The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.

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.

In general, it's best if you're building something that you yourself need.

You should always know how you're doing against your metrics. You should always have a weekly review meeting every week.

Some day everyone will find out everyone else's comp, if it's all over the place, it will be a complete meltdown disaster

A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.

You also want to fire people who a) create office politics, and b) who are persistently negative.