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One of the great and terrible things about starting a start up is that you get no credit for trying.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Credit
Starting
Terrible
Start
Great
Trying
Things

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Or a way to stay on strangers couches, that just sounds terrible all around.
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Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision.
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In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.
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As the company grows and about this 25 or so employee size, your main job shifts from building a great product to building a great company.
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For most software startups, this translates to keep growing. For hardware startups, it translates to don't let your ship date slip.
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Don't let the company get distracted or excited about other things. A common mistake is that companies get excited by their own PR.
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Ideas by themselves are not worth anything, only executing well is what creates value.
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... you want to be proud of how much you can get done with a small numbers of employees.
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You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
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It really is true that you become an average of the people you spend the most time with.
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Growth solves (nearly) all problems
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You can create value with breakthrough innovation, incremental refinement, or complex coordination. Great companies often do two of these. The very best companies do all three.
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Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers.
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Why now, why is this the perfect time for this particular idea, and to start this particular company?
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Because it's one of these sort of connections between nodes- every pair of people adds communication overhead.
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You really want to know your cofounders for a while, ideally years.
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The role of the board is advice and consent. If the CEO does not lay out a clear strategy and tries to get the board to set one, it will usually end in disaster.
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If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.
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You cannot create a market that doesn't want to exist.
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You don't get to make their decisions but you do get to choose the decision makers.
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