How to Start a Startup is a series of video lectures, initially given at Stanford in Fall 2014 and formerly hosted on startupclass.samaltman.com. Videos (under Creative Commons) are below, and you can also check out the additional resources. This great resource has disappeared from the web some time in March 2025 and was resurrected by Stanislav Modrak using the Wayback Machine, YouTube and various GitHub repositories.
How to Start a Startup
Click on any of the videos below to watch.
Video descriptions include links to transcripts, readings, and discussion forum, in this side panel.
After you have clicked on a video, description and additional resources will appear.
Lecture 1 - How to Start a Startup (Sam Altman, Dustin Moskovitz)
Lecture 2 - Team and Execution (Sam Altman)
Lecture 3 - Before the Startup (Paul Graham)
Lecture 4 - Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing (Adora Cheung)
Lecture 5 - Competition is for Losers (Peter Thiel)
Lecture 6 - Growth (Alex Schultz)
Lecture 7 - How to Build Products Users Love (Kevin Hale)
Lecture 8 - How to Get Started, Doing Things that Don't Scale, Press
Lecture 9 - How to Raise Money (Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, Parker Conrad)
Lecture 10 - Culture (Brian Chesky, Alfred Lin)
Lecture 11 - Hiring and Culture, Part 2 (Patrick and John Collison, Ben Silbermann)
Lecture 12 - Building for the Enterprise (Aaron Levie)
Lecture 13 - How to be a Great Founder (Reid Hoffman)
Lecture 14 - How to Operate (Keith Rabois)
Lecture 15 - How to Manage (Ben Horowitz)
Lecture 16 - How to Run a User Interview (Emmett Shear)
Lecture 17 - How to Design Hardware Products (Hosain Rahman)
Lecture 18 - Legal and Accounting Basics for Startups (Kirsty Nathoo, Carolynn Levy)
Lecture 19 - Sales and Marketing; How to Talk to Investors (Tyler Bosmeny; YC Partners)
Lecture 20 - Later-stage Advice (Sam Altman)