How do you start something from nothing?
Paul Graham’s essay is the long one, and it’s the core. The short pieces around it are the mindset before and after.
- Don’t Edit Your Imagination
Brian Chesky on how adults stop imagining things they can't yet see how to build, and why starting from an unedited imagination leads to bigger ideas.
- Projects and Companies
Altman argues you should think of a startup as a project for as long as possible, since low expectations free you to pursue slightly crazy ideas, the way Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Airbnb all began.
- Do Things that Don't Scale
Startups don't take off on their own; founders have to push them early by recruiting users by hand and delighting them in ways that would never work at scale.
- What I Wish Someone Had Told Me
Altman's 17 lessons on building things: optimism and obsession get them started, while cohesive teams, focused bets, and fast iteration get them finished.
- Do Too Much
Wang argues a leader sets the ceiling on how much a company cares, so leaders must overdo everything, as Scale did by moving most of its team to LLM data within six months.
Next path: Why do teams slow down as they grow?