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... the thing we see wrong with YC apps most frequently, is that people have not thought about the market first and what people want first.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Firsts
First
Thing
People
Apps
Frequently
Market
Wrong
Thought

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Unpopular but right is what you're going for.
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The second part of how to hire: try not to.
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Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.
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No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people.
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These all sounded really bad, but they turned out to be good. If they had sounded really good, there would have been too many people working on them.
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In addition to relentlessly resourceful, you want a tough and a calm cofounder.
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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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Startups are not the best choice for work-life balance, and that's sort of just the sad reality.
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In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.
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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 have to save the vision speeches for when the company is winning. When you're not winning, you just have to get momentum back.
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Cofounder relationships are among the most important in the entire company.
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The other piece besides focus for execution is intensity. Startups only work at a fairly intense level.
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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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