What We Look for in Founders

You will learn that those who had a bug for building and leading projects or side hustles had a much higher chance of creating a billion-dollar company, and that while having almost ten years of work experience is the average, many of them didn’t know anything about the industry they were about to disrupt—and many never anticipated the level of suc

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Why do so many founders build things no one wants? Because they begin by trying to think of startup ideas. That m.o. is doubly dangerous: it doesn't merely yield few good ideas; it yields bad ideas that sound plausible enough to fool you into working on them.

Leadership ability. If the entrepreneur is not a ninja-coder-saleswoman-finance wizard, then he or she needs to recruit other people to fill those roles. For a risky startup on a small budget, finding A+ players and then inspiring them to greatness is difficult, and much of the success or failure of the venture will come down to the leadership qual

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That, not exploiting people, is the defining quality of people who become billionaires from starting companies. So that's what YC looks for in founders: authenticity.