03 - Paul Graham - Before the Startup

03 - Paul Graham - Before the Startup

Author: Y Combinator and Stanford University: Sam Altman, Dustin Moskovitz, Paul Graham, Adora Cheung, Peter Thiel, Alex Schultz, Kevin Hale, Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, Ben Silbermann, Alfred Lin, Patrick and John Collison, Aaron Levie, Reid Hoffman & more January 6, 2016 Duration: 48:07

Counterintuitive Parts of Startups, and How to Have Ideas

Paul Graham delivers an informative (and highly amusing) talk, addressing counterintuitive parts of startups, in Lecture 3 of How to Start a Startup.

Lecture Transcript: tech.genius.com/Paul-graham-lecture-3-counterintuitive-parts-of-startups-and-how-to-have-ideas-annotated

See the readings at startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec03/

Discuss this lecture: startupclass.co/courses/how-to-start-a-startup/lectures/64032

Click to view: show page on Awesound


What began as a Stanford University lecture series has become an essential audio resource for anyone curious about building a company from the ground up. How to Start a Startup captures the full, unedited course originally presented by Sam Altman and Y Combinator, turning decades of hard-won Silicon Valley experience into a practical curriculum. Instead of abstract theory, you’ll hear founders and investors like Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, and Marc Andreessen dissect the real mechanics of entrepreneurship. They cover the messy, critical details often glossed over-from crafting a compelling idea and assembling a founding team to navigating early fundraising, product development, and growth before product-market fit is even clear. This podcast stands out because each guest, including operators like Adora Cheung, Alex Schultz, and the Collison brothers, speaks directly from their own dramatic successes and failures. The conversations are refreshingly candid, stripping away the glamour to focus on executable advice and foundational principles. Whether you're actively working on a venture or just exploring the mindset, this series provides a rare, concentrated dose of wisdom from people who have actually done it. The collective knowledge in this audio course is formidable, offering a persistent reference that listeners return to at different stages of their own journey.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 20

How to Start a Startup
Podcast Episodes
20 - Sam Altman - Later-Stage Advice [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:29
Sam caps off the How to Start a Startup series with things you should ignore when you start, but become important a year in (after product-market fit). Thanks for watching How to Start a Startup. Hope you learned a ton!F…
19 - Sales And Marketing, How To Talk To Investors [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:50
Three segments in this lecture:Tyler Bosmeny, founder and CEO of Clever, starts off today's lecture with an overview of the Sales Funnel, and how to get to your first $1 Million.Michael Seibel, founder of Justin.tv and S…
18 - Legal and Accounting Basics for Startups [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:19
There's a lot that goes behind the scenes in running a startup. Getting the legal, finance (equity allocation, vesting), accounting, and other overhead right will save you a lot of pain in the long run. Kirsty Nathoo, CF…
17 - Hosain Rahman - How to Design Hardware Products [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:16
Hosain Rahman, CEO and Founder of Jawbone, covers the design process for building hardware products users love.Lecture Transcript: tech.genius.com/Hosain-rahman-lecture-17-how-to-build-products-users-love-part-ii-annotat…
16 - Emmett Shear - How to Run a User Interview [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:27
Building product, and talking to users. In the early stages of your startup, those are the two things you should focus on.In this lecture, Emmett Shear, Founder and CEO of Justin.tv and Twitch, covers the latter. What ca…
15 - Ben Horowitz - How To Manage [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:43
You are not the only one whom your decisions impact. Ben Horowitz, founder of Andreessen Horowitz and Opsware, discusses this important management perspective that founders miss, with, of course, the gratuitous rap lyric…
14 - Keith Rabois - How to Operate [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:39
What should the CEO be doing on a day to day basis? How do you make sure the company is moving in the right direction? Keith Rabois, Partner at Khosla Ventures and former COO of Square, tackles the nitty gritty - How to…
13 - Reid Hoffman - How to be a Great Founder [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:46
So you've learned how to get started, how to raise money, how to build products, and how to grow. Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and Partner at Greylock Ventures, addresses many of the questions and confusions that mi…
12 - Aaron Levie - Building For The Enterprise [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:20
Aaron Levie - founder of Box, enterprise master, Twitter comedic genius. In this lecture, he'll convince you to Build for the Enterprise.Lecture Transcript: tech.genius.com/Aaron-levie-lecture-12-sales-and-marketing-anno…