Y Combinator: Vinod Khosla on How to Build the Future
Great quote: A company becomes the people it hires, not the plan it makes.
If you have a large vision it is never a straight line: No one has ever climbed Mount Everest in a straight line. You should be are obstinate about your vision but flexible about tactics as things change.
Most investors have not earned the right to advise an entrepreneur: 90% of investors add no value. 70% of investors add negative value to a company. Just because you got an MBA and joined a venture firm doesn’t mean you are qualified to advise an entrepreneur. Have you built a large company?
The biggest thing an entrepreneur deals with is which risk to take when: It is like wack a mole. Ambiguity is so hard to deal with but it is the essence of entrepreneurship. The single hardest decision you’ll make is whose advice to trust on what topic.
Something I said in an argument with another co-investor last week:Experience doesn’t matter. The rate of learning matters. First-principles thinking matters. Pick for the best athlete. Not the most established wide receiver who only knows how to run one pattern and one pattern only.
Why you should give early employees more equity: If somebody can do their own startup they will. You are comparing the job [you are offering] to them starting their only company. If you don’t do that you are including only the people who couldn’t start their own company.
Essential reading for entrepreneurs: The art, science, and labor of recruiting.
How entrepreneurs should think about investors: An investor is an employee that you can’t fire.
Book recommendations: Nassim Taleb’s book Skin in the Game is about the difference between doers and talkers. His book Antifragile: Thing That Gain From Disorder is about the right types of asymmetric risks to take.