“If you wanted to build an Internet startup in 2005, you had to buy you...” — Sam Altman Quote

If you wanted to build an Internet startup in 2005, you had to buy your own servers and hire someone to manage it. Now, that's unheard of.

There's this famous observation that I totally believe: Great startup ideas are the ones that lie in the intersection of the Venn diagram of 'is a good idea' and 'looks like a bad idea.' So you want most people to think it's a bad idea and thus not compete with you until you get giant. But for it to secretly be good.

People hate searching.

I get up late, have an espresso, and immediately start work. I try to get roughly caught up on email before I leave the house, then if I need to write anything or review a complex deal, I do that, and then I head to the office and work on my top few priorities for the day. I try to schedule my meetings in the afternoon.

When you hire a staff, there's probably half of the group that you have experience with and the other half you don't. The key is getting staff guys, team guys, that aren't independent operators, and I think that really goes for any side of the ball or special teams.

If the economy is still going forward, even at 40 miles an hour, 50 miles an hour, I think most people will stick with President Obama. I think people look at politics like they hire a plumber. I hire you to fix the bad pipe. If you fix it, I'll rehire you. If you don't fix it, I'm not going to rehire you.

I always sympathized with the people who did work for hire; I was one of them.

When I came out of high school, my objective in life was to get a job selling used cars, but after trying for two weeks, nobody would hire me.