It's become popular in recent years to say that the idea doesn't matter.

Later, you should learn to hire fast and scale up the company, but in the early days the goal should be not to hire. Not to hire.

In the early stage of a startup, hiring senior people is usually a mistake. You just want people that get stuff done.

If someone is difficult to talk to, if someone cannot communicate clearly, it's a real problem in terms of their likelihood to work out.

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.

Most investors are obsessed with the market size today and they don't think about how the market is going to evolve.

I really believe that the single hardest thing in business is building a company that does repeatable innovation... and just has this ongoing culture of excellence as it grows.