When I think about unique insight, what I think about is here's your opportunity to tell me something that I don't know.
The first thing I learned is that campaigns are about money. I had this romantic idea that campaigns were about law and debates and so forth, which is just not true. It's about money.
One of the things that's so interesting when talking to minority founders specifically is that there is really a knowledge gap in understanding what the risk-reward profile is for doing a startup.
It's fairly common knowledge that a startup can't execute on two products simultaneously.
Increase your company's average talent with each hire - founders tend to be pretty smart but willing to take on risk. Employees should be a lot smarter and less risk averse.
Academically, I think things kicked off pretty late for me. I was kind of one of those kids who was in half honors, half regular. I was like a history/science kid, which was always weird. Around tenth grade or eleventh grade, everything started coming together.
A lot of times when you're an investor, it's very easy to lean back and say, 'Well, people should come to me in Silicon Valley.' YC has the opposite opinion.
People think they need to hire someone to do their PR, but 99 percent of PR in the early stages is stuff you can do yourself. It's just like business development - there's the warm-up intro, followup to build relationships, then add something of value.
For me, iPad 2 and tablets in general are really exciting from a front-facing camera perspective, making those short video clips where you're talking about where you are or what you're interested in, and your face fills up the entire screen.
Convince the investor that you guys are moving fast and that this isn't some long slog... you're thinking about it like a startup where you can move fast and make mistakes.
One of the most fun and interesting things about YC is that we are kind of a startup ourselves. We are constantly changing and evolving what we do.