
Lecture 10: How to Start a Startup - kqr2
http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec10
======
jonalmeida
Notes: [http://jonalmeida.com/posts/2014/10/23/htsas-
lec10/](http://jonalmeida.com/posts/2014/10/23/htsas-lec10/)

This lecture so far seems like the mystical missing one that I left at the
back of my head but didn't consider it as important to visit until you're
already 100+ employees in.

By what Brian says, it seems extremely hard to hire anyone who doesn't have
the same culture you're looking for. I say that, because I think of culture as
being tightly twisted with your company products. How do you find people with
the same cultural values, when they haven't grown with your product idea the
same way that you have while building it?

These are just my initial thoughts for now..

~~~
TezzellEnt
I've seen that the best way to grow your company's culture is to hire people
that your own employees recommend. That is, if you want to build your culture
you'll want to hire people that your current employees have worked with
before.

Brian didn't mention it, but I'll bet that their first engineer hire
recommended friends or colleagues in the industry that s/he worked with in the
past - whether that was at another company or even in an open source arena.
From there, that network grew, much like a network of your first 100 people
that love your product grows.

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justboxing
Hi, how do I get to the lecture? The page says "The lecture video is currently
private (unlisted) until approved by Airbnb. Join the Facebook group or
mailing list to get exclusive access."

I joined the list, but any ideas when airbnb might approve it??

~~~
bake
Here's the youtube link as well:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfWgVWGEuGE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfWgVWGEuGE)

~~~
justboxing
Thank you so much!! #CerealEntrepreneurs = #SerialEntrepreneurs :)

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rajens
I felt that everything about Brian's stories comes back to doing things that
don't scale. \- Interviewing the first 300 employees \- Taking 3-4 months to
make his first hire \- Stories of talking to/meeting/living with users \- Door
to Door taking pictures and the entire hacked together process of taking pics
\- Selling cereal to fund the startup

Overall, what's most interesting was seeing his intensity and focus permeate
through the entire lecture.

Anyways - here are 39 Quotes I took away from the lecture:
[https://medium.com/how-to-start-a-startup/39-quotes-from-
bri...](https://medium.com/how-to-start-a-startup/39-quotes-from-brian-chesky-
on-company-culture-and-building-a-team-287573aab3f5)

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fidotron
It's very difficult to hear about their values, when the effects they have at
scale are so close to the opposite of what is intended. Couchsurfing never
reached an industrial scale, for example, but in this case they're creating
enormous areas of highly transient populations with no stake in communities.

The good point is the one about the machine that builds the product in the
long term (i.e. the company) is the real product. This is why I suspect so
many engineering types rise to the top of companies these days, as the company
becomes an extension of the grand machine - a sort of abstract assembly line
and supply chain.

~~~
capkutay
> Couchsurfing never reached an industrial scale

Since when was being a startup founder supposed to scale at that level?

Realistically, the number of people trying to do startups will be consistently
small. They either grow into stable businesses 5-6 years down the line, or
they sputter out and fail in that time or less. If a big chunk of our economy
was based on < Series B level startups, we'd be in for a giant crash of epic
proportions.

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johan_larson
These people don't sound like they're starting a company. They sound more like
they're starting a social movement or a cult.

It's weird, and in the context of a commercial company, which ultimately
exists to make money, seems wildly out of place. I keep wondering whether they
are actually sincere or just spouting this crap for the marks.

If they're not sincere, they're just liars trying to wring an extra 10 percent
out of their labour force for free. And if they are sincere, their passion
seems misplaced to the point of delusion. I mean, why the heck get excited
about selling shoes?

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jdoliner
If you click the Facebook Group link you can view the video.

edit: And you don't have to join the group.

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wellboy
Phew, is there a way to hold the lectures a little bit longer invervals? I'd
really love to watch them all, but a new one every three days is a lot to
watch.

