Nobody Cares About Your Idea
Altman: No matter how great your idea is — no one cares. Everybody else is so distracted that you could probably go put exact instructions for how to implement it on Tim Cook's desk and take no risk. It's probably a great idea. But everyone's really busy with their own things. Everyone has their own plans.
You can pick a few examples from history — like Steve Jobs walking into Xerox PARC where someone did get screwed for sharing their idea. But you really have to work to find them. It happens hundreds of thousands of times every day with nothing bad happening.
Put exact instructions on Tim Cook's desk. Take no risk. Everyone's too busy with their own things.
Extreme Secrecy Is a Bad Sign
Altman: One of the things we learned — extreme secrecy among founders is a bad sign. You want to keep something secret for sure. But you should be willing to talk about the broad sketches of what you're doing — because you need that to recruit people, get investors, get customers.
The big companies are distracted fighting each other. They're not going to come do your thing.
Extreme secrecy is a bad sign. You need to talk about it to recruit, fundraise, and sell.
YC Gives Away Everything. Nobody Listens.
Altman: At YC, we talk about everything we do. I've given talks to rooms of people who want to start accelerators — here is exactly what to do step by step, and here are the mistakes to avoid. People always say — are you crazy? You're giving away YC secrets.
And we are. Yet no one ever listens. There are 2,500 accelerators in the world. YC has 180% of the profits of all accelerators in the world. We tell people exactly what we do and how to do it. And people don't listen.
2,500 accelerators. YC has 180% of total profits. We tell everyone exactly what we do. Nobody listens.