You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.

Many of the best YC companies have had phenomenally small number of employees for their first year, sometimes none besides the founders.

In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.

It's better to have no cofounder than to have a bad cofounder, but it's still bad to be a solo founder.

A small communication breakdown is enough for everyone to be working on slightly different things. And then you loose focus.

A third advantage of mission oriented companies, is that people outside the company are more willing to help you.

... 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.