Facebook Elon Musk zip2 and PayPal and
Tesla and SpaceX great founders are some
of the most interesting creatures on the
planet with superpowers both good and
evil let’s get into the bad stuff great
founders don’t work hard possibly
possibly the simplest definition of
passion is a strong and barely
controllable emotion now what that
doesn’t say is what type of emotion that
is it could be good or bad it could be
happiness or sadness what it does say is
that it’s so strong and compelling that
one can barely contain it great founders
of being so inspired by an idea that it
keeps them up all hours of the night
they love being so inspired by a problem
that it forces them to learn and grow
otherwise they have no chance of solving
it they love being so inspired that even
though they don’t know what’s next they
can’t wait to get around the next corner
and discover what it is for themselves
in all this in spite of the fact that
they know true to their nature even once
they accomplish that mission they’re
romantics are the same way romantics
love being a relationship that they just
can’t stop thinking about Philip being
with somebody that challenges them and
test them they love partnering with
somebody for the tough times braving the
uncertainty with great hope for the
future but you know that hopeless
romantic that we all know in our lives I
bet if they had the chance to have the
perfect relationship tomorrow they’d
turn it down
why because romantics are in love with
the journey not the end result think
about it what’s been the most rewarding
relationship of your life hopefully it’s
the one you’re in right now
and what’s made it the most rewarding I
bet it’s not days like today we’re
sitting an auditorium like this one
listening to someone like me talk simply
with the knowledge that relationships
amazing rather I bet it’s those moments
along the way to that realization that
have made it so special those arguments
you came back from those tough times you
went through together the good times the
bad times the crazy times and everything
in between what that says about great
romance is that it’s not about the end
result what about the journey and for
great founders they’re the same if a
great founder had everything go
perfectly in a start-up today sure
they’d be happy they would celebrate but
they’d get hungry for that journey again
and want to do it all over again you see
great founders aren’t hard workers great
founders are hopeless romantics living
and loving life to the max great
founders chase bad ideas and they can’t
quit when Dyson and Eddie moved to
Chicago they wanted to solve a problem
the problem they wanted to solve was new
people in a new city after college
trying to meet each other food brings
people together and so they figured
they’d start there they called it grub
with us they got accepted to Y
Combinator one of the premier
accelerators if not the premier
accelerators in the world and they
raised one and a half million dollars to
chase down this bad idea eventually they
came to some truth it turns out it’s
really hard to break social norms turns
out it’s a whole lot easier to break
plans with a stranger than somebody you
actually know busy schedules last-minute
cancellations and general cold feet led
to a poor user experience and on top of
all that it turns out that working with
restaurants on an operational level is
throughout the whole process though dye
shouldn’t Eddie kept asking themselves
questions a couple of which being do we
still see this as a problem and if we
can solve it can we do it in a way
that’s meaningful eventually came to the
answers of no and no and so they stopped
you see great founders can’t stop
chasing bad ideas because they are truth
seekers once they see a problem
they can’t help themselves but get to
the truth of it and find out if the
truth is good or bad that’s important
they need to know what it is regardless
of which of the two if it’s good that’s
great they check the box and they move
forward to a deeper truth if it’s bad
well then they break it down to its most
basic parts and try to fix it if they
can fix it great problem switches from
bad to good and on where they go if it’s
bad well ask what’s next what was next
for Dyson and Eddie was a goat or more
specifically the acronym goat for
greatest of all time turns out Dyson had
been a sneaker head since the guy was in
short pants he got so good at telling
the difference between fake sneakers and
real ones as he collected through his
adult years that he could do it down to
the smell yeah think about that one as
he kept collecting sneakers he had a bad
experience buying some fake ones on ebay
and had no recourse and so upset with
the whole situation he grabbed his old
friend Eddie and started asking some
questions questions like do a lot of
other people have this problem who else
does this besides eBay is anyone else
really using technology to solve this
problem how do other people search for
sneakers early indications of the truth
were good the industry was fragmented
and unsafe a lot of other people are
having this problem in whole communities
reforming online just to talk about how
to identify fake sneakers with or
without your nose
the truth still looks fairly good for
for go just this past February it was
announced that they’d raise 25 million
dollars from accel partners one of the
premier venture capital firms in the
world to chase down this bad idea great
founders procrastinate now if I just ask
you all who of you are procrastinators
I’m pretty sure I’d get a mixed response
partially because no one likes to admit
they procrastinate and partially because
sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell it’s
okay I came here today to make it easy
on all of you you are and you do in fact
we all do one of the best kept secrets I
learned a few years ago is that we are
all procrastinators in the only
difference between high achievers and
low achievers is that low achievers
procrastinate on high-value tasks and
high achievers procrastinate on low
value tasks now it’s not fair to just
assume that that person in your life who
you perceive to be a low achiever is a
lazy person who looks at high-value
tasks and says I’m not about that life
no it’s not quite that simple in fact
given the landscape of opportunities and
tasks in our life it’s genuinely
difficult to truly discern which ones
are of high value and of low value over
the course of time great founders aren’t
just procrastinators great founders are
master procrastinators great founders
use procrastination as a reverse tactic
to fine-tune their focus possibly the
best example of this is a young Mark
Zuckerberg and it proved my point I’d be
listening to an interview from him
roughly a decade ago where are you
taking this this for you expands those
other schools that happen
and I mean there doesn’t necessarily
have to be more yeah I mean like a lot
of people are focused on taking over the
world they’re doing like the biggest
thing doing the most users I mean I
think like part of making a difference
in doing something cool is focusing
intensely there’s a level of service
that we can provide we were just Harvard
that we can provide for all of the
colleges and there’s a level of service
them to provide one more a college
network so we won’t be able to provide
if we went to other types of thicknesses
so I mean like I really just want to see
everyone focus on college and greatly a
really cool College Directory product
that just like is very relevant for
students and like has a lot of like
information that people care about when
they’re in college so I don’t know that
it’s not everything that’s on the
facebook now did you just hear that that
was Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg of
Facebook Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook
saying he was not interested in having
the most users the same Facebook that
bought whatsapp in 2014 a company doing
about 20 million dollars in revenue for
it turned out to be over 20 billion
dollars only because they’d help mark
get to the most users makes me think
maybe the biggest takeaway from today is
that we shouldn’t forget mark also said
he wasn’t interested in taking over the
great founders are some of the most
interesting unique mind-boggling
confusing country tree creatures on the
face of the earth with superpowers both
good and evil whether it’s a hopeless
romance for life that drives them to
create groundbreaking work an inability
to turn away from a bad idea like a dog
in a room full of squirrels or an
intense procrastination that leads to a
quarter of the world’s population using
their app great founders use everything
they have good and evil to create real
value and punch new holes in the world
thank you
[Applause] [Music]