This Week at YC

November 16th, 2023

What makes someone a great founder?

It’s a question I thought about a lot in my decade-plus at TechCrunch. It’s not one I really ever had a perfect answer for.

I built up a sense for what made a good story; I could tell you pretty precisely which parts of a startup’s pitch would resonate with a large audience. But when it came to knowing which startups would thrive because of the founders, just as much as what they’re building? That’s something I’m still learning.

I’ve only been at YC for a few months now; I won’t pretend I’ve cracked that code for myself yet. But the people here see these startups from the earliest days. Often when they’re little more than ideas — when the founders are the startup. They get to know these founders from day one and watch them grow over years/decades.

So how would they answer that question? Here’s Y Combinator co-founder Jessica Livingston (whom Paul Graham once wrote “knows more about the qualities of startup founders than anyone else ever has”) speaking with Sam Altman:

Jessica: If I had to say the most important traits of the most successful founders… I’ve already mentioned determination. That is by far the most important quality.

Sam: More than intelligence?

Jessica: More than intelligence! More than previous success in school. Remember: when we started Y Combinator, our hypothesis was ‘Oh, we’ll just fund all the best hackers from MIT and Harvard and they’ll turn out to be great startup founders.’

That is not true. That is absolutely not true. A lot of them are good. In fact, Patrick [Collison] was from MIT. But it’s not true for the most part. Determination is the most important thing.

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A few years later, YC Group Partner Michael Seibel would share a parallel sentiment when asked what makes the top founders different:

Michael: It would be… and this is a little bit strange: internal motivation. Another way of saying it is that they don’t get too discouraged when things go wrong. They stay motivated. A startup is a game where you’re going to fail all the time. You’re gonna make bad decisions all the time. You’re gonna have strong hypotheses that turn out to be wrong.

There’s a type of person that doesn’t get discouraged even if they make the wrong move five times in a row. They stay passionate about the problem; they stay passionate about trying to find a solution. They keep on executing and moving forward.

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So there it is, straight from two people who can answer this better than just about anyone on the planet. Being brilliant? Knowing lots of people? Having a bunch of great ideas? All fine things. But at the end of the day, it comes down to having the drive, the determination, the internal motivation to actually build the thing.

- Greg

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The 10-Year “Overnight” Success Story of Casetext

Casetext started out in 2013 as a crowdsourced law library — a sort of “Wikipedia meets reddit” for the law.

Ten years later, Casetext is one of the biggest mega wins to date in AI, capable of turning weeks of arduous legal work into hours or minutes. Just months ago it was acquired for $650 million dollars.

What happened between those two points?

For this episode of Main Function, Garry Tan talks with Casetext co-founder Jake Heller to learn the real story of this 10-year “overnight” success.

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"I'm so annoyed by the parasitic 'tech communities' in San Francisco that invite founders to join for 'mentorship and advice'. You sign a legal agreement, but they don't have any obligation to invest in you up front.

Instead, if you do eventually get investment from a high-signal investor like YC, they will leech onto you and require you to take their money and grab equity in the company on the same terms.

These organisations should have the conviction to invest up front or pass."

YC Group Partner Tom Blomfield on X [Twitter]