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Most startups get to pivot. Deep Tech usually gets one shot. "They raised $100 million to put out one product, and if that product is not a smashing success, they're in trouble." Shahin Farshchi explains the brutal reality of Deep Tech investing at Lux Capital When you burn millions... show more

Dara

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18,115 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten •via X (Twitter)

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Doing this with my phone in one hand. Inviting tech product reviewers to compare this with anything in the market. If you have a decent, engaged following on YouTube or Instagram, we’ll send you the product for free. Others can get it at a solid discount.

Doing this with my phone in one hand. Inviting tech product reviewers to compare this with anything in the market. If you have a decent, engaged following on YouTube or Instagram, we’ll send you the product for free. Others can get it at a solid discount.

Ganesh Sonawane

32,582 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten

Elon Musk: Work on products that you personally love, that you feel really need to exist. “You want to focus on something that you are personally passionate about, that you personally care about. It's very hard to be motivated for a product that you don't really feel strongly about. And it doesn't have to be high-tech. It could be in any field. It's got to be a product that you feel really needs to be there, that you personally love. And I would listen to your instincts. Do you love this product or service? Because it's kind of impossible to know what do other people love. But if you love it, that's a good sign. A good test would be that you can't wait for this product to be on the market. And if that's the case, you're going in the right direction.” Interview at Viva Tech Paris, June 16, 2023

Elon Musk: Work on products that you personally love, that you feel really need to exist. “You want to focus on something that you are personally passionate about, that you personally care about. It's very hard to be motivated for a product that you don't really feel strongly about. And it doesn't have to be high-tech. It could be in any field. It's got to be a product that you feel really needs to be there, that you personally love. And I would listen to your instincts. Do you love this product or service? Because it's kind of impossible to know what do other people love. But if you love it, that's a good sign. A good test would be that you can't wait for this product to be on the market. And if that's the case, you're going in the right direction.” Interview at Viva Tech Paris, June 16, 2023

ELON CLIPS

36,448 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

The respect of capital. If you want to be wealthy, you have to respect money. You have to understand where it fits in your life. And you have to understand that the way to get rich is not to spend it, to save it and let it grow. This is the key to success. I've been saying it for decades. You save twenty percent of your income in perpetuity, put it into the market, and you leave it alone. You start doing it in your late twenties, even if you just got the average salary, by the time you're sixty-five, you have one and a half to two million bucks. Stock market does that. You do it. But the reason most people can't is they don't have the discipline to save. They buy too much stuff they don't need.

The respect of capital. If you want to be wealthy, you have to respect money. You have to understand where it fits in your life. And you have to understand that the way to get rich is not to spend it, to save it and let it grow. This is the key to success. I've been saying it for decades. You save twenty percent of your income in perpetuity, put it into the market, and you leave it alone. You start doing it in your late twenties, even if you just got the average salary, by the time you're sixty-five, you have one and a half to two million bucks. Stock market does that. You do it. But the reason most people can't is they don't have the discipline to save. They buy too much stuff they don't need.

Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful

56,962 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten

Most "hard tech" startups fail because they choose the wrong kind of hard. Shahin Farshchi (PhD ex-chip researcher & GP at Lux Capital) has spent 18 years investing in the most complex companies on earth (Zoox, Relativity Space, Mosaic). He breaks "hard" into two categories: • Scientific Risk: Fundamental discoveries that don't exist yet. • Technical Difficulty: Engineering known science into a monopolistic product. The mistake isn’t ambition. It’s underwriting discovery when the job is execution. In this week's episode of The Library of Minds, we discuss how elite deep-tech investors think about risk before metrics exist, why finding a cure for cancer means nothing without distribution, and much more! 01:16 — From PhD to Founder: Choosing Hard Problems 07:11 — The "Ask Nothing" Strategy for Breaking Into VC 11:38 — Balancing Technical Difficulty vs. Scientific Risk 13:59 — Deep Tech Startups Having One Shot 18:26 — The Controversial Mosaic Investment 23:56 — Learning to Trust The Bets You've Made 27:20 — Hard Truths About Scaling from 1 → N 31:44 — Why Money Is The Ultimate Commodity

Most "hard tech" startups fail because they choose the wrong kind of hard. Shahin Farshchi (PhD ex-chip researcher & GP at Lux Capital) has spent 18 years investing in the most complex companies on earth (Zoox, Relativity Space, Mosaic). He breaks "hard" into two categories: • Scientific Risk: Fundamental discoveries that don't exist yet. • Technical Difficulty: Engineering known science into a monopolistic product. The mistake isn’t ambition. It’s underwriting discovery when the job is execution. In this week's episode of The Library of Minds, we discuss how elite deep-tech investors think about risk before metrics exist, why finding a cure for cancer means nothing without distribution, and much more! 01:16 — From PhD to Founder: Choosing Hard Problems 07:11 — The "Ask Nothing" Strategy for Breaking Into VC 11:38 — Balancing Technical Difficulty vs. Scientific Risk 13:59 — Deep Tech Startups Having One Shot 18:26 — The Controversial Mosaic Investment 23:56 — Learning to Trust The Bets You've Made 27:20 — Hard Truths About Scaling from 1 → N 31:44 — Why Money Is The Ultimate Commodity

Dara

42,230 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

NEW: If Waymo gets its way, 2 million workers will be out of work. When Waymo gets a firm hold on a city, wages go down. Some drivers now have to work 12 hours day, 7 days a week just to get by. This isn't inevitable — but Big Tech is spending millions to make you think it is.

NEW: If Waymo gets its way, 2 million workers will be out of work. When Waymo gets a firm hold on a city, wages go down. Some drivers now have to work 12 hours day, 7 days a week just to get by. This isn't inevitable — but Big Tech is spending millions to make you think it is.

More Perfect Union

4,604,957 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten

OPINION: How bad is the tech reviewer market? You have mainstreamers literally angry at their viewership for not watching product or tech videos that they can't possibly afford the product in it. I am researching PC parts to update my build. I start watching reviews and a surprising amount came to light - - Tech market is in shambles thanks to a considerable number of things well ahead of the consumers. - If you think inflation is bad on the food shelves, take a look at the tech industry. - Some tech reviewers have started a mental collapse because they got used to the high life. Reviewing only kit for the rich. And now they are mad that viewers have stopped watching. REACTION TO CLIP: My thoughts on this and a reaction to one of the mainstreamers in the attached video. -What the reality is, is that tech reviewers have lost touch with the fact that the U.S people are struggling to make ends meet. - The last thing we want to see, is whining because we didn't make it to your sponsor clip to make you money. - When whining about viewership, it's a known fact that you don't drag a competitor that is doing better than you to whine about how you should be doing better. It shows underly pride issues. Just because you get to the top doesn't mean you can just lose touch with your actual tech base. -Most of these tech reviewers got big because they remembered the little guy. The reality is, for these tech reviewers, that's boring. Why do that when corporations are sending out thousands of dollars in kit meant for only the top percentile of consumers. It's fun to play with the latest modern tech. But when a consumer can't afford it, it just gets them depressed. So, these reviewers start laying on the guilty and blame, which drives away even more viewers. FINAL THOUGHTS: I purposely left out some of the more immature things. I really enjoyed Linus and learned to build a PC many years ago thanks to him. But I see a downward spiral happening for these mainstreamers that have gotten wealthy off of the tech market. Markets shift. I don't know what else to say. But it was defeating to see what I considered to be one of my main goes to people lash out and say that we are ignorant if we don't watch his reviews. That a large majority are buying parts without watching or reading reviews. Thats simple not true. The Tech YouTube market is saturated now. That's not the consumer's fault. I hope things turn around for a few of these mainstreamers. Linus is only an example. Not the only one. Linus Tech Tips Linus LinusMediaGroup #TechReviews #PCParts #PCBuild #NVIDIA #Example #Opinion

OPINION: How bad is the tech reviewer market? You have mainstreamers literally angry at their viewership for not watching product or tech videos that they can't possibly afford the product in it. I am researching PC parts to update my build. I start watching reviews and a surprising amount came to light - - Tech market is in shambles thanks to a considerable number of things well ahead of the consumers. - If you think inflation is bad on the food shelves, take a look at the tech industry. - Some tech reviewers have started a mental collapse because they got used to the high life. Reviewing only kit for the rich. And now they are mad that viewers have stopped watching. REACTION TO CLIP: My thoughts on this and a reaction to one of the mainstreamers in the attached video. -What the reality is, is that tech reviewers have lost touch with the fact that the U.S people are struggling to make ends meet. - The last thing we want to see, is whining because we didn't make it to your sponsor clip to make you money. - When whining about viewership, it's a known fact that you don't drag a competitor that is doing better than you to whine about how you should be doing better. It shows underly pride issues. Just because you get to the top doesn't mean you can just lose touch with your actual tech base. -Most of these tech reviewers got big because they remembered the little guy. The reality is, for these tech reviewers, that's boring. Why do that when corporations are sending out thousands of dollars in kit meant for only the top percentile of consumers. It's fun to play with the latest modern tech. But when a consumer can't afford it, it just gets them depressed. So, these reviewers start laying on the guilty and blame, which drives away even more viewers. FINAL THOUGHTS: I purposely left out some of the more immature things. I really enjoyed Linus and learned to build a PC many years ago thanks to him. But I see a downward spiral happening for these mainstreamers that have gotten wealthy off of the tech market. Markets shift. I don't know what else to say. But it was defeating to see what I considered to be one of my main goes to people lash out and say that we are ignorant if we don't watch his reviews. That a large majority are buying parts without watching or reading reviews. Thats simple not true. The Tech YouTube market is saturated now. That's not the consumer's fault. I hope things turn around for a few of these mainstreamers. Linus is only an example. Not the only one. Linus Tech Tips Linus LinusMediaGroup #TechReviews #PCParts #PCBuild #NVIDIA #Example #Opinion

Zach@WarfighterBravo

157,901 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Howie CEO austin petersmith told us building an AI secretary is harder than it looks. For a product like this, he said "you have to put a pretty bad product into market in order to get a good one." Last year, they worked with customers to understand the patterns and mapping out the mindset of an executive assistant. Now, that product is available to everyone.

Howie CEO austin petersmith told us building an AI secretary is harder than it looks. For a product like this, he said "you have to put a pretty bad product into market in order to get a good one." Last year, they worked with customers to understand the patterns and mapping out the mindset of an executive assistant. Now, that product is available to everyone.

TBPN

11,051 Aufrufe • vor 10 Monaten

Marc Andreessen on the 3 things he looks for when investing in a startup The first thing Marc Andreesen looks for is a big market: “Is there a big existing market that you think you can go after and displace incumbents? Or do you believe there will be a new market that will be big?” The second thing he looks for is a 10x better product: “Is there a fundamental technology or economic change that justifies a new company? And the way I always think about that is: Is there a 10x change happening in the technology landscape? Is something 10x faster, 10x cheaper, or 10x better? If it’s not 10x, we as both VCs and entrepreneurs have to ask ourselves if it’s really worth doing because it’s really hard to start new companies . . . Existing companies are usually pretty good at what they do. So for a new company to exist, it has to bring a product to market that’s so much better than what exists that it punches through the status quo.” The third is the team: “Is the team outstanding? . . . You want to have a founding team of complementary skillsets. You want to have at least one super strong technologist — quite possibly more than one. Some of the best startups are actually more than one founding technologist. And then it often helps to have someone who is a marketing or salesperson who has a really good understanding of business.” Marc believes that you need all three of these, but if you’re going to compromise on one of those as an investor, it should be the product: “A great market is a lot easier to make up for with iterative product execution. The problem with a poor or small market is that even if you do a good job on the product, there just aren’t that many customers so it’s hard to ever get big and people get demoralized . . . And then we evaluate the team of a startup by its ability to get into a big market with a good product.”

Marc Andreessen on the 3 things he looks for when investing in a startup The first thing Marc Andreesen looks for is a big market: “Is there a big existing market that you think you can go after and displace incumbents? Or do you believe there will be a new market that will be big?” The second thing he looks for is a 10x better product: “Is there a fundamental technology or economic change that justifies a new company? And the way I always think about that is: Is there a 10x change happening in the technology landscape? Is something 10x faster, 10x cheaper, or 10x better? If it’s not 10x, we as both VCs and entrepreneurs have to ask ourselves if it’s really worth doing because it’s really hard to start new companies . . . Existing companies are usually pretty good at what they do. So for a new company to exist, it has to bring a product to market that’s so much better than what exists that it punches through the status quo.” The third is the team: “Is the team outstanding? . . . You want to have a founding team of complementary skillsets. You want to have at least one super strong technologist — quite possibly more than one. Some of the best startups are actually more than one founding technologist. And then it often helps to have someone who is a marketing or salesperson who has a really good understanding of business.” Marc believes that you need all three of these, but if you’re going to compromise on one of those as an investor, it should be the product: “A great market is a lot easier to make up for with iterative product execution. The problem with a poor or small market is that even if you do a good job on the product, there just aren’t that many customers so it’s hard to ever get big and people get demoralized . . . And then we evaluate the team of a startup by its ability to get into a big market with a good product.”

Startup Archive

17,333 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten

Americans are finding out about Chinese cars that they're not allowed to drive and they're not happy: "Is that freedom here in America when you can't get a product because it's too good?"

Americans are finding out about Chinese cars that they're not allowed to drive and they're not happy: "Is that freedom here in America when you can't get a product because it's too good?"

Fifty Shades of Whey

22,350 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten

This guy gets this officer caught out. Dude backed down real quick. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you don't have a dash cam I highly suggest investing in one. You never know when you will need it, but I promise you that day comes you will be very happy that you made that investment to get one.

This guy gets this officer caught out. Dude backed down real quick. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you don't have a dash cam I highly suggest investing in one. You never know when you will need it, but I promise you that day comes you will be very happy that you made that investment to get one.

Giggling Ganon

25,587 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten

Michael Seibel, Managing Director at Y Combinator, on why shipping a crappy product in under a month beats building a perfect one for a year: Michael starts with a simple challenge: "Do you remember the day Snapchat launched? Do you remember the day Instagram launched? Do you remember the day that WhatsApp launched? Remember the day that Uber or Lyft launched? Most likely you don't." His point cuts against how most founders think about launch day: "It turns out that launching is nowhere near as significant event to your users as it is to you. So, you should move up the launch as soon as possible." The reason comes down to validation. "Until you can get your product in front of customers, you can't validate whether it solves their problem. And so, it's much better to build a crappier product, release it sooner, and get it out there in front of customers, see if they want to use it." Michael Seibel acknowledges the approach isn't universal: "There's some exceptions. In some extremely regulated markets like banking, for example, or lending, it's just really hard to launch. You actually have to get one s*** done before you're even allowed to get customers." But for most founders, the bar is far lower than they think: "In most consumer and B2B startups that we encounter, it's actually possible to get some form of MVP built and launched in less than a month. And so, that's what you should be thinking about."

Michael Seibel, Managing Director at Y Combinator, on why shipping a crappy product in under a month beats building a perfect one for a year: Michael starts with a simple challenge: "Do you remember the day Snapchat launched? Do you remember the day Instagram launched? Do you remember the day that WhatsApp launched? Remember the day that Uber or Lyft launched? Most likely you don't." His point cuts against how most founders think about launch day: "It turns out that launching is nowhere near as significant event to your users as it is to you. So, you should move up the launch as soon as possible." The reason comes down to validation. "Until you can get your product in front of customers, you can't validate whether it solves their problem. And so, it's much better to build a crappier product, release it sooner, and get it out there in front of customers, see if they want to use it." Michael Seibel acknowledges the approach isn't universal: "There's some exceptions. In some extremely regulated markets like banking, for example, or lending, it's just really hard to launch. You actually have to get one s*** done before you're even allowed to get customers." But for most founders, the bar is far lower than they think: "In most consumer and B2B startups that we encounter, it's actually possible to get some form of MVP built and launched in less than a month. And so, that's what you should be thinking about."

Big Brain Business

74,946 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten

Q: Should startup founders be able to code? In the clip below, Naval Ravikant gives advice to a startup spending $25k outsourcing product development to external developers: “You guys should be coding from the start. Web and mobile startups are so competitive right now. You have to assume that anything you’re doing, there’s a team of 2-4 dedicated, hardcore hackers working 24/7 on something extremely similar.” He continues: “If you have this iteration loop where you have to submit something to someone else and they have to come back to you. Then you’re like ‘no, it wasn’t quite right’ because a lot of stuff was lost in translation, you’re going to get 1-2 cycles per day at best. Meanwhile, that other team is getting 20 cycles per day. It has gotten so intense now that non-coding founders and startups are having a really difficult time adding value at these early stages.” Of course there are some examples of non-technical founding teams building terrific companies (e.g. Craigslist). But they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. As Sam Altman puts it in a separate interview: “For a very long time, the classic co-founding team was one very strong business person and one very strong tech person… now it has shifted towards two really strong tech people. That works a lot of the time and may be better overall.” And I think the reason for this—as Naval points out—is that when you can build the product yourself, your iteration cycles become so much faster. Another quote from Sam Altman in a previous Startup Archive Answer on the importance of fast iteration cycles: “The cycle here is basically: talk to customer to understand pain point → build product to address that → get product in front of user → see what they do → repeat cycle. This cycle is how you iterate and improve. The law of compound growth being what it is: if you can get 2% better every iteration cycle, your iteration cycle is every four hours rather than every four weeks, and you compound that over the course of a few years, you’ll be in a very very different place. Make it one of your top goals to build one of the fastest iterating companies the world has ever seen.”

Q: Should startup founders be able to code? In the clip below, Naval Ravikant gives advice to a startup spending $25k outsourcing product development to external developers: “You guys should be coding from the start. Web and mobile startups are so competitive right now. You have to assume that anything you’re doing, there’s a team of 2-4 dedicated, hardcore hackers working 24/7 on something extremely similar.” He continues: “If you have this iteration loop where you have to submit something to someone else and they have to come back to you. Then you’re like ‘no, it wasn’t quite right’ because a lot of stuff was lost in translation, you’re going to get 1-2 cycles per day at best. Meanwhile, that other team is getting 20 cycles per day. It has gotten so intense now that non-coding founders and startups are having a really difficult time adding value at these early stages.” Of course there are some examples of non-technical founding teams building terrific companies (e.g. Craigslist). But they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. As Sam Altman puts it in a separate interview: “For a very long time, the classic co-founding team was one very strong business person and one very strong tech person… now it has shifted towards two really strong tech people. That works a lot of the time and may be better overall.” And I think the reason for this—as Naval points out—is that when you can build the product yourself, your iteration cycles become so much faster. Another quote from Sam Altman in a previous Startup Archive Answer on the importance of fast iteration cycles: “The cycle here is basically: talk to customer to understand pain point → build product to address that → get product in front of user → see what they do → repeat cycle. This cycle is how you iterate and improve. The law of compound growth being what it is: if you can get 2% better every iteration cycle, your iteration cycle is every four hours rather than every four weeks, and you compound that over the course of a few years, you’ll be in a very very different place. Make it one of your top goals to build one of the fastest iterating companies the world has ever seen.”

Michael McGuiness

509,926 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

One of the most random and craziest thing I found out is that in the UK, you get some random inspectors coming to your home and pressuring you to pay a TV license if they suspect you watch BBC. If you don't you get fined 1000 £ 😭😭 How is that a normal thing lmfao!

One of the most random and craziest thing I found out is that in the UK, you get some random inspectors coming to your home and pressuring you to pay a TV license if they suspect you watch BBC. If you don't you get fined 1000 £ 😭😭 How is that a normal thing lmfao!

Devchart 👨🏻‍💻

62,288 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Trump goes on unintelligible rant: “Google, nobody called from Google. One of the things like doing a show like yours, your show, you know, you see it on Fox, but when you really see it is all over the place, they take clips of your show that you're doing right now with me and if I do a good job, they're gonna vote for me, they're gonna vote for me because it's not just on Fox, it's on Fox is a smaller part of it. You're on all over this, those little beautiful cell phones you're on, you're all over the place. You have a product, you have a great product. You have a great brand. So you have to get out, you have to get out, you have to do things like your show and other shows and Google has been very bad. They've been very irresponsible and I have a feeling that Google is gonna be close to shut down”

Headquarters

2,693,842 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

Frank Slootman’s advice for founders learning to be CEO Founders frequently ask Frank (former CEO of Snowflake), “Do you think I can be a CEO?” Frank responds with a question: “Do you want to be?” He explains: “If you want to be, you need to become a student of the role because it’s different.” One of the biggest differences in transitioning to being an “operating CEO” is that a founder’s “reality distortion field” becomes a liability. Frank explains: “Reality distortion is a very useful thing. Steve Jobs wouldn’t have done anything if he didn’t have reality distortion — you have to see the world differently, and you wouldn’t start a company if you didn’t have reality distortion. But when you start running a place for scale and breakout velocity, you need intellectual honesty.” He continues: “You need to see the world the way it really is… Not some version of the truth. And by the way, it’s hard. You have to drive for that intellectual honesty with everything.” A lack of intellectually honesty is where Frank sees a lot of founders go wrong: “They can’t handle the truth. When they have sales problems, it’s always, ‘Oh let’s get a new Sales VP.’ Well, maybe the product sucks. But that’s a conversation they don’t want to have.” Source: Foundation Capital (Nov 2024)

Frank Slootman’s advice for founders learning to be CEO Founders frequently ask Frank (former CEO of Snowflake), “Do you think I can be a CEO?” Frank responds with a question: “Do you want to be?” He explains: “If you want to be, you need to become a student of the role because it’s different.” One of the biggest differences in transitioning to being an “operating CEO” is that a founder’s “reality distortion field” becomes a liability. Frank explains: “Reality distortion is a very useful thing. Steve Jobs wouldn’t have done anything if he didn’t have reality distortion — you have to see the world differently, and you wouldn’t start a company if you didn’t have reality distortion. But when you start running a place for scale and breakout velocity, you need intellectual honesty.” He continues: “You need to see the world the way it really is… Not some version of the truth. And by the way, it’s hard. You have to drive for that intellectual honesty with everything.” A lack of intellectually honesty is where Frank sees a lot of founders go wrong: “They can’t handle the truth. When they have sales problems, it’s always, ‘Oh let’s get a new Sales VP.’ Well, maybe the product sucks. But that’s a conversation they don’t want to have.” Source: Foundation Capital (Nov 2024)

Startup Archive

18,923 Aufrufe • vor 21 Tagen

Frank Slootman’s advice for founders learning to be CEO Founders frequently ask Frank (former CEO of Snowflake), “Do you think I can be a CEO?” Frank responds with a question: “Do you want to be?” He explains: “If you want to be, you need to become a student of the role because it’s different.” One of the biggest differences in transitioning to being an “operating CEO” is that a founder’s “reality distortion field” becomes a liability. Frank explains: “Reality distortion is a very useful thing. Steve Jobs wouldn’t have done anything if he didn’t have reality distortion — you have to see the world differently, and you wouldn’t start a company if you didn’t have reality distortion. But when you start running a place for scale and breakout velocity, you need intellectual honesty.” He continues: “You need to see the world the way it really is… Not some version of the truth. And by the way, it’s hard. You have to drive for that intellectual honesty with everything.” A lack of intellectually honesty is where Frank sees a lot of founders go wrong: “They can’t handle the truth. When they have sales problems, it’s always, ‘Oh let’s get a new Sales VP.’ Well, maybe the product sucks. But that’s a conversation they don’t want to have.” Video source: Foundation Capital (2024)

Frank Slootman’s advice for founders learning to be CEO Founders frequently ask Frank (former CEO of Snowflake), “Do you think I can be a CEO?” Frank responds with a question: “Do you want to be?” He explains: “If you want to be, you need to become a student of the role because it’s different.” One of the biggest differences in transitioning to being an “operating CEO” is that a founder’s “reality distortion field” becomes a liability. Frank explains: “Reality distortion is a very useful thing. Steve Jobs wouldn’t have done anything if he didn’t have reality distortion — you have to see the world differently, and you wouldn’t start a company if you didn’t have reality distortion. But when you start running a place for scale and breakout velocity, you need intellectual honesty.” He continues: “You need to see the world the way it really is… Not some version of the truth. And by the way, it’s hard. You have to drive for that intellectual honesty with everything.” A lack of intellectually honesty is where Frank sees a lot of founders go wrong: “They can’t handle the truth. When they have sales problems, it’s always, ‘Oh let’s get a new Sales VP.’ Well, maybe the product sucks. But that’s a conversation they don’t want to have.” Video source: Foundation Capital (2024)

Startup Archive

91,918 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

Vinod Khosla on the two most important things to get right when building a company The first thing for a startup to get right is make sure they’re inventing something radically different: “If you’re extrapolating the past to predict the future, the big companies do that very well. Intel knows how to go from a 15nm process to 10 to 7 to 5… Entrepreneurs fundamentally have to invent the future they want in a very different way, and you have to have conviction.” For this reason, Khosla Ventures tends not to invest in startups that are trying to do something “slightly better” (e.g. slightly lower cost, slightly more efficient, etc.) because the risk is too high. As Vinod explains: “If you’re fundamentally reinventing something and changing the assumptions, then you have a lot more time to get it right so there’s a lot more iterations you can do.” Which brings Vinod back to the second thing every founder has to get right: build the right team. “If you get the right team — it doesn’t even matter if you get the spec right — it will iterate to the right answer, and almost all good startups do that. This is why the team is more important than the market you pick.” However, you must make sure to foster a culture of debate and disagreeing: “If there’s a single founder and you’re dictating terms, you’re not going to evolve… You have to set up a culture so that it doesn’t matter if you’re senior or junior — you speak up if you have a concern or an idea. You’ll detect problems much earlier, and as a group you can evolve your direction.” Vinod points out that this is one of the reasons Andy Grove started the casual, dress-down culture of Silicon Valley in the 70s: “He wanted an engineer — whether they were junior or senior or a VP — to speak up and not be intimidated that the executives were all wearing ties and coats.” Source: South Park Commons (Apr 2025)

Vinod Khosla on the two most important things to get right when building a company The first thing for a startup to get right is make sure they’re inventing something radically different: “If you’re extrapolating the past to predict the future, the big companies do that very well. Intel knows how to go from a 15nm process to 10 to 7 to 5… Entrepreneurs fundamentally have to invent the future they want in a very different way, and you have to have conviction.” For this reason, Khosla Ventures tends not to invest in startups that are trying to do something “slightly better” (e.g. slightly lower cost, slightly more efficient, etc.) because the risk is too high. As Vinod explains: “If you’re fundamentally reinventing something and changing the assumptions, then you have a lot more time to get it right so there’s a lot more iterations you can do.” Which brings Vinod back to the second thing every founder has to get right: build the right team. “If you get the right team — it doesn’t even matter if you get the spec right — it will iterate to the right answer, and almost all good startups do that. This is why the team is more important than the market you pick.” However, you must make sure to foster a culture of debate and disagreeing: “If there’s a single founder and you’re dictating terms, you’re not going to evolve… You have to set up a culture so that it doesn’t matter if you’re senior or junior — you speak up if you have a concern or an idea. You’ll detect problems much earlier, and as a group you can evolve your direction.” Vinod points out that this is one of the reasons Andy Grove started the casual, dress-down culture of Silicon Valley in the 70s: “He wanted an engineer — whether they were junior or senior or a VP — to speak up and not be intimidated that the executives were all wearing ties and coats.” Source: South Park Commons (Apr 2025)

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