Brief startup advice from Sam Altman, David Goggins on not feeling sorry for yourself, and a CIA culture manual on how to sabotage your organization

Welcome back to the Z Fellows newsletter! Every Monday we share 3 ideas - to help you build companies, ship products, and create your life's work.

1: Brief startup advice from Sam Altman

• You should start with an idea, not a company.

• The best startup ideas are the ones that seem like bad ideas but are good ideas.

• Once you’ve shifted from “interesting project” to “company” mode, be decisive and act quickly.

• Become formidable. Also become tough—the road ahead is going to be painful and make you doubt yourself many, many times.

• Learn to ask for what you want.

• Eventually, the company needs to evolve to become a mission that everyone, but especially the founders, are exceptionally dedicated to.

• Focus intensely on the things that do matter.

• Do what it takes and don’t make up excuses.

• Work really hard. Everyone wants a secret to success other than this; if it exists, I haven’t found it yet.

• Keep doing this for 10 years.

Source: https://blog.samaltman.com/startup-advice-briefly

2: David Goggins on not feeling sorry for yourself

“Every minute you spend feeling sorry for yourself is another minute not getting better, another morning you miss at the gym, another evening wasted without studying. Another day burned when you didn’t make any progress toward your dreams, ambitions, and deepest desires. The ones you’ve had in your head and heart your entire life.

Your willingness to succeed builds self-esteem. It broadens your concept of your own capability, yet it is the first thing we lose touch with when things go bad. After that, giving up often feels like the sanest option, and maybe it is, but know that quitting chips away at your self-worth and always requires some level of mental rehab.”

Source: Never Finished by David Goggins

3: The CIA culture manual on how to sabotage an organization

Here’s what you should avoid as you scale your company - because that’s what CIA does to sabotage organizations. In short, don’t:

• Talk as frequently as possible and at great length

• Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible

• Haggle over precise wordings

• Inflate the size of your committees

• Advocate “caution” for the sake of being reasonable

Best of The Week

See you next Monday,

- The Z Fellows Team

New here?

Subscribe here to get our email every Monday.