Experience matters for some roles and not others.

We pretty much won't fund a company now where the founders don't have vested equity because it's just that hard to do.

Wait to start a startup until you come up with an idea that you feel compelled to explore.

Once your product is working, switch from not caring about this to caring about this a little bit.

There are 3 things I look for when I hire people. Are they smart? Do they get things done? Do I want to spend a lot of time around them?

The cost of getting an early hire wrong is really high.

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.