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The cost of getting an early hire wrong is really high.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Really
Hire
Early
Cost
Team
High
Getting
Wrong

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So you should always stay on top of people's vesting schedules.
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The natural state of a start-up is to die most start-ups require multiple miracles in their early days to escape this fate.
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The startups that do well are the ones that are working all the time.
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Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies.
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AirBnB spent 5 months interviewing their first employee, before they hired someone and in their first year, they only hired 2 people.
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When lack of structure fails, it fails all at once. What works totally fine from 0-20 employees, is disastrous at 30.
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If it takes more than a sentence to explain what you are doing, it's almost always a sign that what you are doing is too complicated.
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In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.
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The track record for founders that don't already know each other is really bad.
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As you grow, it feels hopelessly corporate but it really is worth putting in place these compensation bands.
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The most important thing is that there is clear reporting structure and everyone knows what it is.
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What being a founder means, is signing up for this years long grind on execution - and you can't outsource this.
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In general, it's best if you're building something that you yourself need.
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Unpopular but right is what you're going for.
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Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before.
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It's easy to move fast or be obsessed with quality, but the trick is you have to do both at a startup.
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You should think about for the next 10 years, you're going to be giving out 3-5% of the company every year.
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Employees will only add more value over time.
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... for the top twenty most valuable YC companies, all of them have at least two founders.
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