Video yükleniyor...

Video Yüklenemedi

Ana Sayfaya Dön

Ben Horowitz explains the biggest mistake founders make pitching VCs “The big mistake people make is they try to appeal too much to the venture capitalists. That’ll drive us crazy because it’s a little bit of a sign of anti-courage.” Ben shares an example of being pitched by founders...

28,252 görüntüleme • 6 ay önce •via X (Twitter)

0 Yorum

Yorum bulunmuyor

Orijinal gönderinin yorumları burada görünecek

Benzer Videolar

Ben Horowitz (a16z co-founder) offers a contrarian view: the decisions that matter most are the ones you're only 52% sure about: "It takes courage to do what you don't know is the right decision." The moments that define leadership are the ones where the answer isn't obvious and the people around you are actively against you. "You think it's the right decision and then many people think it's the wrong decision. So they're not going to like you when you make the decision." That, Ben argues, is precisely where a leader earns their keep: "That's the point at which leaders add value. Because if you just do what people want, you're not actually adding anything. You know, they could run the company without you." A leader who only ratifies consensus is redundant. The organisation could function without them. benahorowitz.eth concedes this is harder than it sounds. "Courage is a tricky thing." He reaches for a line from boxing to explain what courage actually is. His favourite quote on the subject comes from Cus D'Amato, the trainer behind Floyd Patterson and Mike Tyson: "The difference between a hero and a coward isn't what they feel. They're both scared. It's what they do." Fear isn't the variable. Action is. And the fear doesn't go away once you're the one deciding: "You're not going to feel confident in making a decision that you think is 52% right and everybody else thinks is wrong. But that's what you have to do to be good at this job." Fifty-two per cent is a coin flip with a thumb on the scale, and that's the actual texture of the decisions that matter. Which leaves the question of how you survive being disliked. Ben's answer is a reframe of the timeline: "The thing you have to keep in mind is you want to be liked and respected in the long run, not the short run."

Big Brain Business

31,728 görüntüleme • 11 gün önce

a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz: “Don’t follow your passion” Ben gives this advice to the Columbia University class of 2015: “Don’t follow your passion. Now I know you’re probably thinking: ‘That’s a really dumb idea because if you poll 1,000 people who are successful, they’ll all say they love what they do. And so the broad conclusion of the world is that if you do what you love, then you’ll be successful.’ But we’re engineers, so we know that might be true. It also might be the case that if you’re successful, you love what you do — you just love being successful, everybody loves you, it’s awesome. So which one is it?” He continues: “The first tricky thing about passions is they’re hard to prioritize. Are you more passionate about math or engineering? Are you more passionate about history or literature? Are you more passionate about video games or K-pop? These are tough decisions. How do you even know? On the other hand, what are you good at? Are you better at math or writing? That’s a much easier thing to figure out. The second thing that’s tricky if you’re going forward in time with this ‘follow your passion’ idea is that what you’re passionate about at 21 is not necessarily what you’re going to be passionate about at 40. Now this is true for boyfriends, as well as career choices. The third issue with following your passion is that you’re not necessarily good at your passion. Has anybody ever watched American Idol? So you know what I’m talking about. Just because you love singing doesn’t mean you should be a professional singer. And then finally, and most importantly, following your passion is a very ‘me-centered’ view of the world. And when you go through life, what you’ll find is that what you take out of the world — money, cars, stuff, accolades — is much less important than what you put into the world. And so my recommendation would be to follow your contribution. Find the thing that you’re great at, put that into the world, contribute to others, help the world be better. That is the thing to follow.” Video source: a16z (2015)

Startup Archive

358,112 görüntüleme • 8 ay önce