It's difficult to get large groups of people, to the extreme levels of focus and productivity that you need, for a startup to be successful.

Whatever the founder cares about, whatever the founders think are the key goals, that's going to be what the whole company focusses on.

Keep salaries low and equity high. Keep the organization as flat as you can.

One of the pieces of advice that we give at YC is: try to work together on a project rather than just doing an interview.

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.

A lot of people treat choosing their cofounder with even less importance than they put on hiring. Don't do this.

We've seen a lot of data at YC now, and the most successful companies and the ones where the investors do the best... end up giving a lot of stock out to employees- year after year after year.