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In general, it's best if you're building something that you yourself need.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Building
Best
Need
Needs
Something
General

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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 best people know that they should join a rocketship.
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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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Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.
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Most investors are obsessed with the market size today and they don't think about how the market is going to evolve.
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Companies that I've been very involved with, that have had a very bad first hire in the first 3 or so employees never recover from it.
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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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Most startups are not nearly focussed enough. They work hard...maybe, but they don't work hard on the right things.
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... and you can only have 2 or 3 things everyday, because everything else will just come at you you know fires in a day.
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You need to figure out what the 2 or 3 most important things are, and then just do those.
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A small communication breakdown is enough for everyone to be working on slightly different things. And then you loose focus.
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You don't need to make the structure complicated, in fact you shouldn't. All you need is for every employee to know who their manager is.
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The hard part is that this is a very fine line. There's right on one side of it, and crazy on the other.
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One of the biggest advantages that start ups have is execution speed and you have to have this relentless operating rhythm.
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Unfortunately the trick to great execution is to say no a lot.
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You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.
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In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies.
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If you compromise and hire someone mediocre you will always regret it.
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You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer.
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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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