- Determination is the most important trait for successful founders, even more important than intelligence or previous success in school.
- Funding the best hackers from prestigious universities does not guarantee success as startup founders.
- Understanding users and building a product with a great user experience is the second most important trait for success.

If I had to say the most important traits of the most successful founders, I've already mentioned determination.

That is by far the most important quality.

More than previous success, you know, in school.

I mean, remember when we started Y Combinator, our hypothesis was, oh, we'll just fund all the best hackers from MIT and Harvard and they'll turn out to be great startup founders That is not true.

That is absolutely not true A lot of them are are good.

And in fact Patrick was from MIT, but it's not true for the most part.

Determination is the most important thing.

Again, sort of understanding your users and building a product with a great user experience is second.


Speaker 0: If I had to say the most important traits of the most successful founders, I've already mentioned determination. That is by far the most important quality. More than intelligence. More than intelligence. More than previous success, you know, in school.

I mean, remember when we started Y Combinator, our hypothesis was, oh, we'll just fund all the best hackers from MIT and Harvard and they'll turn out to be great startup founders That is not true. That is absolutely not true A lot of them are are good. And in fact Patrick was from MIT, but it's not true for the most part. Determination is the most important thing. Again, sort of understanding your users and building a product with a great user experience is second.

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Determination is the most important trait for a startup founder.