<Productivity>

I spent many years working with founders and now I work with researchers. Although there are always individual exceptions, on average it’s surprising to me how different the best people in these groups are (including in some qualities that I had assumed were p...

Almost every company and non-profit working on COVID-19 that I offered to help asked for support with clinical trials—for companies focusing on developing novel drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics, rapidly spinning up trials is one of their biggest bottlenecks....

I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former and end up wanting the latter. Here are 13 thoughts about how to achieve such outlier success....

I think I am at least somewhat more productive than average, and people sometimes ask me for productivity tips. So I decided to just write them all down in one place. Compound growth gets discussed as a financial concept, but it works in careers as well, and it is magic....

It is time for tech companies to start speaking up about some of the actions taken by President Trump’s administration. There are many actions from his first week that are objectionable....

There is a long and sordid history of people coming out of the woodwork with bogus claims when huge amounts of money are on the line. This has just happened to Cruise, which is run by my friend Kyle Vogt....

I’m delighted to finally be investing in Asana, which I’ve wanted to do for a long time. One of the things I’ve learned about companies is that 1) clear tasks and goals, 2) clearly communicated, and 3) with clear and frequent measurement are very important to success....

We tell startups all the time that they have to grow quickly. That’s true, and very good advice, but I think the current fashion of Silicon Valley startups has taken this to an unhealthy extreme—startups have a weekly growth goal before they really have any st...

At the end of a YC batch, the general consensus among the partners is that about 25% of the companies are on a trajectory that could lead to a multi-billion dollar company. Of course, only a handful of them do. Most go on to be decent or bad....

In the early days of my startup, I used to get slightly offended when people would refer to it as a “project”. “How’s your project going?” seemed like the asker didn't take us seriously, even though everything felt serious to us....

I turned 30 last week and a friend asked me if I'd figured out any life advice in the past decade worth passing on. I'm somewhat hesitant to publish this because I think these lists usually seem hollow, but here is a cleaned up version of my answer: 1) Never p...

Over the last five years, there has been an incredible shift in leverage from investors to founders. It’s good in most ways, but bad in an important few. Founders’ desire for control is good in moderation but hurts companies when it gets taken to extremes....

I wrote this for the FT, but it's behind a paywall. Since I wrote it, I feel like it's probably ok for me to post it here. The natural state of a start-up is to die; most start-ups require multiple miracles in their early days to escape this fate....

People have been saying that startup valuations are really high for about 3 years now. I myself feel that they are high, but I have no idea when they are likely to change. It’s mostly investors that talk about valuations being way too high....

The YC application deadline is this Friday, and you can apply here. People often tell us they think they want to start a company but just aren’t sure, so I thought I’d share some thoughts....

We’d like for Y Combinator to fund more breakthrough technology companies—companies that solve an important problem, have a very long time horizon, and are based on an underlying technological or scientific breakthrough....

One of the most interesting changes in venture capital going on right now is the separation of advice and money. For a very long time, these have been a package deal....

Maybe now we’re actually in the early stages of a startup bubble. Valuations are trending up again. And no one is talking about a bubble anymore, so it could be happening. Many companies still feel reasonably priced....

After startups raise money, their next biggest problem becomes hiring. It turns out it’s both really hard and really important to hire good people; in fact, it’s probably the most important thing a founder does....

I’ve heard a lot of different theories about how things get done. I’m interested in this topic, so I pay attention and see how the theories hold up. Here’s the best one: a combination of focus and personal connections. Charlie Rose said this to Paul Graham, who told it to me....

Startups talk a lot about optimization—A/B testing, product enhancements, conversion funnels, email campaigns, etc. These sorts of things can often produce 10% gains, and much more if you can compound several together. This is great, but only if the business is already working....

Everyone claims that they understand the power law in angel investing, but very few people practice it. I think this is because it’s hard to conceptualize the difference between a 3x and a 300x (or 3000x) return....