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

... 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.

A winning team feels good and keeps winning. A team that hasn't won in a while gets demotivated and keeps losing.

You have to find a small market in which you can get a monopoly and then quickly expand.

Startups are very hard no matter what you do; you may as well go after a big opportunity.

For most of the early hires you make in a startup, experience doesn't matter very much, and you should go for aptitude.

You want to sound crazy, but you want to actually be right.