What We Look for in Founders — Paul Graham

Paul Graham (YC) lists the qualities that matter most in startup founders, based on experience funding them. Intelligence matters only above a threshold; determination is the standout.

Determination

The most important quality. Startups hit many obstacles; founders who get demoralized easily fail. Example: Bill Clerico and Rich Aberman of WePay — finance deals with big bureaucracies feel designed to ignore you, but persistence wins.

Flexibility

Determination must be combined with flexibility. The right metaphor is a running back: determined to get downfield, but willing to go sideways or backwards when needed. Example: Daniel Gross of Greplin — applied with one idea, accepted YC on condition of changing, tried two more before landing on the funded one. Landed on his feet.

Imagination

The type of intelligence that matters is the ability to generate surprising new ideas. Most good startup ideas seem bad initially (otherwise someone would already be doing them). Need the right level of "craziness." Airbnb was funded despite seeming too crazy (people staying in strangers' places) because the founders had the gleam — they had supported themselves selling branded breakfast cereal.

Naughtiness

Successful founders often have a piratical gleam. They care about the big moral questions but not petty proprieties. They delight in breaking rules that don't matter. YC asks applicants for a time they "hacked" something to their advantage (in the beating-the-system sense). This has become one of the most attended-to questions.

Friendship

Hard to succeed with a single founder. Most big successes have two or three. The relationship must be strong — they must genuinely like each other and work well together. Startups stress the relationship like a dog stresses a sock; if it can be pulled apart, it will be. Example: Emmett Shear and Justin Kan of Justin.tv — known each other since second grade, can read one another's minds, no unresolved tension.

The piece is framed as notes for what YC looks for when choosing founders.

Core qualities are captured in founder-qualities-paul-graham.

See also its place in the generalist reading list: a-reading-list-for-generalists-dylan-bowman.

Cross references: match-quality polymath a-reading-list-for-generalists-dylan-bowman.