You think you have this great idea that everyone's going to come join, but that's not how it works.

A board member of mine used to say sales fix everything in a startup, and that is really true.

At YC we have this public phrase, and it's relentlessly resourceful.

Investors will sort of like write the check and then, despite a lot of promises, don't usually do that much; sometimes they do.

Employees will only add more value over time.

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.

In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies.