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One thing that founders always underestimate is how hard it is to recruit.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Recruit
Founders
Underestimate
Team
Hard
Thing
Always

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Growth solves (nearly) all problems
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... but the pendulum has swung way out of whack here. A bad idea is still bad, and the pivot happy world we're in today feels suboptimal.
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Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. Even if you miss, you'll probably end up in a pretty good place.
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If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.
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Founders need to figure out what the message of the company is going to be.
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Because so few people make an actual long term commitment to what they're building, the ones that do have a huge advantage.
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Most founders have not managed people before, and they certainly haven't managed managers.
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... fire fast when it's not working. It's better for the company, it's also better for the employee.
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You should always know how you're doing against your metrics. You should always have a weekly review meeting every week.
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A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.
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You need to have a culture where people have very high quality standards in everything the company does, but still move quickly.
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... if you talk to say any of the first 40 or 50 employees, they all feel like they were a part of the founding of the company.
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For most of the early hires you make in a startup, experience doesn't matter very much, and you should go for aptitude.
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Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.
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You certainly don't need to have everything figured out in the path from here to world domination.
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Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.
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Firing people is one of the worst parts of running a company. Actually in my own experience, I think it is the worst.
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... but actually it sucks to have a lot of employees, and you should be proud of how few employees you have.
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... for the top twenty most valuable YC companies, all of them have at least two founders.
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In general, it's best if you're building something that you yourself need.
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