Show overview
Startup Playbook by Sam Altman has published 13 episodes during 2018. Releases follow a near-daily cadence.
Episodes typically run under ten minutes — most land between 2 min and 4 min — with run-times ranging widely across the catalogue. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-US-language Business show.
The catalogue appears to be on hiatus or wound down — the most recent episode landed 7.7 years ago, with no new episodes in over a year. Published by Y Combinator.
From the publisher
To have a successful startup, you need: a great idea, a great market, a great team, a great product, and great execution.
Latest Episodes
Startup Playbook - Intro
We spend a lot of time advising startups. Though one-on-one advice will always be crucial, we thought it might help us scale Y Combinator if we could distill the most generalizable parts of this advice into a sort of playbook we could give YC and YC Fellowship companies.
Startup Playbook - The Idea
One of the first things we ask YC companies is what they’re building and why.
Startup Playbook - A Great Team
Mediocre teams do not build great companies. One of the things we look at the most is the strength of the founders. When I used to do later-stage investing, I looked equally hard at the strength of the employees the founders hired.
Startup Playbook - A Great Product
Here is the secret to success: have a great product. This is the only thing all great companies have in common.
Startup Playbook - Great Execution
Although it’s necessary to build a great product, you’re not done after that. You still have to turn it into a great company, and you have to do it yourself—the fantasy of hiring an “experienced manager” to do all this work is both extremely prevalent and a graveyard for failed companies. You cannot outsource the work to someone else for a long time.
Startup Playbook - Growth
Growth and momentum are the keys to great execution. Growth (as long as it is not “sell dollar bills for 90 cents” growth) solves all problems, and lack of growth is not solvable by anything but growth. If you’re growing, it feels like you’re winning, and people are happy. If you’re growing, there are new roles and responsibilities all the time, and people feel like their careers are advancing. If you’re not growing, it feels like you’re losing, and people are unhappy and leave. If you’re not growing, people just fight over responsibilities and blame.
Startup Playbook - Focus & Intensity
If I had to distill my advice about how to operate down to only two words, I’d pick focus and intensity. These words seem to really apply to the best founders I know.
Startup Playbook - Jobs of the CEO
Earlier I mentioned that the only universal job description of the CEO is to make sure the company wins. Although that’s true, I wanted to talk a little more specifically about how a CEO should spend his or her time.
Startup Playbook - Hiring & Managing
Hiring is one of your most important jobs and the key to building a great company (as opposed to a great product.)
Startup Playbook - Competitors
A quick word about competitors: competitors are a startup ghost story. First-time founders think they are what kill 99% of startups. But 99% of startups die from suicide, not murder. Worry instead about all of your internal problems. If you fail, it will very likely be because you failed to make a great product and/or failed to make a great company.
Startup Playbook - Making Money
Oh yes, making money. You need to figure out how to do that.
Startup Playbook - Fundraising
Most startups raise money at some point.
Startup Playbook - Closing Thought
Remember that at least a thousand people have every great idea. One of them actually becomes successful. The difference comes down to execution. It’s a grind, and everyone wishes there were some other way to transform “idea” into “success”, but no one has figured it out yet.