Quotes about tea
teacher brother teaching
I started teaching in '76 and I'd been a photographer at the Geographic for six years. But prior to being at the Geographic I was a teacher. Plus my parents were teachers and my brother and my grandparents. So it was the culture of our family to think about teaching, to talk about teaching, to talk about teachers. Sam Abell
team responsibility credit
You have to let your team get all the credit for all the good stuff that happens, and you take responsibility for the bad stuff. Sam Altman
team fire office
You also want to fire people who a) create office politics, and b) who are persistently negative.
team fire employee
... fire fast when it's not working. It's better for the company, it's also better for the employee.
team fire long
Every first time founder waits too long, everyone hopes that an employee will turn around. But the right answer is to fire fast...
team thinking firsts
I think the best thing you can do is be aware that as a first time founder you are likely to be a very bad manager.
team forget employee
One thing that founders forget is that after they hire employees, they have to retain them.
team writing promise
Investors will sort of like write the check and then, despite a lot of promises, don't usually do that much; sometimes they do.
team add employee
Employees will only add more value over time.
team thinking employee
Founders are usually very stingy with equity to employees and very generous with equity to investors. I think this is totally backwards.
team thinking giving
I think as a rough estimate, you should aim to give about 10% of the company to the first 10 employees.
team decision needs
If someone is getting every decision wrong, that's when you need to act, and at that point it'll be painfully aware to everyone.
team decision makers
You don't get to make their decisions but you do get to choose the decision makers.
team thinking bars
... you can think about that for everyone you hire: will I bet the future of this company on this single hire? And that's a tough bar.
team founders equity
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.
team people done
You need unstoppable people. You want people that are just going to get it done.
team animal able
... you should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
team might firsts
If you compromise in the first five, ten hires it might kill the company.
team firsts facts
A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.
team firsts employee
... companies that I've been very involved with, that have had a very bad first hire in the first 3 or so employees never recover from it...
team needs desperate
At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.
team years numbers
Many of the best YC companies have had phenomenally small number of employees for their first year, sometimes none besides the founders.
team numbers want
... you want to be proud of how much you can get done with a small numbers of employees.
team proud should
... but actually it sucks to have a lot of employees, and you should be proud of how few employees you have.
team trying
The second part of how to hire: try not to.
team perfect founders
In YC experience, 2 or 3 co-founders seems to be about perfect.
team people source
The best source by far for hiring is people that you already know and people that other employees in the company already know.
team firsts referrals
Most great companies in tech have been built by personal referrals for the first...at least 100 employees and often many more.
team work-out joining
If someone is choosing between joining McKinsey or your startup it's very unlikely they're going to work out at the startup.
team people firsts
Really dig into projects people have worked on and call references; that is another thing that first time founders like to skip.
team giving advice
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.
team done made
Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before.
team aptitude matter
For most of the early hires you make in a startup, experience doesn't matter very much, and you should go for aptitude.