Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.

So if you want a culture where people work hard, & pay attention to detail, focus on the customer, are frugal: you have to do it yourself.

Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers. It's easy to get sucked into an infrastructure rewrite death spiral.

There's at least a hundred times more people with great ideas than people that are willing to put in the effort to execute them well.

You can win with the best product, the best price, or the best experience.

Good startups usually take 10 years.

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