperatures and can be used for laser flash photolysis experiments. However, because these nitrogenous precursors have been shown to undergo reactions in their excited states that mimic chemistry expected from the carbene itself, there is demand for alternative practical precursors. In this Communication, we report the use of S,C-sulfonium ylides 1-4 as photochemical carbene precursors, as illustrated in Scheme 1 for compound 4.The choice of compounds 1-4 as potential precursors to dicarbomethoxycarbene for this study was driven by two considerations. First S,C-ylides of malonates are known to be stable and easy to prepare, at least in part because of the electron withdrawing groups that delocalize the formal negative charge. Second, by generating dicarbomethoxycarbene 1-3 for the proof-of-concept work of showing carbene generation, we believed we could distinguish between reactions of the carbene and a potential excited state Wolfflike rearrangement that might yield a ketene derivative. Such 1,2shifts have been demonstrated repeatedly for nitrogenous carbene precursors that are subject to 1,2 hydrogen shifts or carbon shifts to relieve ring strain. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10]