Lecture 1 - How to Start a Startup (Sam Altman, Dustin Moskovitz)
Y Combinator
Opening lecture of Stanford's CS183B course, in which Sam Altman and Dustin Moskovitz cover why to start a company, choosing an idea and market, building a product people want, and assembling an early team.
More resources on Entrepreneurial Leadership
Paul Graham Essays
Complete archive of Paul Graham's writing, including the essays on founder mode, doing things that don't scale, and startup ideas that shaped Y Combinator's advice. Argumentative rather than instructional, useful for forming judgment about early-stage decisions.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Brutally honest Silicon Valley veteran's guide to navigating startup challenges including layoffs, demotions, firing friends, and managing crises.
hbr.org
Harvard Business Review (hbr.org) offers research-based articles, case studies, and practical guidance on leadership, strategy, and organizational performance for managers and executives.
Y Combinator Startup Library
Y Combinator's searchable archive of essays, talks and videos from partners and founders, filterable by topic such as hiring, fundraising and management. Useful for finding first-hand accounts of specific operating problems rather than general leadership theory.
Elad Gil's Blog
Posts by the operator and investor behind High Growth Handbook on scaling companies past product-market fit: hiring executives, managing rapid headcount growth, board dynamics, and the founder's changing job as the organisation gets larger.
Harvard Business Review - Leadership
Harvard Business Review's leadership topic page, collecting articles, essays and podcasts by researchers and executives on managing teams, influence, decision-making and organizational change. Readers can follow current management research and apply it to their own practice; many articles sit behind a metered paywall.