"Ignore advice" is not good advice. Even for startups. There are so many predictable ways that founders screw up. I, personally, have committed most of them. A few of them I avoided, or stopped doing soon enough to survive, and often it was with the help of good advice. YC gives good advice: Talk to your users. Build something people want. Run lean. Those are all great for people starting out. There is a lot of knowledge much more specialized that, contained in the collective wisdom of startup operators and investors. The challenge is to vet your sources, know which advice applies to your situation, and how to implement it. Nobody can teach you how to be a good judge of character. And nobody knows your startup well enough to decide for you which advice and how. But we can all learn from others who have gone through the ringer, whether it's PG, Michael Seibel, Naval, Lemkin or others.