<i>Knowing the business. If we ask a bunch of questions and they have the answers at their fingertips because they understand the domain really well, that's a good sign.</i><p>An old boss of mine is a design judge for a student engineering competition. Often times he will ask a team for a specific piece of information about their project, only to have the team pull out a giant binder and start shuffling through looking for the answer. At this point he tells them "If I ask you to tell me your girlfriends phone number and you pull out your phone book and start searching for it, you're probably not in love"<p>I think the same sentiment applies here
It's nice and concise.<p>> If you imagine someone with 100 percent determination and 100 percent intelligence, you can discard a lot of intelligence before they stop succeeding.<p>How much? What percentage lobotomy are we talking about?<p>I totally agree btw: provided you are focussed on meeting a need ("make something <i>people want</i>"), and are willing to iterate trial-and-error (that's the determination part), massive intelligence isn't required: the inside of your software doesn't need to be great; and it doesn't need to implemen some fundamentally new technology; it's what it <i>does</i> that counts.<p>> Or when Google started, there were eight to 10 successful established search engines already...<p>I read a great interview (maybe a co-founder of tripod...?) who went through the evolution of search engines over a decade, each time saying that it was too late to enter the field, and playfully finishing with "[of course, now with google, it really is too late]". I've searched and searched for this but can't find it - anyone recognize it?
Interesting article that I think most of the people who apply to YC already understand (Hopefully)<p>As someone who does not have a co-founder and has now applied for the second time I have decided I am moving to the bay area in June whether I get into YC or not and I am either going to find a co-founder to continue with or go to work at another startup while retaining my rights to the work on this project until I meet some more interesting people interested in working long hours for low pay and having lots of fun while doing it.<p>I cant imagine my life any other way but in a culture where I am creating every day, life is just not the same for me otherwise and working a 9 to 5 like my parents did when i was growing up has never been an option as far as I am concerned.
To be concise is more indicative of mastery rather than proficiency. You can understand something very well and be able to navigate your way through your own domain of expertise at whim. But if you can do that AND also communicate your domain to those for whom your domain is horribly foreign then you've demonstrated that you've not merely mastered the domain but that you have a grasp on a more foundational framework that translates to virtually limitless perspectives.<p>Proficiency is to navigate your world, Mastery is to successfully guide a complete alien through that world and have them see it, even if just dimmly, with the eyes of a native.
To put it concisely :)<p>A demonstration of empathy that translates to real communication with the particular lay person you are engaging with regard to your domain of expertise shows mastery rather than mere proficiency.
> What do you look for?
Determination. When we started, we thought we were looking for smart people, but it turned out that intelligence was not as important as we expected. If you imagine someone with 100 percent determination and 100 percent intelligence, you can discard a lot of intelligence before they stop succeeding. But if you start discarding determination, you very quickly get an ineffectual and perpetual grad student.<p>This is awesome.
a great related article at Wired: <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/what-is-success-true-grit/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/what-is-success-tr...</a>
what PG calls determination I think Wired (quoting Angela Duckworth) calls "grit"
When an entrepreneur is determined and passionate they will find a way to succeed. Without both of those, the "intelligent" individual will just move on to another idea or company.