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Brian Armstrong says Coinbase started an internal venture bets program so great ideas—and great people—don’t walk out the door: “We have something internally called Next Bets. Twice a year, we have a panel where anybody in the company can come in and pitch and say, ‘I think we should... be building this.’” “My fear was from reading things about Steve Wozniak at Hewlett-Packard. He famously went to HP and said, ‘I think we should build a personal computer.’ They said no, and he left to found Apple.” “The panel—there are different product group leaders who each have their own budget. They can decide to fund it out of their own budget.” “If you get any one of them to decide they want to fund it, you’re greenlit. It’s kind of like coming in and pitching an internal set of venture capitalists.” “The Next Bets are typically very small teams—like two or three people—with small amounts, but they’re really crazy, high-potential ideas where it’s okay if they don’t work, but the ones that do could be really massive.” “USDC came out of that. The Base blockchain came out of that. There’s a really cool one we’ll probably announce in a couple weeks.” Brian Armstrong with Ti Morse on Relentlessshow more

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We asked Brian Armstrong what it's like to incubate Base at Coinbase 🛡️. "The secret to this is to allocate budget to these venture bets, which are small teams within the co, kind of like Y Combinator teams." "75% of these bets won't work out, but once in a while, something hits and it pays for all the rest of the bets." "For Base, jesse.base.eth told me he wanted to work on a new chain. I was like, take a small team, go run at it. I shielded it from the rest of the org and just gave them time to cook." "I also actually voted no on USDC. Now that's like $1B of revenue for us."

We asked Brian Armstrong what it's like to incubate Base at Coinbase 🛡️. "The secret to this is to allocate budget to these venture bets, which are small teams within the co, kind of like Y Combinator teams." "75% of these bets won't work out, but once in a while, something hits and it pays for all the rest of the bets." "For Base, jesse.base.eth told me he wanted to work on a new chain. I was like, take a small team, go run at it. I shielded it from the rest of the org and just gave them time to cook." "I also actually voted no on USDC. Now that's like $1B of revenue for us."

TBPN

61,939 views • 1 year ago

Steve Jobs on how to build a great brand After re-joining Apple in 1996, Steve Jobs announced the “Think different” campaign with the following statement: “To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated and noisy world. We’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.” He cites Nike as one of the greatest jobs of marketing the universe has ever seen: “Remember, Nike sells a commodity—they sell shoes! And yet when you think of Nike, you feel something different than a shoe company. In their ads, they don’t ever talk about the product. They don’t ever tell you about their air soles and why they are better than Reebok’s air soles. What does Nike do in their advertising? They honor great athletes, and they honor great athletics. That’s who they are, that’s what they are about.” Marketing guru Seth Godin also used Nike as an example of great branding in a blog post a few years ago: “If Nike announced that they were opening a hotel, you’d have a pretty good guess about what it would be like. But if Hyatt announced that they were going to start making shoes, you would have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what those shoes would be like. That’s because Nike owns a brand and Hyatt simply owns real estate.” Jobs goes on to explain how the Apple team arrived at the “Think Different” campaign: “Our customers want to know who is Apple and what is it that we stand for. Where do we fit in this world? What we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done—although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody, in some cases. But Apple is about something more than that. Apple at the core—its core value—is that we believe people with passion can change the world for the better… And that those people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who actually do.” He continues: “And so, what we’re going to do in our first brand marketing campaign in several years is to get back to that core value. A lot of things have changed. The market is in a totally different place than it was a decade ago, and Apple is totally different… the products and the distribution strategy and the manufacturing are totally different. And we understand that. But values and core values—those things shouldn’t change. The things that Apple believed in, at its core, are the same things that Apple really stands for today.” Apple’s “Think Different” campaign was designed to honor those people who have changed the world. And as Jobs so eloquently put it: “Some of them are living. Some of them are not. But the ones that aren’t, you’ll know that if they ever used a computer, it would’ve been a Mac. The theme of the campaign is ‘Think Different.’ It’s honoring the people who think different and who move this world forward. And it is what we are about. It touches the soul of this company.” If you’re looking to create a great brand, I’d start out by asking: what are your core values and what does your company honor?

Startup Archive

338,071 views • 2 years ago

🚨President Trump announced that there might be a high-level meeting with Zelenskyy as early as this weekend, but didn’t specify if he would participate, and once again reiterated that UA should hold elections right now (note: it’s against the constitution to hold elections during the martial law, also it’s simply not safe, and UA society is widely opposed to the idea). TRUMP: “They would like us to go to a meeting over the weekend, in Europe, and we’ll make a determination depending on what they come back with. We don’t wanna be wasting time. Sometimes you have to let people fight it out, and sometimes you don’t. But the problem with letting people fight it out is you’re losing thousands of people a week. It’s ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous.” Q: “And when you say that the European leaders want to have a meeting over the weekend, are you talking about with Zelenskyy or with them?” TRUMP: “With Zelenskyy and us.” Q: “And you said in an interview yesterday that you think it’s time for Zelenskyy to start accepting things. What things are you talking about?” TRUMP: “Well, I think he has to be realistic. And I do wonder about how long is it gonna be till they have an election. You know, for a democracy, it’s a long time. They haven’t had an election in a long time. There was a poll that came out, 82% of the people are demanding a settlement be made, Ukrainian people. They wanna see a settlement be made. I understand that. They’re losing thousands and thousands of people a week. They wanna see it ended. And I do say at what point, when do they have an election in Ukraine? That’s not casting aspersions on anybody, but they do have a massive corruption situation going on there… People are asking this question, ‘When do they have an election?’ Are they gonna have an election, or are they gonna just keep it going like this? So, I think it’s time to get that war settled, and I think it’s a war that can be settled. But it takes two to tango.”

🚨President Trump announced that there might be a high-level meeting with Zelenskyy as early as this weekend, but didn’t specify if he would participate, and once again reiterated that UA should hold elections right now (note: it’s against the constitution to hold elections during the martial law, also it’s simply not safe, and UA society is widely opposed to the idea). TRUMP: “They would like us to go to a meeting over the weekend, in Europe, and we’ll make a determination depending on what they come back with. We don’t wanna be wasting time. Sometimes you have to let people fight it out, and sometimes you don’t. But the problem with letting people fight it out is you’re losing thousands of people a week. It’s ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous.” Q: “And when you say that the European leaders want to have a meeting over the weekend, are you talking about with Zelenskyy or with them?” TRUMP: “With Zelenskyy and us.” Q: “And you said in an interview yesterday that you think it’s time for Zelenskyy to start accepting things. What things are you talking about?” TRUMP: “Well, I think he has to be realistic. And I do wonder about how long is it gonna be till they have an election. You know, for a democracy, it’s a long time. They haven’t had an election in a long time. There was a poll that came out, 82% of the people are demanding a settlement be made, Ukrainian people. They wanna see a settlement be made. I understand that. They’re losing thousands and thousands of people a week. They wanna see it ended. And I do say at what point, when do they have an election in Ukraine? That’s not casting aspersions on anybody, but they do have a massive corruption situation going on there… People are asking this question, ‘When do they have an election?’ Are they gonna have an election, or are they gonna just keep it going like this? So, I think it’s time to get that war settled, and I think it’s a war that can be settled. But it takes two to tango.”

Kateryna Lisunova

10,801 views • 7 months ago

More from Trump and Qatar gift: "I think this is just a gesture of good-faith." "It'll go to my library... I thought it was a great gesture." He says he would NOT use the plane himself after leaving office. It would basically sit in his library. "I think what happens with the plane is that, you know, we're very disappointed that it's taking Boeing so long to build a new Air Force One. You know, we have an Air Force One that's 40 years old. And if you take a look at that compared to the new plane of the equivalent, you know, stature at the time, it's not even the same ballgame. You look at some of the Arab countries and the planes they have parked alongside of the United States of America plane, it's like from a different planet." "When I came back, I said, by the way, what's going on with the Boeings that are coming in? 'Well, sir, they're way behind.' And they are way behind." "I think Qatar, who has really, we've helped them a lot over the years in terms of security and safety. I think they, and very, very nicely, and I have a lot of respect for the leadership and for the leader, Qatar. And I think they knew about it because they buy Boeings, they buy a lot of Boeings. And they knew about it and they said 'we would like to do something,' and if we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department to use during a couple of years while they're building the other ones - I think that was a very nice gesture." "Now, I could be a stupid person and say, oh, no, we don't want a free plane. We give free things out. We'll take one, too. And it helps us out because, again, we're talking about we have 40-year-old aircraft. The money we spend, the maintenance we spend on those planes to keep them tippy-top is astronomical."

More from Trump and Qatar gift: "I think this is just a gesture of good-faith." "It'll go to my library... I thought it was a great gesture." He says he would NOT use the plane himself after leaving office. It would basically sit in his library. "I think what happens with the plane is that, you know, we're very disappointed that it's taking Boeing so long to build a new Air Force One. You know, we have an Air Force One that's 40 years old. And if you take a look at that compared to the new plane of the equivalent, you know, stature at the time, it's not even the same ballgame. You look at some of the Arab countries and the planes they have parked alongside of the United States of America plane, it's like from a different planet." "When I came back, I said, by the way, what's going on with the Boeings that are coming in? 'Well, sir, they're way behind.' And they are way behind." "I think Qatar, who has really, we've helped them a lot over the years in terms of security and safety. I think they, and very, very nicely, and I have a lot of respect for the leadership and for the leader, Qatar. And I think they knew about it because they buy Boeings, they buy a lot of Boeings. And they knew about it and they said 'we would like to do something,' and if we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department to use during a couple of years while they're building the other ones - I think that was a very nice gesture." "Now, I could be a stupid person and say, oh, no, we don't want a free plane. We give free things out. We'll take one, too. And it helps us out because, again, we're talking about we have 40-year-old aircraft. The money we spend, the maintenance we spend on those planes to keep them tippy-top is astronomical."

Open Source Intel

118,783 views • 1 year ago

ELON: THE PEOPLE SHOULD DECIDE WHAT'S IMPORTANT, NOT A HANDFUL OF EDITORS "I don't think there should be a gatekeeping function by a small number of individuals. For newspapers in America, there are about five editors that decide what gets put on the front page, or what to focus on, or what not to focus on. And most of the other papers just copy them, essentially. But is that really what we want? Do we want a handful of people deciding what they think is important? Or should it be the people who decide what's important? And I think it should be sort of an organic thing, where the people decide what's important and what to focus on, not just a handful of editors. They don't like the fact that this power has been taken away from them. But I think it should be." Source: European Jewish Association, January 2024

ELON: THE PEOPLE SHOULD DECIDE WHAT'S IMPORTANT, NOT A HANDFUL OF EDITORS "I don't think there should be a gatekeeping function by a small number of individuals. For newspapers in America, there are about five editors that decide what gets put on the front page, or what to focus on, or what not to focus on. And most of the other papers just copy them, essentially. But is that really what we want? Do we want a handful of people deciding what they think is important? Or should it be the people who decide what's important? And I think it should be sort of an organic thing, where the people decide what's important and what to focus on, not just a handful of editors. They don't like the fact that this power has been taken away from them. But I think it should be." Source: European Jewish Association, January 2024

Mario Nawfal

12,668,082 views • 1 year ago

President Trump: “CNN, fake news.” CNN’s Kristen Holmes: “Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz, or is that now a top priority?” Trump: “I would say it’s a very big priority because you see that’s — that’s one thing that’s a little different than other things. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the Strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with. Because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine, drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own ships that cost $1 billion to don’t worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying, we put mines in the water. So, it’s not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We’ve knocked out their navy, we’ve knocked out their air force completely. We knocked out 158 ships in three days. We’ve knocked out even their mine droppers. They don’t have any mind droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I’m not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I’m not sure. I’m — personally, they say there might be a — I don’t know, I don’t know, I think there might be none because they’re very good bullshit artists. That’s why, for 47 years, they’ve been bullshitting other presidents and they haven’t done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They’re living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They’re at the weakest point they’ve ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can’t communicate. I said to Steve, what are they saying? Sir, they can’t communicate. They have no method of communication. So we’re doing we’re communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children, bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world, and you’re not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone, the Middle East will be gone, and then they’re coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I’m very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO, I think it’s a mark on NATO that will never disappear, never disappear in my mind. You know, they’re coming to see me on Wednesday. They’re going to say, oh, we’ll do this. We’ll do that. Now they all of a sudden want to send things, you know. But they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to U.K., of all I would have said, they would have been the first because they’ve been there, the oldest. And I say, yeah, I’d love to have a little help. I said, no sir, we’d rather wait till you win. I said, I don’t need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers. Barely work. I said, I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows? I called the general. He didn’t even want them. He said, we don’t really need them. We got. We got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don’t need them. You know, we have in terms of technology, we had one day, 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln, 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. Ten years ago, five years ago. I don’t know if that would have been possible, but ten years ago, that wouldn’t have been that wouldn’t have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that’s not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry. That’s unbelievable.”

President Trump: “CNN, fake news.” CNN’s Kristen Holmes: “Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz, or is that now a top priority?” Trump: “I would say it’s a very big priority because you see that’s — that’s one thing that’s a little different than other things. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the Strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with. Because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine, drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own ships that cost $1 billion to don’t worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying, we put mines in the water. So, it’s not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We’ve knocked out their navy, we’ve knocked out their air force completely. We knocked out 158 ships in three days. We’ve knocked out even their mine droppers. They don’t have any mind droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I’m not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I’m not sure. I’m — personally, they say there might be a — I don’t know, I don’t know, I think there might be none because they’re very good bullshit artists. That’s why, for 47 years, they’ve been bullshitting other presidents and they haven’t done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They’re living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They’re at the weakest point they’ve ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can’t communicate. I said to Steve, what are they saying? Sir, they can’t communicate. They have no method of communication. So we’re doing we’re communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children, bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world, and you’re not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone, the Middle East will be gone, and then they’re coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I’m very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO, I think it’s a mark on NATO that will never disappear, never disappear in my mind. You know, they’re coming to see me on Wednesday. They’re going to say, oh, we’ll do this. We’ll do that. Now they all of a sudden want to send things, you know. But they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to U.K., of all I would have said, they would have been the first because they’ve been there, the oldest. And I say, yeah, I’d love to have a little help. I said, no sir, we’d rather wait till you win. I said, I don’t need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers. Barely work. I said, I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows? I called the general. He didn’t even want them. He said, we don’t really need them. We got. We got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don’t need them. You know, we have in terms of technology, we had one day, 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln, 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. Ten years ago, five years ago. I don’t know if that would have been possible, but ten years ago, that wouldn’t have been that wouldn’t have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that’s not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry. That’s unbelievable.”

Curtis Houck

1,169,375 views • 3 months ago

Brian Armstrong tells the founding story of Coinbase: “Nothing was working” After quitting his job in 2012 and joining Y Combinator to build Coinbase, Brian faced setback after setback: “I was struggling to find anybody who would join my team and work with me... I almost cofounded it with one person and that all exploded in dramatic fashion… I finally found the right cofounder, Fred Erhsam, we got off to the races, and someone sued us three months later.” But as Brian explains, this is the norm for startups: “Startups are moving from one setback to the next with enthusiasm… nothing is working, and that’s kind of the default state… If it feels like that, just don’t give up. That’s the main thing. A lot of times I’ve seen people: they have an idea, they have a team that comes together, it doesn’t work, and four months they have a big cofounder fight, blow up, and they all go home… And it’s like, well, you didn’t really try it because there’s no idea that works on the first try.” He continues: “You have to put something out there, and then grind it out for two or three years. Talk to your customers, improve the product, talk to your customers, improve the product… If you look at almost every successful startup, it feels like it was an overnight success, but really that’s just how history gets written in hindsight. If you talk to most of those founders in the early days, there was a period where any reasonable person would have quit. Nothing was working… And all of them somehow persevered and pushed through and finally found something that started to work.” This was especially true for Coinbase. There was no way to buy and sell crypto in the first version. A couple hundred people signed up after Brian posted it on Reddit, and they all left. After emailing five of the people who signed up and churned, he realized some people liked the app but couldn’t use it because they didn’t have Bitcoin: “I remember this light bubble that went off in my head, and I was like, well if there was a simple way to buy [Bitcoin] in the app, would you have done it? He’s like, yeah, probably. And so I hung up and the next few months I had to start thinking about how do we build a simple buy button? And there were a million things that had to go into that: bank partners, legal, licensing, and all this kind of stuff. But that’s when we finally got product/market fit. And that was just one example of hundreds of times where I did that. And I was trying to find something that works… So talk to your customers, improve the product. That’s all we did. And that was one of the things I would recommend.” Video source: a16z crypto (2023)

Brian Armstrong tells the founding story of Coinbase: “Nothing was working” After quitting his job in 2012 and joining Y Combinator to build Coinbase, Brian faced setback after setback: “I was struggling to find anybody who would join my team and work with me... I almost cofounded it with one person and that all exploded in dramatic fashion… I finally found the right cofounder, Fred Erhsam, we got off to the races, and someone sued us three months later.” But as Brian explains, this is the norm for startups: “Startups are moving from one setback to the next with enthusiasm… nothing is working, and that’s kind of the default state… If it feels like that, just don’t give up. That’s the main thing. A lot of times I’ve seen people: they have an idea, they have a team that comes together, it doesn’t work, and four months they have a big cofounder fight, blow up, and they all go home… And it’s like, well, you didn’t really try it because there’s no idea that works on the first try.” He continues: “You have to put something out there, and then grind it out for two or three years. Talk to your customers, improve the product, talk to your customers, improve the product… If you look at almost every successful startup, it feels like it was an overnight success, but really that’s just how history gets written in hindsight. If you talk to most of those founders in the early days, there was a period where any reasonable person would have quit. Nothing was working… And all of them somehow persevered and pushed through and finally found something that started to work.” This was especially true for Coinbase. There was no way to buy and sell crypto in the first version. A couple hundred people signed up after Brian posted it on Reddit, and they all left. After emailing five of the people who signed up and churned, he realized some people liked the app but couldn’t use it because they didn’t have Bitcoin: “I remember this light bubble that went off in my head, and I was like, well if there was a simple way to buy [Bitcoin] in the app, would you have done it? He’s like, yeah, probably. And so I hung up and the next few months I had to start thinking about how do we build a simple buy button? And there were a million things that had to go into that: bank partners, legal, licensing, and all this kind of stuff. But that’s when we finally got product/market fit. And that was just one example of hundreds of times where I did that. And I was trying to find something that works… So talk to your customers, improve the product. That’s all we did. And that was one of the things I would recommend.” Video source: a16z crypto (2023)

Startup Archive

141,137 views • 8 months ago

Sam Altman: “The good founders are people who have ideas all the time” “You can give a founder an idea and they can start a company. The problem is they need to come up with new ideas for the company basically every week. You have to come up with crazy new ideas and big changes all the time.” When Sam was at Y Combinator, they tried an experiment where they funded 20 teams of strong founders that didn’t have ideas but were otherwise really good. They all failed. “What we learned is that the good founders are people who have ideas all the time. There’s an intelligence component to this. There’s a creativity component to this. There’s an ability to think independent thoughts component to this. But whatever you want to call this - this particular kind of intelligence that leads to seeing problems in different ways and thinking of ideas that don’t yet exist but should - you’ve got to have that in a founder.” Video source: Y Combinator

Sam Altman: “The good founders are people who have ideas all the time” “You can give a founder an idea and they can start a company. The problem is they need to come up with new ideas for the company basically every week. You have to come up with crazy new ideas and big changes all the time.” When Sam was at Y Combinator, they tried an experiment where they funded 20 teams of strong founders that didn’t have ideas but were otherwise really good. They all failed. “What we learned is that the good founders are people who have ideas all the time. There’s an intelligence component to this. There’s a creativity component to this. There’s an ability to think independent thoughts component to this. But whatever you want to call this - this particular kind of intelligence that leads to seeing problems in different ways and thinking of ideas that don’t yet exist but should - you’ve got to have that in a founder.” Video source: Y Combinator

Startup Archive

133,596 views • 1 year ago

Sam Altman: “The good founders are people who have ideas all the time” “You can give a founder an idea and they can start a company. The problem is they need to come up with new ideas for the company basically every week. You have to come up with crazy new ideas and big changes all the time.” When Sam was at Y Combinator, they tried an experiment where they funded 20 teams of strong founders that didn’t have ideas but were otherwise really good. They all failed. “What we learned is that the good founders are people who have ideas all the time. There’s an intelligence component to this. There’s a creativity component to this. There’s an ability to think independent thoughts component to this. But whatever you want to call this - this particular kind of intelligence that leads to seeing problems in different ways and thinking of ideas that don’t yet exist but should - you’ve got to have that in a founder.” Video source: Y Combinator (2018)

Sam Altman: “The good founders are people who have ideas all the time” “You can give a founder an idea and they can start a company. The problem is they need to come up with new ideas for the company basically every week. You have to come up with crazy new ideas and big changes all the time.” When Sam was at Y Combinator, they tried an experiment where they funded 20 teams of strong founders that didn’t have ideas but were otherwise really good. They all failed. “What we learned is that the good founders are people who have ideas all the time. There’s an intelligence component to this. There’s a creativity component to this. There’s an ability to think independent thoughts component to this. But whatever you want to call this - this particular kind of intelligence that leads to seeing problems in different ways and thinking of ideas that don’t yet exist but should - you’ve got to have that in a founder.” Video source: Y Combinator (2018)

Startup Archive

93,460 views • 1 year ago

Naval Ravikant’s checklist for starting a company “The most important thing is there are no formulas. At the end of the day, you have to do what you love, and you have to do it even though people tell you it’ll never work. But that being said, if there was a formula [for starting a company], I would put it something like this.” Naval started seven companies before AngelList and this is the checklist he recommends running through before starting a startup: 1. Pick a great cofounder. This is most important: “You can do a company on your own, but it’s like you can raise a child on your own, but you probably shouldn’t. You need someone who’s going to be there with you.” This has it’s own checklist. Your cofounder should be: a. Very high intelligence (”hopefully they make you feel dumb, or they’re not smart enough”) b. Very high energy (”They should be extremely hardworking. A founder is someone who never has to be motivated. You should not have to be telling them to do their job.”) c. Very high integrity. (”a smart, hardworking crook who’s going to cheat you is the worst kind of person to be paired up with.”) 2. Pick a very large market. “Notice I don’t talk about the idea. I think ideas are almost irrelevant… The more important thing is that you pick a large space that you’re knowledgeable and passionate about. And then you will figure out what the right thing to do within that space is.” You want to be able to say to investors: “This is a space where there’s a huge market. I’m really knowledgeable and passionate about it. Here’s the great person that I have doing it with me. And here’s the minimum viable product that we have built. That will show that we can test in the marketplace… You iterate until you get to product/market fit… And then you go and you raise money from people you trust. And you use that money to scale.”

Naval Ravikant’s checklist for starting a company “The most important thing is there are no formulas. At the end of the day, you have to do what you love, and you have to do it even though people tell you it’ll never work. But that being said, if there was a formula [for starting a company], I would put it something like this.” Naval started seven companies before AngelList and this is the checklist he recommends running through before starting a startup: 1. Pick a great cofounder. This is most important: “You can do a company on your own, but it’s like you can raise a child on your own, but you probably shouldn’t. You need someone who’s going to be there with you.” This has it’s own checklist. Your cofounder should be: a. Very high intelligence (”hopefully they make you feel dumb, or they’re not smart enough”) b. Very high energy (”They should be extremely hardworking. A founder is someone who never has to be motivated. You should not have to be telling them to do their job.”) c. Very high integrity. (”a smart, hardworking crook who’s going to cheat you is the worst kind of person to be paired up with.”) 2. Pick a very large market. “Notice I don’t talk about the idea. I think ideas are almost irrelevant… The more important thing is that you pick a large space that you’re knowledgeable and passionate about. And then you will figure out what the right thing to do within that space is.” You want to be able to say to investors: “This is a space where there’s a huge market. I’m really knowledgeable and passionate about it. Here’s the great person that I have doing it with me. And here’s the minimum viable product that we have built. That will show that we can test in the marketplace… You iterate until you get to product/market fit… And then you go and you raise money from people you trust. And you use that money to scale.”

Startup Archive

36,050 views • 1 year ago

NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez: “But then regarding Cuba, there was an aircraft carrier that just arrived there. Just this week, the Nimitz aircraft carrier. Are you sending that there to intimidate the Cuban government?” President Trump: “No, not at all. The Cubans look, it’s a failed country. Everybody knows it. They don’t have electricity. They don’t have money. They don’t have really anything. They don’t have food. And we’re going to help them along. And we’re going to help them because the people — because, number one, I want to help them. I don’t want to on a humanitarian basis. But we have the Cuban American population, much of it living in Miami, in Florida. That’s a great group of people, amazing group of people, industrious, just they’re great Americans. They’ve wanted this to happen. They want to go back to their country. They want to help their country. I hope they’re going to stay here, but they want to go back. They want to invest in their country and, you know, see if they can bring it back. Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years doing something, and it looks like I’ll be the one that does it. So it would be happy to do it. We want to open it up to Cuban Americans where they can go back and help.”

NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez: “But then regarding Cuba, there was an aircraft carrier that just arrived there. Just this week, the Nimitz aircraft carrier. Are you sending that there to intimidate the Cuban government?” President Trump: “No, not at all. The Cubans look, it’s a failed country. Everybody knows it. They don’t have electricity. They don’t have money. They don’t have really anything. They don’t have food. And we’re going to help them along. And we’re going to help them because the people — because, number one, I want to help them. I don’t want to on a humanitarian basis. But we have the Cuban American population, much of it living in Miami, in Florida. That’s a great group of people, amazing group of people, industrious, just they’re great Americans. They’ve wanted this to happen. They want to go back to their country. They want to help their country. I hope they’re going to stay here, but they want to go back. They want to invest in their country and, you know, see if they can bring it back. Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years doing something, and it looks like I’ll be the one that does it. So it would be happy to do it. We want to open it up to Cuban Americans where they can go back and help.”

Curtis Houck

26,469 views • 1 month ago

What started as a standard White House announcement quickly turned into one of the most revealing Oval Office moments of the year. Trump was there to declare that Washington, D.C. will host the 2027 NFL Draft. But when reporters started firing off questions, the real fireworks began. First up: immigration. A reporter asked Trump about a new program offering undocumented immigrants $1,000 to self-deport. His answer was blunt—and surprisingly layered. “Yeah, we have millions of people that have come into this country illegally through an administration that didn't know what they were doing. They didn't have a clue. And now we find out officially they didn't, because the president was incompetent. But I could have told you that before.” He explained the idea behind the plan: offer people money to leave—and if they take the offer and prove to be hard-working, they might be allowed back in the right way. “But what we thought we'd do is to self-deport where we're going to pay each one a certain amount of money, and we're going to get him a beautiful flight back to where they came from. And they have a period of time.” “And if they make it, we're going to work with them so that maybe someday, with a little work, they can come back in if they're good people, if they're the kind of people that we want in our company, industrious people that could love our country. And if they're not, they won't. But it will give them a path to becoming, you know, to coming back into the country.” He made it clear that there would be no second chances for those who ignore the opportunity. “So we're going to have, self-deportation, where they deport themselves out of our country, and we'll work with them, and we're going to try. And if if we think they're good, they have, you know, the people we want in our country, they're going to come back into our country. We'll give them a little easier route. But if they don't work and if we take them out after the date, then, they're never coming back.”

What started as a standard White House announcement quickly turned into one of the most revealing Oval Office moments of the year. Trump was there to declare that Washington, D.C. will host the 2027 NFL Draft. But when reporters started firing off questions, the real fireworks began. First up: immigration. A reporter asked Trump about a new program offering undocumented immigrants $1,000 to self-deport. His answer was blunt—and surprisingly layered. “Yeah, we have millions of people that have come into this country illegally through an administration that didn't know what they were doing. They didn't have a clue. And now we find out officially they didn't, because the president was incompetent. But I could have told you that before.” He explained the idea behind the plan: offer people money to leave—and if they take the offer and prove to be hard-working, they might be allowed back in the right way. “But what we thought we'd do is to self-deport where we're going to pay each one a certain amount of money, and we're going to get him a beautiful flight back to where they came from. And they have a period of time.” “And if they make it, we're going to work with them so that maybe someday, with a little work, they can come back in if they're good people, if they're the kind of people that we want in our company, industrious people that could love our country. And if they're not, they won't. But it will give them a path to becoming, you know, to coming back into the country.” He made it clear that there would be no second chances for those who ignore the opportunity. “So we're going to have, self-deportation, where they deport themselves out of our country, and we'll work with them, and we're going to try. And if if we think they're good, they have, you know, the people we want in our country, they're going to come back into our country. We'll give them a little easier route. But if they don't work and if we take them out after the date, then, they're never coming back.”

Vigilant Fox 🦊

351,051 views • 1 year ago

Elon Musk: We should let ideas compete, not suppress them. “I think we should embrace a diversity of views, and we should have reasonable arguments, and we should have debates. The essence of free speech is that ideas survive when they're competing ideas in the marketplace of ideas. And if somebody says something that's incorrect, then that can be corrected. That's what happens on the 𝕏 platform. People will say something, then others will add context to it, or they will correct it, or there will be a community note. This applies equally to the left and right. There's no thumb on the scale like there used to be. And there's no voice on the left that's been silenced, unlike in the past, where many voices on the right were silenced. But they just don't seem to like the idea that people on the right can say what they want to say within the bounds of the law, which is startling.” Pittsburgh, October 20, 2024

Elon Musk: We should let ideas compete, not suppress them. “I think we should embrace a diversity of views, and we should have reasonable arguments, and we should have debates. The essence of free speech is that ideas survive when they're competing ideas in the marketplace of ideas. And if somebody says something that's incorrect, then that can be corrected. That's what happens on the 𝕏 platform. People will say something, then others will add context to it, or they will correct it, or there will be a community note. This applies equally to the left and right. There's no thumb on the scale like there used to be. And there's no voice on the left that's been silenced, unlike in the past, where many voices on the right were silenced. But they just don't seem to like the idea that people on the right can say what they want to say within the bounds of the law, which is startling.” Pittsburgh, October 20, 2024

ELON CLIPS

10,690,933 views • 1 year ago

Mark Zuckerberg on why he prefers to recruit people directly out of college In this interview from 2005, a 21-year-old Mark Zuckerberg is asked what he looks for in a new hire. There’s two things, he says. “Number one is raw intelligence. You can hire someone who has been doing software engineering for 10 years, and if they’ve been doing it for 10 years, that’s probably what they’ll be doing for the rest of their life. That’s cool — there are some things that that person can do and they’re definitely useful in an organization and can do a lot of stuff. But if you find someone whose raw intelligence exceeds theirs but has 10 years less experience, they can probably adapt and learn way quicker. Within a very short amount of time they’ll be able to do a lot of things that [the person with 10 years of experience] will never be able to do. So that’s the most important thing that I look for.” The second thing he looks for is alignment with what the company is trying to do: “People can be really smart or have skills that are directly applicable, but if they don’t really believe in it, then they’re not going to work hard or care enough to develop the relevant experience in order to succeed. The best people I’ve hired so far have been people who didn’t really have that much engineering experience. I hired a couple of electric engineers out of Stanford to do programming stuff, and they had very little programming experience going in, but they were really smart and really willing to go at it. The guy who just wrote photos was one of those guys, and if you’re willing to just do whatever it takes to get photos out, then you’re probably more valuable than someone who is just a career software engineer.” He concludes: “Those are the things I’m looking for and why I would rather recruit people out of college.” Video source: Stanford eCorner (2005)

Mark Zuckerberg on why he prefers to recruit people directly out of college In this interview from 2005, a 21-year-old Mark Zuckerberg is asked what he looks for in a new hire. There’s two things, he says. “Number one is raw intelligence. You can hire someone who has been doing software engineering for 10 years, and if they’ve been doing it for 10 years, that’s probably what they’ll be doing for the rest of their life. That’s cool — there are some things that that person can do and they’re definitely useful in an organization and can do a lot of stuff. But if you find someone whose raw intelligence exceeds theirs but has 10 years less experience, they can probably adapt and learn way quicker. Within a very short amount of time they’ll be able to do a lot of things that [the person with 10 years of experience] will never be able to do. So that’s the most important thing that I look for.” The second thing he looks for is alignment with what the company is trying to do: “People can be really smart or have skills that are directly applicable, but if they don’t really believe in it, then they’re not going to work hard or care enough to develop the relevant experience in order to succeed. The best people I’ve hired so far have been people who didn’t really have that much engineering experience. I hired a couple of electric engineers out of Stanford to do programming stuff, and they had very little programming experience going in, but they were really smart and really willing to go at it. The guy who just wrote photos was one of those guys, and if you’re willing to just do whatever it takes to get photos out, then you’re probably more valuable than someone who is just a career software engineer.” He concludes: “Those are the things I’m looking for and why I would rather recruit people out of college.” Video source: Stanford eCorner (2005)

Startup Archive

54,696 views • 6 months ago

ABC’s Mary Bruce: “On the rising oil and gas prices, the President has said that this is a small price to pay for getting rid of a nuclear weapon. But ten weeks in, are we any closer to getting rid of Iran’s nuclear material?” Secretary Marco Rubio: “Yeah, but look, here’s the way to think about Iran. And this is what I described at the very beginning of this. What was Iran’s plan? You have to understand what their plan was. Their plan was they were going to build this conventional shield where they would have so many thousands of missiles and drones and rockets that they couldn’t be attacked. And behind that conventional shield that they were trying to build, they would then break out and do whatever they wanted with their nuclear program. They no longer have that conventional shield, okay? We told you guys from the very beginning, and we’re very consistent in this messaging. The operation that has concluded was going to destroy their navy. They have no navy left. They don’t. Not a navy. They have small boats and Boston Whalers, but they don’t have a navy left. They don’t have an air force. I challenge you. When is the last time you read or heard about an Iranian jet flying anywhere? They don’t have an air force. Their missile launching capability has been substantially degraded. And their industrial base — their defense industrial base has been severely, severely damaged. So, their ability to build a shield behind which they could hide their nuclear program was wiped out. That’s a very substantial achievement. And that was the purpose of this operation from day one.” Bruce: “But do you HAVE to get their nuclear material in order for this war to end?” Rubio: “Well, that’s one of the topics that needs to be discussed. I don’t know about. I think you’re linking it — the operation is over. Epic Fury is — President notified Congress we’re done with that stage of it. Okay. We’re now on to this project of freedom. As far as the negotiation is concerned, I think the President’s been clear that part of the negotiation process has to be not just the enrichment, but what happens to this material that’s buried deep somewhere that they have still have access to if they ever wanted to dig it out, that has to be addressed. And that’s being addressed in the negotiation. I’m not going to go further on what progress has been made on that topic, because I don’t want to endanger the negotiations, but suffice it to say that the President and this entire team is aware of the centrality of that question, and that will have to be addressed one way or the other.”

ABC’s Mary Bruce: “On the rising oil and gas prices, the President has said that this is a small price to pay for getting rid of a nuclear weapon. But ten weeks in, are we any closer to getting rid of Iran’s nuclear material?” Secretary Marco Rubio: “Yeah, but look, here’s the way to think about Iran. And this is what I described at the very beginning of this. What was Iran’s plan? You have to understand what their plan was. Their plan was they were going to build this conventional shield where they would have so many thousands of missiles and drones and rockets that they couldn’t be attacked. And behind that conventional shield that they were trying to build, they would then break out and do whatever they wanted with their nuclear program. They no longer have that conventional shield, okay? We told you guys from the very beginning, and we’re very consistent in this messaging. The operation that has concluded was going to destroy their navy. They have no navy left. They don’t. Not a navy. They have small boats and Boston Whalers, but they don’t have a navy left. They don’t have an air force. I challenge you. When is the last time you read or heard about an Iranian jet flying anywhere? They don’t have an air force. Their missile launching capability has been substantially degraded. And their industrial base — their defense industrial base has been severely, severely damaged. So, their ability to build a shield behind which they could hide their nuclear program was wiped out. That’s a very substantial achievement. And that was the purpose of this operation from day one.” Bruce: “But do you HAVE to get their nuclear material in order for this war to end?” Rubio: “Well, that’s one of the topics that needs to be discussed. I don’t know about. I think you’re linking it — the operation is over. Epic Fury is — President notified Congress we’re done with that stage of it. Okay. We’re now on to this project of freedom. As far as the negotiation is concerned, I think the President’s been clear that part of the negotiation process has to be not just the enrichment, but what happens to this material that’s buried deep somewhere that they have still have access to if they ever wanted to dig it out, that has to be addressed. And that’s being addressed in the negotiation. I’m not going to go further on what progress has been made on that topic, because I don’t want to endanger the negotiations, but suffice it to say that the President and this entire team is aware of the centrality of that question, and that will have to be addressed one way or the other.”

Curtis Houck

51,169 views • 2 months ago

Ben Horowitz says Silicon Valley can’t be recreated anywhere else in the world because of America's unique culture: "I go all over the world, and everybody wants Silicon Valley, like — how can we have Silicon Valley in the UK? How can we have it in France?" "They have a lot of the ingredients. They have great talent. They’ve got great universities." "But there’s a cultural challenge where — succeeding, doing something larger than yourself, making the world a better place — those aren’t things that young people feel like society values." "So the likelihood, if you’re building a company, of getting people to work for you and dedicate their life to a mission, that is just not that great. Whereas in the US, it’s amazing." Source: benahorowitz.eth on Invest Like the Best with Patrick OShaughnessy

Ben Horowitz says Silicon Valley can’t be recreated anywhere else in the world because of America's unique culture: "I go all over the world, and everybody wants Silicon Valley, like — how can we have Silicon Valley in the UK? How can we have it in France?" "They have a lot of the ingredients. They have great talent. They’ve got great universities." "But there’s a cultural challenge where — succeeding, doing something larger than yourself, making the world a better place — those aren’t things that young people feel like society values." "So the likelihood, if you’re building a company, of getting people to work for you and dedicate their life to a mission, that is just not that great. Whereas in the US, it’s amazing." Source: benahorowitz.eth on Invest Like the Best with Patrick OShaughnessy

a16z

111,168 views • 5 months ago

Before leaving, the president paused for an interview with Fox’s Will Cain. Cain asked why being there in person was so important. Trump pointed to his history of visiting communities in crisis, including the East Palestine train derailment in 2023. “Well, I showed up in Ohio and that was a great thing to do and I made permanent friends in Ohio, in that little community that had remember they train going through—it was a mess. It was a mess.” He contrasted it with so-called leaders who never showed up. “And other people didn’t show up for like a year and a half. And frankly I made a real friends there. We did a good job, we helped them out, and we’re going to help this community too. We’re going to help this community too.” Trump pointed out the bond he’d felt among the people of Kerrville. It was all about a close-knit, resilient community that were set on rebuilding. “They love each other. I just left this group of people, they love each other, they love the community and they’re going to rebuild they want to rebuild.” And he described the kind of unbreakable determination that stays with you. “I didn’t hear one person, I spoke to a lot of people, didn’t not hear one person that wants to leave. And some lost a daughter, two daughters even. And, boy, it’s a tough thing they are going through. But it’s an amazing community.” He ended with something that felt like both an obligation and a promise to the people of his country. “I like to do it, I think I have an obligation, I think as president I really have an obligation to do it. I’ve done it many times but this is as bad as I’ve seen.”

Before leaving, the president paused for an interview with Fox’s Will Cain. Cain asked why being there in person was so important. Trump pointed to his history of visiting communities in crisis, including the East Palestine train derailment in 2023. “Well, I showed up in Ohio and that was a great thing to do and I made permanent friends in Ohio, in that little community that had remember they train going through—it was a mess. It was a mess.” He contrasted it with so-called leaders who never showed up. “And other people didn’t show up for like a year and a half. And frankly I made a real friends there. We did a good job, we helped them out, and we’re going to help this community too. We’re going to help this community too.” Trump pointed out the bond he’d felt among the people of Kerrville. It was all about a close-knit, resilient community that were set on rebuilding. “They love each other. I just left this group of people, they love each other, they love the community and they’re going to rebuild they want to rebuild.” And he described the kind of unbreakable determination that stays with you. “I didn’t hear one person, I spoke to a lot of people, didn’t not hear one person that wants to leave. And some lost a daughter, two daughters even. And, boy, it’s a tough thing they are going through. But it’s an amazing community.” He ended with something that felt like both an obligation and a promise to the people of his country. “I like to do it, I think I have an obligation, I think as president I really have an obligation to do it. I’ve done it many times but this is as bad as I’ve seen.”

The Vigilant Fox 🦊

51,512 views • 1 year ago

President Trump just delivered a glowing two-minute address to the Chinese delegation in Beijing. He praised President Xi Jinping as a “great leader” and vowed to have a fantastic future together. TRUMP: “That was an honor like few have ever seen before.” “And I think I was particularly impressed by those children. They were happy. They were beautiful.” “You and I have known each other now for a long time. In fact, the longest relationship of our two countries that any president and president has had, and that’s to me, an honor.” “We’ve had a fantastic relationship. We’ve gotten along. When there were difficulties, we worked it out.” “I would call you and you would call me. And whenever we had a problem, people don’t know, whenever we had a problem, we worked it out very quickly, and we’re going to have a fantastic future together.” “Such respect for China, the job you’ve done.” “You’re a great leader. I say it to everybody. You’re a great leader. Sometimes people don’t like me saying it, but I say it anyway because it’s true. I only say the truth.” “And I just want to say, on behalf of all of the great delegation that we have, we have the greatest businessmen, the biggest, and I guess the best in the world.” “We have amazing people and they’re all with me. Every single one of them. We asked the top 30 in the world. Every single one of them said yes. And I didn’t want the second or the third in the company. I wanted only the top.” “And they’re here today to pay respects to you and to China.” “And they look forward to trade and doing business. And it’s going to be totally reciprocal on our behalf.” “So I really look very much forward to our discussion. It’s a big discussion. There are those that say this is maybe the biggest summit ever.” “They can never remember anything like it. It’s I can say in the United States, it’s people aren’t talking about anything else.” “But it’s an honor to be with you, it’s an honor to be your friend.” “And the relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before.” Trump is laying the groundwork for a major breakthrough with China.

President Trump just delivered a glowing two-minute address to the Chinese delegation in Beijing. He praised President Xi Jinping as a “great leader” and vowed to have a fantastic future together. TRUMP: “That was an honor like few have ever seen before.” “And I think I was particularly impressed by those children. They were happy. They were beautiful.” “You and I have known each other now for a long time. In fact, the longest relationship of our two countries that any president and president has had, and that’s to me, an honor.” “We’ve had a fantastic relationship. We’ve gotten along. When there were difficulties, we worked it out.” “I would call you and you would call me. And whenever we had a problem, people don’t know, whenever we had a problem, we worked it out very quickly, and we’re going to have a fantastic future together.” “Such respect for China, the job you’ve done.” “You’re a great leader. I say it to everybody. You’re a great leader. Sometimes people don’t like me saying it, but I say it anyway because it’s true. I only say the truth.” “And I just want to say, on behalf of all of the great delegation that we have, we have the greatest businessmen, the biggest, and I guess the best in the world.” “We have amazing people and they’re all with me. Every single one of them. We asked the top 30 in the world. Every single one of them said yes. And I didn’t want the second or the third in the company. I wanted only the top.” “And they’re here today to pay respects to you and to China.” “And they look forward to trade and doing business. And it’s going to be totally reciprocal on our behalf.” “So I really look very much forward to our discussion. It’s a big discussion. There are those that say this is maybe the biggest summit ever.” “They can never remember anything like it. It’s I can say in the United States, it’s people aren’t talking about anything else.” “But it’s an honor to be with you, it’s an honor to be your friend.” “And the relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before.” Trump is laying the groundwork for a major breakthrough with China.

Overton

34,971 views • 2 months ago