I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

I mean, living in a country with a dead/non-existing startup scene. Bogged down by stupid irrelevant problems like lack of internet access, etc. Can a startup kick off in these conditions? (obviously moving to a better place after initial traction) or does it HAVE to take birth in a thriving startup hub?

I mean, living in a country with a dead/non-existing startup scene. Bogged down by stupid irrelevant problems like lack of internet access, etc. Can a startup kick off in these conditions? (obviously moving to a better place after initial traction) or does it HAVE to take birth in a thriving startup hub?

Here's why: The bottleneck in my project is just cutting my way through bad documentation -- all the rest, especially the crucial, core, secret sauce, original applied math, technical part along with typing in the code itself and getting it into good shape, has been fast, fun, and easy.

A co-founder might be able to get Windows Server 2012 and SQL Server Enterprise Edition or some such installed and running quickly while I would have to do all the mud wrestling with wildly obscure and inaccurate documentation.

Okay, but I really should, as is commonly said, know my business and, thus, should get SQL Server running myself, take notes, etc.

And when I have good revenue, I will just call for paid support and get a tutorial, explanations for each step, corrections when the steps don't work, take notes again, etc. -- still no co-founder needed.

But, again as founder and 100% owner, I need to "know my business". So, no matter how obscure the Microsoft documentation is for, e.g., how to get a connection string for SQL Server (took a week of mud wrestling, in the dark -- with clear and correct documentation I could easily have done it in 10 minutes), it's just work -- mud wrestling in the dark with alligators and poisonous snakes while being treated to a barbed wire enema and an unanesthesized upper molar root canal procedure while being poked two dozen times with a red hot branding iron -- I have to do.

For a prototype or using lean development methodology, no thanks: I just wrote the darned code, wrote it as fully solid, production quality code, at least according to common standards for such code. I tested it, timed it, documented it. I was in a team at IBM that shipped IBM Program Product code (IBM's highest quality software category), and the code I've written for my startup looks as good as Program Product code to me. And I documented the heck out of the code because I know that if my startup works and becomes a big thing, then I will have to return to some parts of the code to put in tweaks for high scalability, e.g., for Web user session state, for a positive integer n, partition all the possible session state keys, each a GUID, into n partitions, have one session state server for each partition, and, then, in the server side code of a Web page, given a key, do a fast lookup to find the IP address of the session state server for that key -- simple code tweak, but, still, I want the code to be tweaked very well documented.

Net, for the crucial, core work, I don't want to delegate it. So, no need for a co-founder. So, no risk of any co-founder disputes. So, get rid of one of the worst risks for a startup.

If my startup works, then I will start to hire but not any co-founders. Instead, the first hire will be an office manager! She, likely a woman with a lot of social maturity and general business experience, will do the first interface to the phones, mail, e-mail, bookkeepers, accountants, lawyers, landlords, bank account, credit cards, expense accounts, the advertisers, billing, depositing checks, paying bills, record keeping, etc.

As that job grows, she can hire assistants. Eventually her work will be that of the COO, CFO, and HR. She would be a candidate for one of those slots or just remain as my assistant or something else.

Some of my work will become that of the CTO, e.g., run the server farm.

And in time I will want a staff, e.g., to come up with ideas, study issues, propose solutions, present their work in papers and talks, etc.

During the initial growth, I will be able to manage all that work because early on I will have done the first, small, beginning cases of all of it so know at least the first parts.

But, during the growth, no one hire, if they left, could sink the company. The only key person in the company will be me.

So, grow? Yes. Hire? Yes. Co-founder? No. E.g., I helped start FedEx, was right there, my office next to COB, CEO Fred Smith's. I saw a lot of how he did it and saved his company twice. He had no co-founder.

This stuff about co-founders looks like something equity investors want: It appears that they want (1) a ready source of a new CEO if they don't like the current CEO, (2) want the power of a solo founder as the unique, key player diluted, and (3) want to be able to have more control over the company via divide and conquer among the co-founders. No thanks.

The whole startup equity funding situation looks like very fishy business to me: So, clearly the way it works, nearly always, is, I do all the work to go from nothing to a product or service, with users or customers and revenue, and then someone with a term sheet and a checkbook might write me an equity check.

But, as a solo founder, it won't take much revenue to make my little sole proprietorship profitable, a life style business. E.g., at current ad rates, keeping a $2000 server at my left knee busy sending Web pages can get me by far the nicest income of my life.

Then, if the business is good, that is, lots of people on the Internet like my work, I'll have plenty of cash for organic growth without equity funding. If my business is not good, then I don't deserve equity funding anyway.

Basically as a solo founder, I can't get equity funding until after I don't need it.

But, I shouldn't much complain: US Main Street businesses, e.g., auto repair, restaurants, convenience stores, print shops, plumbers, electricians, HVAC companies, etc. don't get equity funding, and my information technology startup needs much less capex to start and opex to run than any of those Main Street businesses.

So, what startups get offered and take equity funding? Maybe a promising startup with four founders, each with a maxed out credit card and a pregnant wife? I only have a debit card, no credit cards. I don't have a pregnant wife, don't even have a wife. So, maybe I'm seeing more reason to be a solo founder.

> The more progress you make on the business, the easier it will be to get a great cofounder.

Yes, and the less I will need a co-founder!