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Peter Thiel on the question he asks every startup founder he invests in “Why will the 20th talented person join your company when they can get paid way more at Google, they will have to work way less hard at Google, and it will look better on their resume... to go to Google?” The 20th employee won’t get the equity or prestige that someone on the founding team will get, so there needs to be another incentive if you’re going to build a truly great company and attract the best people in the world. Thiel believes the best answer is something along the lines of: “This is the only place in the world where you can work on this incredibly important problem.” He continues: “It has to—on some dimension—be a really important problem that at least some people think is the most important problem in the world. Those are the kind of businesses that are unique, and when they work, they end up being leaders in their respective markets.” If it’s a problem that a bunch of other team are working on, it will be hard to attract a truly world-class employee #20.show more

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Peter Thiel: Why will the 20th employee join your company? When deciding whether or not to invest in a founder, Thiel asks: “Why will the 20th talented person join your company when they can get paid way more at Google, they will have to work way less hard at Google, and it will look better on their resume to go to Google?” The 20th employee won’t get the equity or prestige that someone on the founding team will get, so there needs to be another incentive if you’re going to build a truly great company and attract the best people in the world. Thiel believes the best answer is something along the lines of: “This is the only place in the world where you can work on this incredibly important problem.” He continues: “It has to—on some dimension—be a really important problem that at least some people think is the most important problem in the world. Those are the kind of businesses that are unique, and when they work, they end up being leaders in their respective markets.” If it’s a problem that a bunch of other teams are working on, it will be hard to attract a truly world-class employee #20. Source: Pando

Peter Thiel: Why will the 20th employee join your company? When deciding whether or not to invest in a founder, Thiel asks: “Why will the 20th talented person join your company when they can get paid way more at Google, they will have to work way less hard at Google, and it will look better on their resume to go to Google?” The 20th employee won’t get the equity or prestige that someone on the founding team will get, so there needs to be another incentive if you’re going to build a truly great company and attract the best people in the world. Thiel believes the best answer is something along the lines of: “This is the only place in the world where you can work on this incredibly important problem.” He continues: “It has to—on some dimension—be a really important problem that at least some people think is the most important problem in the world. Those are the kind of businesses that are unique, and when they work, they end up being leaders in their respective markets.” If it’s a problem that a bunch of other teams are working on, it will be hard to attract a truly world-class employee #20. Source: Pando

Startup Archive

40,425 views • 2 years ago

Elon Musk: To recruit the best talent in the world, you have to show that their work will make a difference to the world. “I think in general, if you want to recruit people that are really talented and driven, you have to state what's the mission, what's the problem we're trying to solve and just be clearly willing to pour a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it and have a convincing argument for why it matters. There's three major things in terms of motivation. First of all, somebody's got to look forward to coming to work in the morning. Are they enjoying the work itself intrinsically? That's very important. And the right work environment can really make a big difference there. I think the ideal is that they also feel like that their rewards will receive fair financial compensation. That the financial rewards are good and fair. And then third, really, for the best people in the world, they'll want to know, is what they're doing going to matter? If they spend 10 years doing this, will it make a difference to the world? Will people notice? Will it matter?” XPRIZE Conversation with Peter Diamandis, April 22, 2021 Made and published via

Elon Musk: To recruit the best talent in the world, you have to show that their work will make a difference to the world. “I think in general, if you want to recruit people that are really talented and driven, you have to state what's the mission, what's the problem we're trying to solve and just be clearly willing to pour a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it and have a convincing argument for why it matters. There's three major things in terms of motivation. First of all, somebody's got to look forward to coming to work in the morning. Are they enjoying the work itself intrinsically? That's very important. And the right work environment can really make a big difference there. I think the ideal is that they also feel like that their rewards will receive fair financial compensation. That the financial rewards are good and fair. And then third, really, for the best people in the world, they'll want to know, is what they're doing going to matter? If they spend 10 years doing this, will it make a difference to the world? Will people notice? Will it matter?” XPRIZE Conversation with Peter Diamandis, April 22, 2021 Made and published via

ELON CLIPS

231,687 views • 1 year ago

Peter Thiel on the most important lesson he learned building PayPal The early employees of PayPal went on to build incredible companies like Tesla, SpaceX, LinkedIn, YouTube, Palantir, Yelp, Yammer, and more. When asked about the factors that explain these outlier successes, Thiel suggests that it was probably a combination of several different things: an entrepreneurial culture, lots of strong personalities, and the early 2000s was a great time to start a company. But Thiel also says that the overarching lesson you learned working at PayPal—which had a lot of challenges but ended up succeeding—was: “You can build a great company, but it’s hard.” He contrasts this to the lessons you learn at most startups: “If you’re at a startup that fails, you will learn the lesson that it’s impossible to build a great company and that you should try something less ambitious the next time around. If you’re at a startup where things work too easily [such as Microsoft or Google], you learn the lesson that it’s actually easy to build a great company.” He continues: “Hard is somehow better than easy or impossible. If it’s easy, you don’t need to work hard. If it’s impossible, there’s no point in working hard. So easy and impossible converge to not working hard. Hard tells you you have to work hard.” Video source: This Week in Startups @jason (2015)

Peter Thiel on the most important lesson he learned building PayPal The early employees of PayPal went on to build incredible companies like Tesla, SpaceX, LinkedIn, YouTube, Palantir, Yelp, Yammer, and more. When asked about the factors that explain these outlier successes, Thiel suggests that it was probably a combination of several different things: an entrepreneurial culture, lots of strong personalities, and the early 2000s was a great time to start a company. But Thiel also says that the overarching lesson you learned working at PayPal—which had a lot of challenges but ended up succeeding—was: “You can build a great company, but it’s hard.” He contrasts this to the lessons you learn at most startups: “If you’re at a startup that fails, you will learn the lesson that it’s impossible to build a great company and that you should try something less ambitious the next time around. If you’re at a startup where things work too easily [such as Microsoft or Google], you learn the lesson that it’s actually easy to build a great company.” He continues: “Hard is somehow better than easy or impossible. If it’s easy, you don’t need to work hard. If it’s impossible, there’s no point in working hard. So easy and impossible converge to not working hard. Hard tells you you have to work hard.” Video source: This Week in Startups @jason (2015)

Startup Archive

105,347 views • 10 months ago

Peter Thiel explains his principle of only working on problems that wouldn’t get solved without you Thiel shares that he’s “a little bit skeptical” of social entrepreneurship: “Social entrepreneurship is always ambiguous because it’s unclear what the word ‘social’ means. Social can mean that it’s ‘good for society’ or it can mean that it’s ‘good as seen by society’. In the second meaning, you often end up with something that many people are doing.” He gives education startups as an example of a social startup - it’s seen as objectively good and lots of people are working on it. Thiel contrasts this to a mission-oriented company: “A mission-oriented company is one where if you didn’t work on this problem, nobody would.” He gives the example of Elon Musk starting SpaceX with the mission of going to Mars and making humans interplanetary. If Elon wasn’t working on it, this problem might not get solved. Thiel believes this is an important principle in general: “We always want to do things where… if you weren’t working on it, it wouldn’t get solved. Always go for that sort of counterfactual meaning. You don’t want to ever be in a place where you’re just one of a hundred cogs in the machine… You want to be in a place where you’re doing something that can’t be easily replicated or replaced - either on an individual level or the level of a company.” Video source: The Wharton School (2014)

Peter Thiel explains his principle of only working on problems that wouldn’t get solved without you Thiel shares that he’s “a little bit skeptical” of social entrepreneurship: “Social entrepreneurship is always ambiguous because it’s unclear what the word ‘social’ means. Social can mean that it’s ‘good for society’ or it can mean that it’s ‘good as seen by society’. In the second meaning, you often end up with something that many people are doing.” He gives education startups as an example of a social startup - it’s seen as objectively good and lots of people are working on it. Thiel contrasts this to a mission-oriented company: “A mission-oriented company is one where if you didn’t work on this problem, nobody would.” He gives the example of Elon Musk starting SpaceX with the mission of going to Mars and making humans interplanetary. If Elon wasn’t working on it, this problem might not get solved. Thiel believes this is an important principle in general: “We always want to do things where… if you weren’t working on it, it wouldn’t get solved. Always go for that sort of counterfactual meaning. You don’t want to ever be in a place where you’re just one of a hundred cogs in the machine… You want to be in a place where you’re doing something that can’t be easily replicated or replaced - either on an individual level or the level of a company.” Video source: The Wharton School (2014)

Startup Archive

39,468 views • 7 months ago

The founders of Stripe and Pinterest on how to convince people to join your startup Stripe CEO Patrick Collison argues that part of the reason startups resonate so much is because the outcome is not guaranteed: "If it were guaranteed, it would be boring... Whether or not you're the best person in the world at what you do, you're probably not going to alter Google's trajectory. But if you really want to benchmark yourself and see how much of a contribution and impact you can make--which is a really compelling prospect for a lot of the best people--a startup is a much better place to test that." Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann emphasized this as well: "No smart person that you're hiring is under the illusion that you have a crystal ball into the future and that joining is a guaranteed thing. In fact, if you're telling them that and they select in, you shouldn't hire them because they didn't pass a basic intelligence test. I think it's important to tell them what's exciting and where you think the company can go. But also tell them where it will be hard and chart your best plan. And then tell them why their role can be instrumental--because it will be... What I would discourage doing is whitewashing all of that. If people are joining your company because they want all of the certainty and safety of working at Google but also the perks of working at a small startup with lots of responsibility and transparency, that's a really negative sign." Apparently in the early days of PayPal, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin would tell people after they interviewed all the reasons that the company would fail: "Visa and MasterCard want to kill us. We also might be doing something that's illegal. But if we succeed, we'll redefine payments." Don't whitewash the risks. Instead tell them how your startup will change the world if you succeed and how their role will be instrumental in affecting that change. Video source: Y Combinator (2014)

The founders of Stripe and Pinterest on how to convince people to join your startup Stripe CEO Patrick Collison argues that part of the reason startups resonate so much is because the outcome is not guaranteed: "If it were guaranteed, it would be boring... Whether or not you're the best person in the world at what you do, you're probably not going to alter Google's trajectory. But if you really want to benchmark yourself and see how much of a contribution and impact you can make--which is a really compelling prospect for a lot of the best people--a startup is a much better place to test that." Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann emphasized this as well: "No smart person that you're hiring is under the illusion that you have a crystal ball into the future and that joining is a guaranteed thing. In fact, if you're telling them that and they select in, you shouldn't hire them because they didn't pass a basic intelligence test. I think it's important to tell them what's exciting and where you think the company can go. But also tell them where it will be hard and chart your best plan. And then tell them why their role can be instrumental--because it will be... What I would discourage doing is whitewashing all of that. If people are joining your company because they want all of the certainty and safety of working at Google but also the perks of working at a small startup with lots of responsibility and transparency, that's a really negative sign." Apparently in the early days of PayPal, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin would tell people after they interviewed all the reasons that the company would fail: "Visa and MasterCard want to kill us. We also might be doing something that's illegal. But if we succeed, we'll redefine payments." Don't whitewash the risks. Instead tell them how your startup will change the world if you succeed and how their role will be instrumental in affecting that change. Video source: Y Combinator (2014)

Startup Archive

11,811 views • 9 months ago

ELON: TOP TALENT WON’T WORK FOR CLUELESS BOSSES “If you want to recruit people that are really talented and driven, you have to say: what's the mission? What's the problem we're trying to solve… have a convincing argument for why it matters? Somebody's got to look forward to coming to work in the morning. Are they enjoying the work… that's very important. They also feel like they will receive fair financial compensation. For the best people in the world… they'll want to know, is what they're doing going to matter? Will it make a difference… will people notice?” Source: Naruto, Elon Musk

ELON: TOP TALENT WON’T WORK FOR CLUELESS BOSSES “If you want to recruit people that are really talented and driven, you have to say: what's the mission? What's the problem we're trying to solve… have a convincing argument for why it matters? Somebody's got to look forward to coming to work in the morning. Are they enjoying the work… that's very important. They also feel like they will receive fair financial compensation. For the best people in the world… they'll want to know, is what they're doing going to matter? Will it make a difference… will people notice?” Source: Naruto, Elon Musk

Mario Nawfal

492,364 views • 9 months ago

Elon Musk on how to recruit the best talent in the world: "For the really best people in the world, they'll want to know: is what they're doing going to matter? If they spend 10 years doing this, will it make a difference to the world? Will people notice? Will it matter?" Elon breaks down recruiting talent into three core things. As he puts it: "If you want to recruit people that are really talented and driven, you have to state what's the mission, what's the problem we're trying to solve, and just be clearly willing to pour a lot of Blood, Sweat, and Tears into it. And have a convincing argument for why it matters." The three major things for motivation: "First of all, somebody's got to look forward to coming to work in the morning. Are they enjoying the work itself intrinsically? That's very important. And the right work environment can really make a big difference there." Second: "They also feel like they'll receive fair financial compensation. The financial rewards are good and fair." And third, the one that separates good from exceptional: "For the really best people in the world, they'll want to know—is what they're doing going to matter? If they spend 10 years doing this, will it make a difference to the world? Will people notice? Will it matter?" The best talent wants impact, not just income.

Elon Musk on how to recruit the best talent in the world: "For the really best people in the world, they'll want to know: is what they're doing going to matter? If they spend 10 years doing this, will it make a difference to the world? Will people notice? Will it matter?" Elon breaks down recruiting talent into three core things. As he puts it: "If you want to recruit people that are really talented and driven, you have to state what's the mission, what's the problem we're trying to solve, and just be clearly willing to pour a lot of Blood, Sweat, and Tears into it. And have a convincing argument for why it matters." The three major things for motivation: "First of all, somebody's got to look forward to coming to work in the morning. Are they enjoying the work itself intrinsically? That's very important. And the right work environment can really make a big difference there." Second: "They also feel like they'll receive fair financial compensation. The financial rewards are good and fair." And third, the one that separates good from exceptional: "For the really best people in the world, they'll want to know—is what they're doing going to matter? If they spend 10 years doing this, will it make a difference to the world? Will people notice? Will it matter?" The best talent wants impact, not just income.

Jaynit

149,367 views • 7 months ago

Naval Ravikant on the importance of hiring high-agency people Naval defines agency as: “People who just solve problems without even being asked to solve the problem—they identify the problem, they go solve it, they don’t even necessarily have to update you every step of the way, they’re not asking silly questions, and they’re just coming up with solutions.” He believes this is important because “building a startup is an infinite set of problems that are being thrown at you.” And there comes a day where you can’t even look at every problem your company is facing—let alone solve every one of them. He cites the Vinod Khosla aphorism: "The team you build is the company you build, not the plan you make.” And your ability to solve problems is based entirely on how many problem-solvers you have at your company. As Naval puts it: “If you have somebody who takes 10% of your time and management to solve problems, you can only have 10 of those people working with you. But if somebody takes 5%, you can have 20 of those people.” When building Airchat and AngelList, he thought of each team as a Navy Seal team: “Everyone is just really good at what they do. They know their job. They do it. They don’t complain. They’re not egotistical about it. And if they have to constantly be corrected, led around by the nose, you have to clean up after them, or you question their judgement, it’s not going to work out.”

Naval Ravikant on the importance of hiring high-agency people Naval defines agency as: “People who just solve problems without even being asked to solve the problem—they identify the problem, they go solve it, they don’t even necessarily have to update you every step of the way, they’re not asking silly questions, and they’re just coming up with solutions.” He believes this is important because “building a startup is an infinite set of problems that are being thrown at you.” And there comes a day where you can’t even look at every problem your company is facing—let alone solve every one of them. He cites the Vinod Khosla aphorism: "The team you build is the company you build, not the plan you make.” And your ability to solve problems is based entirely on how many problem-solvers you have at your company. As Naval puts it: “If you have somebody who takes 10% of your time and management to solve problems, you can only have 10 of those people working with you. But if somebody takes 5%, you can have 20 of those people.” When building Airchat and AngelList, he thought of each team as a Navy Seal team: “Everyone is just really good at what they do. They know their job. They do it. They don’t complain. They’re not egotistical about it. And if they have to constantly be corrected, led around by the nose, you have to clean up after them, or you question their judgement, it’s not going to work out.”

Startup Archive

552,837 views • 2 years ago

Peter Thiel on how to build the next billion-dollar startup: "Every moment in the history of business happens only once. The next Mark Zuckerberg won't be starting a social networking site. The next Bill Gates won't start an operating system. The next Elon Musk won't start a Tesla electric car company." Peter's entire thesis rejects the idea of formulas in business. As he puts it: "Science starts with things that are experimentally repeatable, but great businesses are zero to one; they're always one-of-a-kind. There is always this anti-formulaic quality." So what's the one theme he keeps coming back to? "This need for differentiation. What are you doing that nobody else is doing? What ideas do you have that nobody else has? What great business are you working on that no one else is working on?" He continues: "If you're a founder or an entrepreneur, you should always aim to build a monopoly where you're the only person in the world doing what you're doing. There really are only two kinds of businesses in this world: businesses that are in crazy competition and one-of-a-kind businesses that are monopolies." On why you shouldn't just iterate your way to success: "The core thing is to have a great product, and then you can always improve and iterate on that. If you're just trying to optimize and you don't have a great product, that rarely works." His advice? Think 5 to 10 years ahead: "Why will this be a really valuable business in 5 to 10 years? How's the competitive landscape going to develop? These are hard questions to answer, but the great entrepreneurs I know always have some perspective on it. When I was playing chess, one of the early lessons I learned was, a bad plan is still always better than no plan at all." On what makes work meaningful: "It's great to be working on problems where if you weren't working on them, nobody else would do them. If we weren't doing this, this problem would absolutely not be tackled. That's what's meaningful. Whereas when you're competing, you're already, by definition, number two at least in a category." Build something only you can build.

Peter Thiel on how to build the next billion-dollar startup: "Every moment in the history of business happens only once. The next Mark Zuckerberg won't be starting a social networking site. The next Bill Gates won't start an operating system. The next Elon Musk won't start a Tesla electric car company." Peter's entire thesis rejects the idea of formulas in business. As he puts it: "Science starts with things that are experimentally repeatable, but great businesses are zero to one; they're always one-of-a-kind. There is always this anti-formulaic quality." So what's the one theme he keeps coming back to? "This need for differentiation. What are you doing that nobody else is doing? What ideas do you have that nobody else has? What great business are you working on that no one else is working on?" He continues: "If you're a founder or an entrepreneur, you should always aim to build a monopoly where you're the only person in the world doing what you're doing. There really are only two kinds of businesses in this world: businesses that are in crazy competition and one-of-a-kind businesses that are monopolies." On why you shouldn't just iterate your way to success: "The core thing is to have a great product, and then you can always improve and iterate on that. If you're just trying to optimize and you don't have a great product, that rarely works." His advice? Think 5 to 10 years ahead: "Why will this be a really valuable business in 5 to 10 years? How's the competitive landscape going to develop? These are hard questions to answer, but the great entrepreneurs I know always have some perspective on it. When I was playing chess, one of the early lessons I learned was, a bad plan is still always better than no plan at all." On what makes work meaningful: "It's great to be working on problems where if you weren't working on them, nobody else would do them. If we weren't doing this, this problem would absolutely not be tackled. That's what's meaningful. Whereas when you're competing, you're already, by definition, number two at least in a category." Build something only you can build.

Jaynit

77,758 views • 7 months ago

"The question is, why are you trying to get the Muhammad Ali Act changed or removed? The strange thing about that act is that on every show you have to declare to the fighters on the card the revenue of the event, which is quite unique. There isn't really a problem with that in the boxing world because a significant proportion of the revenue is paid to the athlete... I think they will think that fighters are overpaid because they are in relation to the UFC and MMA talent." Eddie Hearn on TKO's ambitions to alter the Ali Act.

"The question is, why are you trying to get the Muhammad Ali Act changed or removed? The strange thing about that act is that on every show you have to declare to the fighters on the card the revenue of the event, which is quite unique. There isn't really a problem with that in the boxing world because a significant proportion of the revenue is paid to the athlete... I think they will think that fighters are overpaid because they are in relation to the UFC and MMA talent." Eddie Hearn on TKO's ambitions to alter the Ali Act.

Ariel Helwani

474,767 views • 11 months ago

Elon Musk: If you are creating a company or joining a company the most important thing is to attract great people "If you are creating a company or joining a company the most important thing is to attract great people, so either be with or join a group that's amazing that you really respect, or if you have building a company you have to gather great people I mean all the company is a group of people that have gathered together to create a product or service and so depending upon how talented and hardworking that group is, and the degree to which they're focused, cohesively, and in a good direction, that will determine the success of the company Do everything you can to gather great people, if you are creating a company"

Elon Musk: If you are creating a company or joining a company the most important thing is to attract great people "If you are creating a company or joining a company the most important thing is to attract great people, so either be with or join a group that's amazing that you really respect, or if you have building a company you have to gather great people I mean all the company is a group of people that have gathered together to create a product or service and so depending upon how talented and hardworking that group is, and the degree to which they're focused, cohesively, and in a good direction, that will determine the success of the company Do everything you can to gather great people, if you are creating a company"

SMX 🇺🇸

12,251 views • 5 months ago

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 views • 6 months ago

Marc Andreessen on how to get people to join your 3-person startup Marc says founders have two tools at their disposal to win new hires: 1) Stock options, and 2) vision. He explains: “The best entrepreneurs are really good at selling people on their company precisely because they can explain how the world is going to look in a way that is so compelling.” Marc points to Steve Jobs’s “reality distortion field” as the epitome of this: “If you get within 10 feet of Steve Jobs, whatever he says in the next 20 minutes, you’re going to walk out of there believing. He can say that the sky is purple, and you’re like yep that makes total sense . . . The best entrepreneurs all tend to have that in common and tend to be really good at that. It’s essentially sales — selling to employees. It’s an incredibly valuable skill to be able to do that. That plus stock options.” The other thing Marc has observed about hiring over the years is that right employees have to self-select into your company, even though that can be incredibly frustrating at times: “If you hired all the people you interviewed, it would turn out that 2/3rds or 3/4ths of them you probably shouldn’t have hired anyway. So what the best companies do is they provide a very stark idea of what the company is and what is it isn’t: ‘We are a company where people are expected to work 18 hour days and if you don’t like that, don’t come here’ or ‘We are a company where people expect to go home at 5pm every day and if you think that’ll be frustrating’ — whatever it is.” Marc gives the humorous example of Asana where it was a requirement that the whole company did yoga together: “If you like yoga, this is the company for you. If you don’t like yoga, don’t go there. You’re going to be asked to put your feet in positions that you’re completely uncomfortable with.” He continues: “I think the very best companies tend to be polarizing. So if in your hiring process, you’re turning people off as much as you’re turning them on because they’re deciding ‘this is clearly not the right fit for me,’ I think that’s a good thing.”

Marc Andreessen on how to get people to join your 3-person startup Marc says founders have two tools at their disposal to win new hires: 1) Stock options, and 2) vision. He explains: “The best entrepreneurs are really good at selling people on their company precisely because they can explain how the world is going to look in a way that is so compelling.” Marc points to Steve Jobs’s “reality distortion field” as the epitome of this: “If you get within 10 feet of Steve Jobs, whatever he says in the next 20 minutes, you’re going to walk out of there believing. He can say that the sky is purple, and you’re like yep that makes total sense . . . The best entrepreneurs all tend to have that in common and tend to be really good at that. It’s essentially sales — selling to employees. It’s an incredibly valuable skill to be able to do that. That plus stock options.” The other thing Marc has observed about hiring over the years is that right employees have to self-select into your company, even though that can be incredibly frustrating at times: “If you hired all the people you interviewed, it would turn out that 2/3rds or 3/4ths of them you probably shouldn’t have hired anyway. So what the best companies do is they provide a very stark idea of what the company is and what is it isn’t: ‘We are a company where people are expected to work 18 hour days and if you don’t like that, don’t come here’ or ‘We are a company where people expect to go home at 5pm every day and if you think that’ll be frustrating’ — whatever it is.” Marc gives the humorous example of Asana where it was a requirement that the whole company did yoga together: “If you like yoga, this is the company for you. If you don’t like yoga, don’t go there. You’re going to be asked to put your feet in positions that you’re completely uncomfortable with.” He continues: “I think the very best companies tend to be polarizing. So if in your hiring process, you’re turning people off as much as you’re turning them on because they’re deciding ‘this is clearly not the right fit for me,’ I think that’s a good thing.”

Startup Archive

69,518 views • 6 months ago

Gavin on why people misunderstand what makes TSMC so valuable: "One of the most undervalued pieces of the supply chain story is that almost none of these things are buy it once and never talk to the vendor again. You have to go collaborate. That is the most important part of being successful in chips. People look at the tech, and the tech is the best in the world. But the real value is all in the service. TSMC's customer service is way better than I've seen at any company in any industry. If you say, we think you can improve your yield by making this change, they will go run an experiment on their own dime to see if they can get the higher yield. When we found we were right and it worked, they moved it over to the rest of the line. If I go to a steelworks plant and say I want you to change the composition of the steel, they'll say screw you. Not TSMC. It's why they're number one, and why they're going to win."

Gavin on why people misunderstand what makes TSMC so valuable: "One of the most undervalued pieces of the supply chain story is that almost none of these things are buy it once and never talk to the vendor again. You have to go collaborate. That is the most important part of being successful in chips. People look at the tech, and the tech is the best in the world. But the real value is all in the service. TSMC's customer service is way better than I've seen at any company in any industry. If you say, we think you can improve your yield by making this change, they will go run an experiment on their own dime to see if they can get the higher yield. When we found we were right and it worked, they moved it over to the rest of the line. If I go to a steelworks plant and say I want you to change the composition of the steel, they'll say screw you. Not TSMC. It's why they're number one, and why they're going to win."

Invest Like the Best

71,350 views • 1 month ago

ELON: I COULDN'T THINK OF ANYTHING MORE INSPIRING THAN HAVING A BASE ON MARS “I couldn't think of anything more exciting, fun, and inspiring for the future than to have a base on Mars. It would be incredibly difficult. Probably lots of people will die, and terrible and great things will happen along the way, just as they happened in the formation of the United States. It'll be one of those things that is incredibly inspiring, and we must have inspiring things in the world. Life cannot just be about solving this problem or that problem. There must be things that, when you wake up in the morning, you're glad to be alive. That is, for me, the most important reason why we should pursue the establishment of life on Mars.” Source: The Mars Society, August 2012

ELON: I COULDN'T THINK OF ANYTHING MORE INSPIRING THAN HAVING A BASE ON MARS “I couldn't think of anything more exciting, fun, and inspiring for the future than to have a base on Mars. It would be incredibly difficult. Probably lots of people will die, and terrible and great things will happen along the way, just as they happened in the formation of the United States. It'll be one of those things that is incredibly inspiring, and we must have inspiring things in the world. Life cannot just be about solving this problem or that problem. There must be things that, when you wake up in the morning, you're glad to be alive. That is, for me, the most important reason why we should pursue the establishment of life on Mars.” Source: The Mars Society, August 2012

Mario Nawfal

17,463,695 views • 1 year ago

Elon Musk explains why the CEO must work on the “most pernicious and painful problems” “A lot of times people think creating a company is going to be fun. I would say it’s really not that fun. There are periods of fun, and there are periods where it’s just awful. Particularly if you’re the CEO of the company. You actually have a distillation of all the worst problems in the company. There’s no point in spending your time on things that are going right. So you only spend your time on things that are going wrong that other people can’t take care of… the most pernicious and painful problems.” Elon believes founders need to have a “fairly high pain threshold” and explains that starting a company is like “staring into the abyss and eating glass.” “The staring into the abyss part is that you’re going to be constantly facing the extermination of the company because most startups fail… You’re constantly saying, okay, if I don’t get this right, the company will die. It’s going to be quite stressful. And then the eating glass part is you’ve got to work on the problems that the company needs you to work on, not the problems you want to work on. And so you end up working on problems that you’d really wish you weren’t working on… And that goes on for a long time.” Video source: Khan Academy

Elon Musk explains why the CEO must work on the “most pernicious and painful problems” “A lot of times people think creating a company is going to be fun. I would say it’s really not that fun. There are periods of fun, and there are periods where it’s just awful. Particularly if you’re the CEO of the company. You actually have a distillation of all the worst problems in the company. There’s no point in spending your time on things that are going right. So you only spend your time on things that are going wrong that other people can’t take care of… the most pernicious and painful problems.” Elon believes founders need to have a “fairly high pain threshold” and explains that starting a company is like “staring into the abyss and eating glass.” “The staring into the abyss part is that you’re going to be constantly facing the extermination of the company because most startups fail… You’re constantly saying, okay, if I don’t get this right, the company will die. It’s going to be quite stressful. And then the eating glass part is you’ve got to work on the problems that the company needs you to work on, not the problems you want to work on. And so you end up working on problems that you’d really wish you weren’t working on… And that goes on for a long time.” Video source: Khan Academy

Startup Archive

41,111 views • 1 year ago

Sam Altman: “One of the few arbitrage opportunities left in the market is time” “I don’t think you can beat the market in a lot of ways, but the one way I do is by making a long-term commitment to something. My new belief on how long I should hold stock in the best companies I invest in is forever. And I think in a world where people are increasingly focused on the tick and the quarterly earnings cycle, you should try to go in the other direction. This is a great way to generate value and wealth.” Sam continues: “And so I think that when you’re thinking about a startup, it’s really worthwhile to think about something you’re willing to make a very long-term commitment to because that is where the current void in the market is. You get paid as a founder for the wealth you create for other people… The best companies just create massive amounts of value for the world, and then they capture some of that for themselves. But they capture far less than they create, and they do it over a very long period of time. So if you’re going to be one of those companies, I think you want to make a super long-term commitment to yourself and others that are going to work on it with you… It is worth waiting because you will make far more money over the long term by doing this company really well than a bunch of short term things along the way.” Video source: Y Combinator (2016)

Sam Altman: “One of the few arbitrage opportunities left in the market is time” “I don’t think you can beat the market in a lot of ways, but the one way I do is by making a long-term commitment to something. My new belief on how long I should hold stock in the best companies I invest in is forever. And I think in a world where people are increasingly focused on the tick and the quarterly earnings cycle, you should try to go in the other direction. This is a great way to generate value and wealth.” Sam continues: “And so I think that when you’re thinking about a startup, it’s really worthwhile to think about something you’re willing to make a very long-term commitment to because that is where the current void in the market is. You get paid as a founder for the wealth you create for other people… The best companies just create massive amounts of value for the world, and then they capture some of that for themselves. But they capture far less than they create, and they do it over a very long period of time. So if you’re going to be one of those companies, I think you want to make a super long-term commitment to yourself and others that are going to work on it with you… It is worth waiting because you will make far more money over the long term by doing this company really well than a bunch of short term things along the way.” Video source: Y Combinator (2016)

Startup Archive

49,283 views • 1 year ago

Peter Thiel: Think of the future on three horizons “What you end up doing when you think of the future as indefinite is you pick a job that will be good on your resume because it will then lead to a different job later on.” Instead of viewing the future as indefinite, Thiel suggests that the students in the audience think of the future on three horizons: short term, medium term, and long term. Very short term is: Are you going to be happy and will you be learning a lot? Very long term is: Are you working on something important or meaningful? “I think we are in a skewed world where we overweight the medium term, and we underweight some combination of the short term and the long term.” Thiel would recalibrate it to: “Focus on some combination of short term and long term. And forget about the medium term.”

Peter Thiel: Think of the future on three horizons “What you end up doing when you think of the future as indefinite is you pick a job that will be good on your resume because it will then lead to a different job later on.” Instead of viewing the future as indefinite, Thiel suggests that the students in the audience think of the future on three horizons: short term, medium term, and long term. Very short term is: Are you going to be happy and will you be learning a lot? Very long term is: Are you working on something important or meaningful? “I think we are in a skewed world where we overweight the medium term, and we underweight some combination of the short term and the long term.” Thiel would recalibrate it to: “Focus on some combination of short term and long term. And forget about the medium term.”

Startup Archive

69,175 views • 2 years ago

Elon Musk on building a company: “There are periods where it’s just awful” “A lot of times people think creating a company is going to be fun. I would say it’s really not that fun. There are periods of fun, and there are periods where it’s just awful. Particularly if you’re the CEO of the company. You actually have a distillation of all the worst problems in the company. There’s no point in spending your time on things that are going right. So you only spend your time on things that are going wrong that other people can’t take care of… the most pernicious and painful problems.” Elon believes founders need to have a “fairly high pain threshold” and explains that starting a company is like “staring into the abyss and eating glass.” “The staring into the abyss part is that you’re going to be constantly facing the extermination of the company because most startups fail… You’re constantly saying, okay, if I don’t get this right, the company will die. It’s going to be quite stressful. And then the eating glass part is you’ve got to work on the problems that the company needs you to work on, not the problems you want to work on. And so you end up working on problems that you’d really wish you weren’t working on… And that goes on for a long time.” Source: Khan Academy (Apr 2013)

Elon Musk on building a company: “There are periods where it’s just awful” “A lot of times people think creating a company is going to be fun. I would say it’s really not that fun. There are periods of fun, and there are periods where it’s just awful. Particularly if you’re the CEO of the company. You actually have a distillation of all the worst problems in the company. There’s no point in spending your time on things that are going right. So you only spend your time on things that are going wrong that other people can’t take care of… the most pernicious and painful problems.” Elon believes founders need to have a “fairly high pain threshold” and explains that starting a company is like “staring into the abyss and eating glass.” “The staring into the abyss part is that you’re going to be constantly facing the extermination of the company because most startups fail… You’re constantly saying, okay, if I don’t get this right, the company will die. It’s going to be quite stressful. And then the eating glass part is you’ve got to work on the problems that the company needs you to work on, not the problems you want to work on. And so you end up working on problems that you’d really wish you weren’t working on… And that goes on for a long time.” Source: Khan Academy (Apr 2013)

Startup Archive

74,562 views • 29 days ago

Q: Why is company culture important? In the clip below, a16z cofounder Ben Horowitz argues that culture drives how people in your company behave on a daily basis—and particularly, how they behave when you’re not looking. Is that phone call so important I need to return it today or can it wait until tomorrow? Can I ask for a raise before my annual review? Is the quality of this document good enough or should I keep working on it? Do I have to be on time for that meeting? Should I stay at the Four Seasons or the Red Roof Inn? Should I go home at 5 p.m. or 8 p.m.? Should we discuss the color of this new product for five minutes or thirty hours? If I know something is badly broken in the company, should I say something? Whom should I tell? Is winning more important than ethics? None of these things are in your mission statement or OKRs, but they determine many important things for your company, such as how people experience your company, what you’re like to do business with, what your company is like to work at, etc. And as Ben describes, what drives the culture is all of the little behaviors and cues people take on: “this is what I have to do to succeed in this company.” Culture can feel abstract and secondary when you pit it against a concrete result that’s right in front of you, but it’s a strategic investment in the company doing things the right way when you are not looking. It’s the set of assumptions your employees use to resolve the problems they face every day. It’s how they behave when no one is looking. If you don’t methodically set your culture, then two-thirds of it will end up being accidental, and the rest will be a mistake. If you’re looking for a more in-depth guide to culture and how to build a great one, I’d recommend Ben’s book: What You Do Is Who You Are.

Q: Why is company culture important? In the clip below, a16z cofounder Ben Horowitz argues that culture drives how people in your company behave on a daily basis—and particularly, how they behave when you’re not looking. Is that phone call so important I need to return it today or can it wait until tomorrow? Can I ask for a raise before my annual review? Is the quality of this document good enough or should I keep working on it? Do I have to be on time for that meeting? Should I stay at the Four Seasons or the Red Roof Inn? Should I go home at 5 p.m. or 8 p.m.? Should we discuss the color of this new product for five minutes or thirty hours? If I know something is badly broken in the company, should I say something? Whom should I tell? Is winning more important than ethics? None of these things are in your mission statement or OKRs, but they determine many important things for your company, such as how people experience your company, what you’re like to do business with, what your company is like to work at, etc. And as Ben describes, what drives the culture is all of the little behaviors and cues people take on: “this is what I have to do to succeed in this company.” Culture can feel abstract and secondary when you pit it against a concrete result that’s right in front of you, but it’s a strategic investment in the company doing things the right way when you are not looking. It’s the set of assumptions your employees use to resolve the problems they face every day. It’s how they behave when no one is looking. If you don’t methodically set your culture, then two-thirds of it will end up being accidental, and the rest will be a mistake. If you’re looking for a more in-depth guide to culture and how to build a great one, I’d recommend Ben’s book: What You Do Is Who You Are.

Michael McGuiness

180,646 views • 3 years ago