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Most founders think hiring is about interviewing. But it's actually about selling. For Startup School, Juicebox co-founder & CEO david paffenholz joins YC's Harj Taggar to share how early-stage founders can find, pitch, and close top engineering and sales talent— from crafting better outreach to winning great hires from... Big Tech— even when you're an unknown startup. 0:00 – Why your first hires matter 1:17 – What great candidates actually want 4:38 – How to sell your startup to top talent 7:49 – Finding and sourcing great engineers 13:17 – Writing outreach that gets replies 20:58 – Interviewing: sell first, assess second 25:59 – Closing fast and competing with Big Tech 31:06 – Common mistakes founders make 38:52 – When (and how) to hire a recruiter 43:11 – Final thoughtsshow more

Y Combinator

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I sat down a second time with Keith Rabois (Keith Rabois), General Partner at Khosla Ventures and CEO at OpenStore to talk operating. We spoke about the Hollywood model of startups, picking co-founders, identifying, attracting and assessing talent, raising capital, building a board, delegating, metrics, and knowing what to measure. 0:00 - Intro 1:56 - Great Founders and the Bottleneck to Innovation 4:35 - Vertical Integration 6:24 - The Hollywood Model of Startups 7:41 - The “Why Now?” in Company-Building 9:50 - Multi-Product Companies 10:58 - Iteration and Pivots 12:52 - Picking Co-Founders 14:51 - Identifying Mispriced Talent 17:20 - Attracting Talent 20:57 - Assessing Talent 24:02 - Doing References 25:56 - Closing Hires 28:28 - Thinking 6 Months Ahead 31:36 - How Long Should You Interview For? 33:28 - Creating a Monopoly on Talent 35:44 - Raising Capital 37:40 - Screening Investors 41:21 - Building a Board 44:11 - Triaging and Identifying Problems 47:59 - Writing vs Editing and Consistent Voice 49:34 - Creating Transparency 50:50 - Barrels and Ammunition 54:55 - Task-Relevant Maturity 56:40 - On Delegating 59:21 - Measuring Inputs vs Outputs 1:02:58 - Underrated Metrics 1:05:22 - What Should More People Be Thinking About?

I sat down a second time with Keith Rabois (Keith Rabois), General Partner at Khosla Ventures and CEO at OpenStore to talk operating. We spoke about the Hollywood model of startups, picking co-founders, identifying, attracting and assessing talent, raising capital, building a board, delegating, metrics, and knowing what to measure. 0:00 - Intro 1:56 - Great Founders and the Bottleneck to Innovation 4:35 - Vertical Integration 6:24 - The Hollywood Model of Startups 7:41 - The “Why Now?” in Company-Building 9:50 - Multi-Product Companies 10:58 - Iteration and Pivots 12:52 - Picking Co-Founders 14:51 - Identifying Mispriced Talent 17:20 - Attracting Talent 20:57 - Assessing Talent 24:02 - Doing References 25:56 - Closing Hires 28:28 - Thinking 6 Months Ahead 31:36 - How Long Should You Interview For? 33:28 - Creating a Monopoly on Talent 35:44 - Raising Capital 37:40 - Screening Investors 41:21 - Building a Board 44:11 - Triaging and Identifying Problems 47:59 - Writing vs Editing and Consistent Voice 49:34 - Creating Transparency 50:50 - Barrels and Ammunition 54:55 - Task-Relevant Maturity 56:40 - On Delegating 59:21 - Measuring Inputs vs Outputs 1:02:58 - Underrated Metrics 1:05:22 - What Should More People Be Thinking About?

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Many founders start their customer search with cold email, LinkedIn, and prospecting tools. But the first 10 customers rarely come from a tool. It starts somewhere else: your network, showing up in person, and a willingness to do things that don't scale. In this episode of Startup School, YC Visiting Partner max draws on dozens of YC founder stories to explain how to identify the right buyers, start conversations, and turn them into your first customers. 0:00 - Why the first 10 are different 0:54 - Where does your buyer actually spend their time? 2:45 - Customers 1–3: work your warm network first 4:20 - Get in the room 5:14 - Conferences and founder dinners 6:15 - Find where your customers complain online 7:30 - How to go outbound 8:35 - Frame outreach as advice 10:20 - Writing outreach that sounds human 13:15 - Recap: The first 10 come from you

Many founders start their customer search with cold email, LinkedIn, and prospecting tools. But the first 10 customers rarely come from a tool. It starts somewhere else: your network, showing up in person, and a willingness to do things that don't scale. In this episode of Startup School, YC Visiting Partner max draws on dozens of YC founder stories to explain how to identify the right buyers, start conversations, and turn them into your first customers. 0:00 - Why the first 10 are different 0:54 - Where does your buyer actually spend their time? 2:45 - Customers 1–3: work your warm network first 4:20 - Get in the room 5:14 - Conferences and founder dinners 6:15 - Find where your customers complain online 7:30 - How to go outbound 8:35 - Frame outreach as advice 10:20 - Writing outreach that sounds human 13:15 - Recap: The first 10 come from you

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Here's the full convo with Nakul Mandan // Audacious Ventures on recruiting exceptional talent for your startup. What topic is more important than this? I'm not sure there is one. We cover the 5 top mistakes founders make when recruiting: 1. Not internalizing good is the enemy of great. 2. Lack of clarity on role/spec. 3. Weak pipeline = no real choice. 4. Generic vetting process. 5. Not enough intensity in closing top talent. Enjoy! (00:00) Introducing Nakul Mandan // Audacious Ventures and Audacious Ventures (05:12) Hustling in VC, early wins (12:50) Learning GTM deeply (15:22) Realizing recruiting is even more important (18:06) How to attract exceptional talent (26:32) Writing a killer role description (30:24) Sourcing talent proactively (41:40) how to CLOSE top candidates (45:29) The full recruiting formula summarized

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Interview with the Valo team where we go in depth on hydrofoiling, reimagining mass transport logistics, and being a great team member at a deep tech startup. 0:00 Flying electric boat company 1:55 1st principles of boats 4:25 Sponsor: SBS Comms 5:15 Main systems of vehicle 10:27 Being an early employee at a startup! 15:45 Early commercial/tech research 19:19 Global shipping logistics 23:17 Production numbers 29:38 From design to hardware 35:13 Size limits for hydrofoiling 46:00 Unlocking waterways 49:15 Small & distributed transportation 53:14 The true of engineering 56:25 Company culture 58:45 Founder mode vs manager mode 1:02:39 Advice for future startup employees 1:06:31 Deep tech pitfalls

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Karri Saarinen (Karri Saarinen), co-founder and CEO of Linear, was the first designer at Coinbase and a lead designer at Airbnb. On Design Review with YC's Aaron Epstein, he shares how his design background shaped Linear's product philosophy, why quality and craft matter from day one, what founders should look for when hiring, and how AI is changing the way teams build. 02:00 – Lessons learned from YC, Coinbase, and Airbnb 06:00 – Building trust through brand and design 08:24 – Linear’s brand: craft, quality, and authenticity 10:40 – Why sales is part of the brand experience 13:10 – Shipping fast without losing quality 17:18 – Hiring for product taste and judgment 19:28 – Superpowers of designers as founders 21:12 – Advice for designers considering founding a startup 23:26 – Why founders should care about design from day one 25:24 – Tips for creating products that stand out 28:24 – Balancing creative freedom with shipping timelines 28:56 – How AI is changing design and product work 30:44 – Why AI won’t replace designers (and what shifts to expect) 32:44 – The future of product and design teams with AI

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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “The great founders are frugal” When Eric joined Google as CEO in 2001 — two years after the company had raised a $25 million Series A — he shared an office with four engineers. He even had to lend one of the founders his car when theirs broke down. He believes this frugality is common attribute of the best founders: “I can always tell when we’re dealing with a proper founder by how they are spending their money… Whenever I go to startups that have beautiful offices and really nice chairs, I cringe.” Eric continues: “The great founders are frugal. They understand that the money needs to be used precisely for certain areas. Many of the most successful founders begin with no salary at all… If you’re not prepared to live that, you don’t really understand what being a founder is like.” Video source: Startup Grind (2016)

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Many founders get stuck trying to find the perfect startup idea before they commit. But the perfect idea doesn't exist in the abstract. The only way to find what works is to pick one, go deep, and get feedback from real customers. In this episode of Startup School, YC's Jon Xu breaks down how to choose what to build, "burn the other boats," and go deep enough to practically run your customer's business— and why that depth is what surfaces the better idea underneath. 00:59 — The "Perfect Idea" trap 02:42 — Why working on multiple ideas fails 03:21 — How to actually go deep 04:51 — Could you run your customer's business? 06:18 — Build at the edge of what AI can do 08:37 — Aim at the most ambitious version 09:33 — What happens when the idea fails 10:27 — Walk fast in one direction

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Eric Schmidt: The great founders are frugal When Eric joined Google as CEO in 2001—two years after securing a $25 million Series A—he shared an office with four engineers. He even had to lend one of the founders his car when theirs broke down. In the clip below he explains why this mentality is important: “I can always tell when we’re dealing with a proper founder by how they are spending their money… Whenever I go to startups that have beautiful offices and really nice chairs, I cringe.” He continues: “The great founders are frugal. They understand that the money needs to be used precisely for certain areas. Many of the most successful founders begin with no salary at all… If you’re not prepared to live that, you don’t really understand what being a founder is like.” Source: Startup Grind

Eric Schmidt: The great founders are frugal When Eric joined Google as CEO in 2001—two years after securing a $25 million Series A—he shared an office with four engineers. He even had to lend one of the founders his car when theirs broke down. In the clip below he explains why this mentality is important: “I can always tell when we’re dealing with a proper founder by how they are spending their money… Whenever I go to startups that have beautiful offices and really nice chairs, I cringe.” He continues: “The great founders are frugal. They understand that the money needs to be used precisely for certain areas. Many of the most successful founders begin with no salary at all… If you’re not prepared to live that, you don’t really understand what being a founder is like.” Source: Startup Grind

Startup Archive

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Most founders obsess over dashboards and aggregate metrics, but some of the best product insights come from understanding how individual users actually use their product. In this episode of Startup School, YC's David Lieb walks through one of his favorite tools for better understanding your users, the dot plot. It's a simple two-dimensional grid that reveals usage patterns no aggregate chart can show you. He’ll cover why it gives founders a better sense of product health, what patterns to look for, and real-world examples of how dot plots helped teams at Google Photos and PayPal. 00:52 — Why DAUs Lie to You 01:39 — What is a Dot Plot and How Does it Work? 02:50 — Picking the Right Event to Track 03:34 — Reading Patterns in the Dots 05:17 — Tracking User State & Attributes 06:16 — The PayPal Fraud Insight 07:59 — Dot Plot vs. DAU Graph 08:56 — Finding Features That Drive Retention 10:30 — Scaling Dot Plots to Billions of Users 11:13 — The $80K Contract That Churned 11:57 — Common Dot Plot Mistakes 12:41 — Dot Plots + Cohort Curves

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Y Combinator

60,779 Aufrufe • vor 7 Tagen

Ep #90: Scaling Amplitude to $300M ARR This conversation with Spenser Skates unpacks everything he's learned in 13 years of building Amplitude. We talk importance of data in product design, how Amplitude is thinking about AI, and the future of user responsive software. We also get into the early days of building Amplitude, when to go multi-product, how to construct your board as a startup, hiring executives at various company stages, lessons from closing three acquisitions, lessons scaling to $300 million in ARR, inside Amplitude’s 2021 IPO, and what most people get wrong about Founder Mode. Thanks to Numeral, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance, for supporting this episode. Stream here on X, or links below. Timestamps: 4:45 Using data to build great products 8:31 Why data is existential to every business 13:14 How to go multi-product 15:48 Every startup becomes a distribution company 19:29 Lessons from three acquisitions 29:09 AI hasn’t changed B2B SaaS yet 31:24 Challenges of incorporating AI in B2B SaaS 33:09 Amplitude’s AI experiments 36:29 Navigating technology hype cycles as a public company 39:40 Amplitude’s opportunity in LLMs 43:08 User responsive software 46:16 Surprising things that slow your speed of execution 51:27 What people get wrong about Founder Mode 59:48 Pivoting into Amplitude after YC 1:04:42 Nine months to raise Amplitude’s first round 1:08:31 Surprises from closing the first customers 1:12:46 Two sales lessons for technical founders 1:13:44 Scaling to $300M+ ARR 1:17:14 How to choose board members 1:19:55 Inside Amplitude’s IPO 1:21:56 “Stock price is an output of the business” 1:26:36 Evolving from startup founder to public company CEO 1:31:54 How hiring execs changes as you scale 1:34:32 Why DEI is important at Amplitude 1:39:46 Relevance of gaming and startups

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The Peel

33,495 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

"To be a founder is a state of being. It's an attitude. It's courage, it's instinct, it's a capacity to push through, despite all sorts of evidence suggesting you're wasting your time. To be a CEO is a craft. It's learning to read financial statements, building a GTM motion, running productive meetings, finding and hiring the best people, planning, etc. The more founders who can accept that those are two separate things, both equally important to build an ascendant startup, the better all of us will be." Jonathan Lowenhar (jonathan lowenhar) is the co-founder of Enjoy The Work, an executive coaching firm that helps founders become great CEOs. Over the past decade, Enjoy The Work has supported over 160 founders on their journey to becoming better leaders. In our conversation, Jonathan shares: 🔸 The difference between being a founder and a CEO 🔸 Most common failure modes for startup CEOs 🔸 The "magic box" paradigm for selling your company 🔸 How to find and hire the best people 🔸 How to build a repeatable GTM machine 🔸 Why founders need to trust their intuition 🔸 Much more Listen now 👇 • YouTube: • Spotify: • Apple: Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting the podcast: 🏆 pendo.io — The only all-in-one product experience platform for any type of application: 🏆 OneSchema — Import CSV data 10x faster: 🏆 Vanta — Automate compliance. Simplify security:

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Lenny Rachitsky

11,936 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

At 23, with no legal background, Max Junestrand co-founded Legora to transform how lawyers work. Today, Legora’s AI workspace is used by tens of thousands of lawyers across Europe—valued at $675M just 13 months after launch. From due diligence grids that turn days of work into minutes, to Word integrations that renegotiate contracts, Max sat down with Gustaf Alströmer to share how Legora won over skeptical firms, scaled from 10 to 100 people, and built a new category in legal AI. 00:45 – Legora's Origin Story 01:00 – Building an AI Workspace for Lawyers 02:20 – The GPT Unlock 04:10 – The “Aha Moment” with Law Firms 06:15 – Raising $80M and Scaling Fast 06:30 – How Legora Works 09:40 – How It Transforms Legal Work 11:40 – Selling To AI Skeptics 14:40 – Creative Use Cases: From Court Battles to NDAs 17:30 – Starting Without Industry Expertise 18:40 – Interviewing 100 Lawyers 20:30 – Competing with Legacy Legal Tech Giants 23:50 – Tech Stack and Model Strategy 25:00 – Who Actually Buys AI inside a Law Firm? 27:00 – Cracking Sales in Conservative Industries 28:00 – Max’s Background: From eSports to Startups 30:50 – Hypergrowth: 10 → 100 People in 13 Months 34:00 – Why Hiring Ex-Founders Works 36:45 – The Future Job of a Lawyer 38:35 – What PMF Felt Like 39:45 – Why They Stayed in Stockholm (Not SF) 41:00 – Becoming the Category Leader in Legal AI 42:00 – Advice for Founders Building Vertical AI Companies 43:20 – What It’s Like to Work at Legora

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Y Combinator

185,285 Aufrufe • vor 10 Monaten

The world needs 10x more scientist-founders. 5050 helps scientists and engineers become great founders and start indispensable companies. Applications open! Startups are the best way to make a real impact with research, but where do you get started? How do you know if entrepreneurship is for you? Whether you’re validating an idea or ready to build — 5050 is for you. You’ll learn what it takes to become a great founder, how to choose the right problem, technology, and market, and how to build a deep tech startup. “It’s a cheat code for starting a deep tech startup.” – Eric McShane, 5050 alum. • Eric McShane and Evan spun out of Stanford and co-founded Electroflow to tackle the lithium shortage. They’ve scaled their tech by 200x in 6 months. • Mark Budde 🦕🏆 joined 5050 as a postdoc at Caltech. Two years later, plasmidsaurus enables scientists across all 50 states and most European countries to go much faster. • Niccolo joined as a Tesla engineer. Three months later, he co-founded Clippership and is building autonomous sailboats to decarbonize maritime shipping. • Chi and Tay Shin joined as postdocs at MIT. Within weeks, they spun out and are now working to enable in vivo cell reprogramming. At Fifty Years, we’ve built deep tech companies ourselves. We’ve backed over 100 deep tech startups from the earliest stages and helped them raise over 4.6 billion dollars. We distilled everything we know about deep tech startups into 5050: a free program to help world-class scientists and engineers start indispensable companies. Phase I: Explore We’ll help you answer: How do I turn my breakthrough science into a business? What do I need to make a startup idea work? Am I ready to be a founder? You’ll learn if entrepreneurship is right for you, identify the idea to build, and pivot quickly if necessary. We’ll guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. At the end of Explore, those ready to build a startup will be invited to the next phase, Build. Phase II: Build You’ll join a cohort of fast-moving founders who will challenge you to ramp up. We’ll coach you to level up into a great founder and guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. Build will help you de-risk your technology, hit key milestones, raise a first round, and reach takeoff speed fast. Helping great scientists and engineers become great entrepreneurs is our jam. Apply / nominate! ➜

The world needs 10x more scientist-founders. 5050 helps scientists and engineers become great founders and start indispensable companies. Applications open! Startups are the best way to make a real impact with research, but where do you get started? How do you know if entrepreneurship is for you? Whether you’re validating an idea or ready to build — 5050 is for you. You’ll learn what it takes to become a great founder, how to choose the right problem, technology, and market, and how to build a deep tech startup. “It’s a cheat code for starting a deep tech startup.” – Eric McShane, 5050 alum. • Eric McShane and Evan spun out of Stanford and co-founded Electroflow to tackle the lithium shortage. They’ve scaled their tech by 200x in 6 months. • Mark Budde 🦕🏆 joined 5050 as a postdoc at Caltech. Two years later, plasmidsaurus enables scientists across all 50 states and most European countries to go much faster. • Niccolo joined as a Tesla engineer. Three months later, he co-founded Clippership and is building autonomous sailboats to decarbonize maritime shipping. • Chi and Tay Shin joined as postdocs at MIT. Within weeks, they spun out and are now working to enable in vivo cell reprogramming. At Fifty Years, we’ve built deep tech companies ourselves. We’ve backed over 100 deep tech startups from the earliest stages and helped them raise over 4.6 billion dollars. We distilled everything we know about deep tech startups into 5050: a free program to help world-class scientists and engineers start indispensable companies. Phase I: Explore We’ll help you answer: How do I turn my breakthrough science into a business? What do I need to make a startup idea work? Am I ready to be a founder? You’ll learn if entrepreneurship is right for you, identify the idea to build, and pivot quickly if necessary. We’ll guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. At the end of Explore, those ready to build a startup will be invited to the next phase, Build. Phase II: Build You’ll join a cohort of fast-moving founders who will challenge you to ramp up. We’ll coach you to level up into a great founder and guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. Build will help you de-risk your technology, hit key milestones, raise a first round, and reach takeoff speed fast. Helping great scientists and engineers become great entrepreneurs is our jam. Apply / nominate! ➜

Seth Bannon

106,391 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

My guest today is Brian Chesky (Brian Chesky), founder and CEO of Airbnb and one of the great consumer founders of the last 20 years. Paul Graham coined "founder mode" based on Brian's experience running Airbnb. This conversation is about what comes after it, what he calls AI founder mode, and how it will force founders to focus even more on the details. We talk about his eleven-star exercise for finding product market fit, why your first hire should be a recruiter, and why Airbnb's $100B IPO became one of the saddest days of his life. Brian still comes across like the 17 year-old at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) who picked to study industrial design. His heroes are all artists. Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs, all of whom were working the week they died because they loved what they did. Rick Rubin taught him that an artist is only an artist when they make things for themselves. Now Brian believes AI is the opportunity for all of us to do the same. Enjoy! Timestamps: 1:00 Studying Industrial Design 11:33 AI Founder Mode 17:02 Lack of Consumer AI Companies 22:10 Small Teams and Focused Problems 30:52 The Evolution from Founder to CEO 38:13 The 11-Star Experience 41:07 AI as a Canvas for Creativity 48:17 Detaching from Success 53:12 Founder-Led Moats 58:34 The Next Chapter of Airbnb 1:03:08 What Endures in the Age of AI 1:06:43 Lessons from Bodybuilding 1:10:20 The CEO's No. 1 Job 1:17:01 Activating Talent 1:20:39 The Kindest Thing

My guest today is Brian Chesky (Brian Chesky), founder and CEO of Airbnb and one of the great consumer founders of the last 20 years. Paul Graham coined "founder mode" based on Brian's experience running Airbnb. This conversation is about what comes after it, what he calls AI founder mode, and how it will force founders to focus even more on the details. We talk about his eleven-star exercise for finding product market fit, why your first hire should be a recruiter, and why Airbnb's $100B IPO became one of the saddest days of his life. Brian still comes across like the 17 year-old at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) who picked to study industrial design. His heroes are all artists. Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs, all of whom were working the week they died because they loved what they did. Rick Rubin taught him that an artist is only an artist when they make things for themselves. Now Brian believes AI is the opportunity for all of us to do the same. Enjoy! Timestamps: 1:00 Studying Industrial Design 11:33 AI Founder Mode 17:02 Lack of Consumer AI Companies 22:10 Small Teams and Focused Problems 30:52 The Evolution from Founder to CEO 38:13 The 11-Star Experience 41:07 AI as a Canvas for Creativity 48:17 Detaching from Success 53:12 Founder-Led Moats 58:34 The Next Chapter of Airbnb 1:03:08 What Endures in the Age of AI 1:06:43 Lessons from Bodybuilding 1:10:20 The CEO's No. 1 Job 1:17:01 Activating Talent 1:20:39 The Kindest Thing

Patrick OShaughnessy

2,650,359 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten

“Founders aren’t made when they start companies. They’re made when they interpret their market correctly.” Episode 2 of Knuckle Up with Nakul is live. Qasar Younis (Qasar Younis): Founder and CEO of Applied Intuition. One of the sharpest and most intentional operators you’ll ever meet on the craft of building a company. Full episode ↓ -- 00:00 Intro 01:19 What really makes someone a founder 05:26 The company that almost became Kickstarter 08:12 The most common misread on feedback 13:40 Why most founders don't end up with the best team 19:45 How to pick a co-founder 23:38 Your first 10 hires are really your first 100 28:21 The case for hiring slow and firing slow 33:22 Red, yellow, green: how Applied gives monthly feedback 35:00 The role that knows what’s actually going on in a company 40:01 How to operate with speed and intentionality 42:41 The three things Qasar spends time on 45:57 How Applied is driving AI adoption 52:06 The type of engineer Applied is now looking for 1:01:19 Why this could be the golden age of small companies 1:09:13 Quickfire: red flags, overrated advice, and superpowers 1:12:32 Qasar's advice to his 25-year-old self

“Founders aren’t made when they start companies. They’re made when they interpret their market correctly.” Episode 2 of Knuckle Up with Nakul is live. Qasar Younis (Qasar Younis): Founder and CEO of Applied Intuition. One of the sharpest and most intentional operators you’ll ever meet on the craft of building a company. Full episode ↓ -- 00:00 Intro 01:19 What really makes someone a founder 05:26 The company that almost became Kickstarter 08:12 The most common misread on feedback 13:40 Why most founders don't end up with the best team 19:45 How to pick a co-founder 23:38 Your first 10 hires are really your first 100 28:21 The case for hiring slow and firing slow 33:22 Red, yellow, green: how Applied gives monthly feedback 35:00 The role that knows what’s actually going on in a company 40:01 How to operate with speed and intentionality 42:41 The three things Qasar spends time on 45:57 How Applied is driving AI adoption 52:06 The type of engineer Applied is now looking for 1:01:19 Why this could be the golden age of small companies 1:09:13 Quickfire: red flags, overrated advice, and superpowers 1:12:32 Qasar's advice to his 25-year-old self

Nakul Mandan

521,414 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten

We hung out with benahorowitz.eth - on why founders fail (confidence, not competence), his CEO barbecues with Zuck and Kanye, how he reopened Tupac's murder case, creating hip-hop pensions for Grandmaster Caz, and why management books are useless. Way more interesting than expected. Shaan Puri Sam Parr. Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (5:36) Why most leadership books don't work (9:25) What to do when your CTO is an asshole (17:54) What makes Zuck a great CEO (27:09) #1 reason why founders fail as CEOs (33:10) Startups solving America's problems (39:19) Opportunities for young people (44:25) Culture rules with shock value (55:25) Jeff Bezos' new startup (57:00) Ben's uncommon traits (1:00:13) Wisdom accelerators (1:03:24) Paid in Full

We hung out with benahorowitz.eth - on why founders fail (confidence, not competence), his CEO barbecues with Zuck and Kanye, how he reopened Tupac's murder case, creating hip-hop pensions for Grandmaster Caz, and why management books are useless. Way more interesting than expected. Shaan Puri Sam Parr. Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (5:36) Why most leadership books don't work (9:25) What to do when your CTO is an asshole (17:54) What makes Zuck a great CEO (27:09) #1 reason why founders fail as CEOs (33:10) Startups solving America's problems (39:19) Opportunities for young people (44:25) Culture rules with shock value (55:25) Jeff Bezos' new startup (57:00) Ben's uncommon traits (1:00:13) Wisdom accelerators (1:03:24) Paid in Full

My First Million

477,777 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

Episode #92: How AI Changes Governments & Business Models Mike Vichich is the Co-founder and CEO of Pursuit, which helps companies drive more revenue from the public sector. We talk about how AI is changing Helmer’s 7 Powers, how it’s impacting the government, if DOGE is actually working, building a startup in the Midwest (specifically Ann Arbor, MI), and how to disagree with your team. We also get into Mike’s prior company Wisely, and how they went from $11 in the bank account and unable to run payroll for six months, to over $10 million ARR and a $187 million exit to public company Olo a few years later. Thanks to Jack Altman and Blake Robbins for their help brainstorming good topics for Mike! Full episode here on X, or grab a link in the replies. Timestamps: 3:21 How AI changes Helmer’s 7 Powers 17:06 What becomes important in AI-first economy 21:02 How AI interfaces with the government 24:02 “The rules intended to save taxpayer money ironically cause taxpayer money to be wasted” 29:34 How change orders impact public sector costs 33:20 Why DOGE has not impacted US government spending yet 38:15 Three pieces of wisdom from 2nd-time founders 41:44 Starting Pursuit to make selling to the public sector as easy as the private sector 45:35 Why cities grow expenses 5x faster than tax revenue 51:42 Pros + Cons of building startups in Ann Arbor, MI 57:43 Hiring talent density in the Midwest 59:30 Starting his first company to fix consumer credit cards 1:08:50 Pivoting Wisely to restaurant loyalty 1:12:49 $11 in the bank, missing payroll for six months 1:15:21 Embarrassing demo at an Ann Arbor tech meetup 1:18:18 Why CEOs don’t always have to be right 1:20:54 How to disagree 1:25:48 Hiring at Pursuit 1:28:30 “A bad day with customers is better than the best day in the office” 1:31:33 Crashing their first customer’s PoS on Labor Day Weekend 1:35:55 Using “The Cadence” to hit $10M ARR 1:41:55 Selling Wisely to Olo for $187M

Episode #92: How AI Changes Governments & Business Models Mike Vichich is the Co-founder and CEO of Pursuit, which helps companies drive more revenue from the public sector. We talk about how AI is changing Helmer’s 7 Powers, how it’s impacting the government, if DOGE is actually working, building a startup in the Midwest (specifically Ann Arbor, MI), and how to disagree with your team. We also get into Mike’s prior company Wisely, and how they went from $11 in the bank account and unable to run payroll for six months, to over $10 million ARR and a $187 million exit to public company Olo a few years later. Thanks to Jack Altman and Blake Robbins for their help brainstorming good topics for Mike! Full episode here on X, or grab a link in the replies. Timestamps: 3:21 How AI changes Helmer’s 7 Powers 17:06 What becomes important in AI-first economy 21:02 How AI interfaces with the government 24:02 “The rules intended to save taxpayer money ironically cause taxpayer money to be wasted” 29:34 How change orders impact public sector costs 33:20 Why DOGE has not impacted US government spending yet 38:15 Three pieces of wisdom from 2nd-time founders 41:44 Starting Pursuit to make selling to the public sector as easy as the private sector 45:35 Why cities grow expenses 5x faster than tax revenue 51:42 Pros + Cons of building startups in Ann Arbor, MI 57:43 Hiring talent density in the Midwest 59:30 Starting his first company to fix consumer credit cards 1:08:50 Pivoting Wisely to restaurant loyalty 1:12:49 $11 in the bank, missing payroll for six months 1:15:21 Embarrassing demo at an Ann Arbor tech meetup 1:18:18 Why CEOs don’t always have to be right 1:20:54 How to disagree 1:25:48 Hiring at Pursuit 1:28:30 “A bad day with customers is better than the best day in the office” 1:31:33 Crashing their first customer’s PoS on Labor Day Weekend 1:35:55 Using “The Cadence” to hit $10M ARR 1:41:55 Selling Wisely to Olo for $187M

The Peel

27,474 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr