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Honestly, that's a tough combination.

We'd look for evidence that he or she could execute and make stuff happen.

Well, my biggest piece advice is not to do a startup unless you have a particular idea you really think needs to happen.

But if you want an answer other than that:

Start learning programming tonight. There are a lot of tools online, and it takes awhile. While you're doing that, start making an active effort to notice problems in the world.

For solo founders, I look for extra evidence that the person is really effective, ideally on this particular startup but if not then previously in their career.

It's harder to be effective as a solo founder, so the burden of proof is higher.

We do try to talk about this but should talk about it more.

It turns out that most people (and certainly most journalists) want to talk about/write about the success cases.

I'll think about how to best do this.

Video first, then the questions about the founders, then the idea, then the traction/revenue, then everything else.

No.

We do still ask that, and it's still one of the questions I read first. It's on the individual section (each person has to fill it out after the submitter enters their email address).

Determination Effectiveness Clarity of vision Clarity of communication Intelligence Quality of the idea *Potential to be huge

We care that a company might eventually be huge. Usually that requires raising more money, but if it doesn't, that would be ok with us.

I think this trend is likely to continue for a very long time.

I don't think it increases or decreases. We've had companies get in after 5 rejections and sometimes do badly and sometimes do really well.

The negative signal for us is you apply 5 times in a row without anything improving or changing.

Luck is a massive, massive factor in many ways, but I generally think you should make decisions as if it weren't a factor.

They're in their 20s but yeah--we have a good time!

I turned out to be a better investor than an entrepreneur (though somewhat to my surprise running YC is more about running a company than being an investor).

I think I've learned a lot from working closely with entrepreneurs that run massively successful companies that's worth sharing.

If you disagree, no one is making you watch this. You're free to hit the back button.

Congrats to everyone who made this happen. It's so cool!

Some HN commenters never cease to amaze with their negativity...

I am definitely not charismatic.

I am a pretty good investor.

Correct.

However, we may offer something like 'financial aid' for future versions of the MOOC.

He normally still advises companies, but right now he's living in England for a year.

Yes, I have a lot of new ideas about how to improve if after teaching that class.

I plan to talk in more detail about it near the end of this year.

Yes, it will be free.

One of the other groups is pursuing this (and electronic voting). I think that's the right long term solution!

I hope the two organizations will work together in more ways than this, but it's a good example.

I am contributing to both vote.org and voteplz.org, and probably two other get-out-the-vote non-profits. There are different approaches to this problem and I'm not sure which will work best, but unlike many for-profit startups it's non zero-sum--we have a long, long way to go to 100% voter turnout, and all the organizations working on this share the same fundamental goal.

This feels like the most important US presidential election I've ever witnessed, and I want to do whatever I can to make sure we're all involved.

Actually it's surprisingly not stressful--one interesting thing I've learned is that, at least for myself, job stress and burnout comes from something not going that well (e.g. my old startup), not from being super busy.

And to the parent comment--I'm fine, thanks for the concern :)

I agree with Adam's post and intensely disagree with A16Z's post on this topic.

I don't think companies should take back stock compensation on a technicality. It'd be silly to even discuss taking back cash compensation when someone leaves a company!

I appreciate Adam starting this trend years ago.

The research phase won't be that expensive.

If we built one it would require $tens of billions of capital, but we have some interesting ideas about how you might finance it.

It would be better to move a few hundred startups. Startups sometimes grow up to be big tech companies, and it's much easier to move tiny companies.

We could, uh, help with that.

Cars have a place in cities but maybe they should be in tunnels underground or something.

I view money locked up in real estate as money in a very suboptimal place. We pay too much 'rent' in general; it'd be far better to try to make housing/office space cheap and have people invest the extra money in productive assets.

I'm quitting for awhile. This is not newsworthy.

I will be back, I just want to break the cycle of the compulsion to check it given that I think it's healthier in much smaller doses.

I also think Twitter will make changes to the behavior the product rewards, and it will make it a much better place to be.

Just to say it, I also think Twitter will be a very valuable company.