if you’re looking for motivation to take
bold bets keep on going and break
through the noise with your business
then this video is for you it’s
incredibly hard to get people to take
bold bets often your dream is its it
seems like it’s so so far off but but if
you just kind of focus on building stuff
that you think is good and and you keep
on going and so your question is is how
do you break through the noise is a
really really key thing
what’s that believe nation it’s Evan
Mike one word is believe and I believe
in you I believe you have insane
potential and I want to see that thing
inside you burst out into the world I
also believe that success leaves Clues
and that if you study the people who’ve
had success before you you can emulate
their success and so today we’re gonna
learn how the world’s most successful
internet entrepreneurs think so coming
in at number one is take bold bets with
Jeff Bezos one of my jobs as the leader
of Amazon is to encourage people to be
bold and people love to focus on things
that aren’t yet working and that’s good
it’s human nature that kind of divine
discontent can be very helpful but you
really you know it’s incredibly hard to
get people to take bold bets and you
need to encourage that and if you’re
gonna take bold bets they’re gonna be
experiments and if they’re experiments
you don’t know ahead of time though
they’re gonna work
experiments are by their very nature
prone to failure but big success is a
few big successes compensate for dozens
and dozens of things that didn’t work so
you know bold bets AWS Kindle Amazon
Prime our 3rd party seller business all
of those things are examples of bold
bets that that that did work and they
pay for a lot of experiments I’ve made
billions of dollars of failures at
amazon.com literally billions of dollars
of failures and you know you might
remember pets calm or Cosmo or you know
give myself a root canal with no
anesthesia very easily none of those
things are fun
but but they also they don’t matter what
really matters is companies that don’t
continue to experiment companies that
don’t embrace failure they eventually
get in the desperate position where they
only thing they can do is we could kind
of Hail Mary bet at the very end of
their corporate existence
whereas companies that are you know
making bets all along even you know big
bets but not bet the company bets I
don’t believe in bet the company bets
that’s when you’re desperate that’s
that’s the last thing you can do
constant experimentation guys as you
grow and evolve as a human being you
have to bring that to your business I
love the message okay number two is
solve big problems with Jack Ma we are
not a company that normally China Khan
we call ourself a company running a
platform a company that is running an
ecosystem we are almost everywhere
people say Jack you know you are in the
b2b and b2c and you’re calling C to be
on a finance and online payment logistic
cloud computing you are everywhere not
because we’re greedy not because we want
to do it because we have to do it if we
cannot if we do not to do it China
ecommerce in the years were class I
remember nine years ago when I started
that Ali pay people say get don’t touch
the financing sector because it’s
illegal you may be in prison and I we
taught ourselves if we don’t do it the
China ecommerce were always like a like
a chat room everybody said it’s a good
thing and yeah I don’t pay you don’t get
the things so I say well put me in the
prison let’s make a shirt that Ali pay
the payment solution works and people
say the payment solution is such a
stupid idea it’s an escrow service I pay
you hold the money and you get the
things you pay the money if you don’t
get the things you want return the money
they say it’s a stupid product and I say
as long as you solve the problem
I like stupid things you know let’s make
stupid things smart keep on improving
every
I love the message let’s make stupid
things smart it reminds me of something
I tell myself every morning as I’m
walking up my stairs if you want to be a
billionaire you have to solve a ten
billion dollar problem upgrade the level
of your thinking upgrade the problems
that you’re solving and you know the
bigger impact it’ll be most successful –
okay number three is Mark Zuckerberg
keep on going it wasn’t so long ago that
you know I was a student and you know
sitting in in a seat in auditorium like
you guys are here today listening to I
remember very specifically this time
when Bill Gates came to talk it at
Harvard and I’m like wow how do you how
do you do that
and but you know the trick is is that
the media likes to sensationalize this
as if you have some Eureka moment or you
are some singular person who can’t build
something on your own and that’s just
not how the world works you know when I
was in school I built a lot of stuff
that I just liked building there was not
a single moment when I when I had some
revelation that Facebook was going to be
awesome
that’s not maybe how the media or movies
or whatever would like to portray things
it’s not it’s much less exciting but the
reality is I think most services in the
world that reach the scale that Facebook
has you start off building something
that you care about and you know you
don’t necessarily think it’s gonna be
that big I I didn’t you know I built
Facebook the first version of Facebook
for my college community because I
wanted to be able to connect with the
people at my school and I remember very
clearly talking to my friends at the
time and saying you know it’s how cool
is it that we have built this community
for our school you know one day it’s
gonna be awesome when somebody else
builds this for the world because
something like this needs to exist for
the world but it didn’t even occur to me
that you know my friends and I might be
able to play a role in doing that
because we were college students right
we didn’t have any you know engineers to
work with or servers or resources or
anything like that and you know there
were these huge companies that deliver
products for hundreds of millions of
people right there’s I always assumed
that it was gonna be like Microsoft or
Google or someone would build this for
the world and what basically just
happened is that each step along the way
we just kind of kept doing the next
thing and growing from there and you
know there were teams inside these other
companies that that thought social media
was important and we’re working on it
but there were all these different memes
and narratives in the world you know
people would say oh well you know this
is just a fad people are gonna use it
but then they’re gonna stop so you know
so a lot of the teams who were working
on didn’t take it that seriously or you
know the higher-ups and those companies
didn’t care so then get resources and we
just kept going and going and then
people would say alright well alright
fine so maybe people are using it but
it’s never gonna make any money alright
I mean social media doesn’t make any
money yeah we just kind of kept going
and going and then pretty soon we had a
service that was bigger than any of
these other ones and that kind of is how
we are here where we are a lot of times
I think people just get afraid because
you know often your dream is its it
seems like it’s so so far off but but if
you just kind of focus on building stuff
that you think is good and and you keep
on going at each step along the way and
don’t let people deter you from that and
you just really care about what you’re
doing and kind of don’t give up but each
step along the way then you know I think
that’s how you that’s how you build
something good you know I’m a big
believer in dream big but act small you
have this big goal that you’re shooting
towards you’re aiming towards it may
seem impossible impractical but every
day you’re actually doing something to
make it happen on a tiny small scale
you’re slowly building those steps bit
by bit by bit by bit
usually the successes don’t come from a
giant thing happening but on all these
tiny little things that eventually
accumulate over time but if you look
back looks like this big giant step it’s
not think big act small ok number four
is believe in people with Pierre Omidyar
it’s sort of this just with the idea of
let’s bring the power of interactive
technology you know the web to ordinary
people and you know and I had this firm
belief which I still believe that people
are basically good and as I said if you
if you treat them well and if you treat
them with with you know benefit of the
doubt you’re not gonna be disappointed
and in the modern world despite you know
we’re bombarded with negative images all
the time about how bad the world is how
dangerous the world it is and it is true
there are some dangerous things going on
and there are some bad actors out there
but the vast majority of people out
there are just good decent honest people
I really love how Pierre is always
pushing that message because nobody’s
doing it enough for eBay to work this
guy found that eBay you have to trust in
people trust that that package is going
to be sent when I paid money you’re not
dealing with some big corporation so an
individual person and if people are not
basically good and trustworthy others on
some bad apples but if people on a whole
aren’t good and trustworthy than eBay
doesn’t exist it doesn’t work and so
it’s awesome to see it it’s great to see
that company take off and do well on
this foundational premise that people
are good I love it and I love the Pierre
is kind of beating that Niko’s okay
number five is don’t chase money that
Larry Ellison we started with four
employees and our goal was to get to 50
employees and the goal really was not so
much to make a lot of money I’m I’m on
it I wanted to me a lot of money in
those days was I want to own a house I
wanna have a nice car and I wanted to
work with interesting people and do
interesting things and I thought if I
could control my own environment have a
small consulting company and Oracle
started out as a software consulting
company we work for tandem computer if
anyone remembers those guys we work for
IBM that we work for a lot of different
tech companies in Silicon Valley doing
contract programming fixed-price
contract programming and we did pretty
well actually and and again the idea was
just to have a small software contract
software company budget you know we
thought were a hotshot programmers and
we thought I could make a decent living
just that and quite by accident we built
a product so this is pretty close to the
sucks message to around you just keep
going just keep building you’re doing
the thing that you love you’re not just
doing it to try to make a lot of money
and I continually put in the effort and
putting in the work day after day after
day amazing things happen and it’s so
interesting to see how many times our
business changes along the path of
success so Larry Ellison started off
just doing consulting and turned into a
product suck started off just do it in
his dorm room and it became a much
bigger project a lot of times a plan you
have at the beginning is not the plan
you end up with it very rarely is that
start plan is very rarely the thing that
takes you to the ultimate success but
don’t worry about it like just get
started and keep going every day all the
thing that you love doing and you keep
doing that day-in day-out you’ll have
success alright number six is set big
goals with Larry Page a lot of times
mine shows people are not setting goals
that will be something that somebody who
becomes rich or as could do anything you
got to be excited about working on that
for ten years
so you got to have a big enough coal
then you know you attract the best
people and you retain them and you keep
them focused and then my experience you
don’t go wrong you know maybe you don’t
hit it next year or maybe you fail
entirely and you discover something more
exciting to work on with the same set of
people yeah setting huge goals is so
motivating as an entrepreneur I remember
reading the biography of Ted Turner and
his father killed himself when Ted was
young eighteen nineteen something like
that in Ted Turner’s dad basically set a
goal for himself he reached it and he
was depressed and he killed himself and
so Ted Turner decided that he would set
goals that he would never be able to
reach so he would never be the press
because there’s always something to
search for and it’s what I’m doing now
of trying to solve the world’s biggest
problems untapped human potential it’s
an impossible goal it will never happen
there’s always more potential and that
fires me up you should get excited every
day by the goal that you are out there
trying to solve right your big mission
your big vision what are you trying to
do
and that idea of trying to empty out the
ocean with a ladle something impossible
to do and you just get up and do it
every day what it beats you your team
the people around you who want to come
on board and help you so poor Larry name
nice alright number seven is push until
it hurts with Travis talented if you get
to a place where it’s easy as an
entrepreneur it’s about to get really
really hard and so what you find is with
really good entrepreneurs they’re
constantly making things difficult for
themselves
and it’s pushing I like to say you push
until it hurts or you sort of you want
to be always pushing beyond what you’re
comfortable with and you’re sweating
just a little bit all the time and and
when that happens when you’re when
you’re constantly pushing beyond what
you think what you know is possible
you’re always sweating a little bit and
you’re always a little bit nervous but
that is the drug of being an
entrepreneur and so when you’re pushing
like that and you’re never really
relaxed then it always feels small and
so in many ways it feels to me the same
now as it did at the beginning it’s
still a little nervous I really love
this message and I think it’s important
that you have an environment in habits
or people around you that push you to
want to do that and and stop racing
against three-year-olds typically it’s
easy to build a company to a certain
size and then get bored and get
complacent
it’s easy and then you stop pushing it’s
really hard to make ourselves be hard on
ourselves to push and do more it’s why
you’re more likely to have success in
the gym with a personal trainer who’s
saying go go go push harder you can do
it that extra set as opposed to you
going out working out on your own and so
if you don’t have that accountability
partner I get it from the videos I get
it from my environment I get it from the
book right I get it from surrounding
myself with these successful people that
I feel like I’m doing just insanely
small things and it’s not a push down
it’s a push forward to say I can do more
I want to make it harder on myself I’ve
gotta stretch the comfort zone make it
painful so that I do my best work
okay number eight is always be a startup
with Brian Chesky you know Paul Graham I
used to he was our first investor and I
used to worry about all these random
things like competitors you know kind of
cities all the stuff and he said
something to me I’ll never forget he
said Brian startups died of suicide not
homicide all great companies that had a
downfall they died of self-inflicted
wounds so what are those self-inflicted
horrible things I know but anyway but
it’s really the key thing is about like
there’s this thing that like you’re a
small company and you exist because no
one else especially big companies
couldn’t do what you can do as a small
nimble company you know public art is
saying the older you get the stronger
the wind gets it’s always in your face
it’s like small copies become big
company so sometimes become really
bureaucratic and the culture gets lost
people leave the company that is
something it’s not unique to Airbnb but
that’s the thing that we have to worry
about and I’m deeply paranoid about that
I want to make sure that we’re always a
start-up maybe the world’s biggest
startup but a state you’re scared of
yourself you have to be afraid of what
you might become if you’re not like you
know if you relax that’s for sure so I
think that’s a great message for big
companies who need to be more nimble and
aggressive I think you guys watching
entrepreneurs remembering that that
nimbleness is your advantage that’s how
you beat Microsoft that’s how you beat
the giant corporations thinking about
the sucks the third clip he’s saying
that he expected Microsoft to make the
Facebook right you didn’t expect to be
able to do it himself
but all these giant corporations were
too slow they didn’t take it seriously
they have to commit to it and so that
startup mentality you may think I don’t
have the resources I don’t have the
connections
I’m brand new nobody wants to listen to
me like that nimbleness is your
advantage and yes some big company could
do what you’re doing but they’re too
slow they don’t know the industry like
you do they don’t have the passion you
do and so instead of just seeing that as
a negative turn it into a positive for
you because the big companies they want
to be like you okay number nine is break
through the noise with Reid Hoffman the
number of companies that really matter
every year is probably between zero and
five right in terms of like the industry
changing so you look at an audience like
this which is what 1,400 people 1,700
people you say it’s an average of two
founders per company’s presume
everyone’s doing it you got an 800
in the room right and so then that’s
only the people who here let alone
everything else and so your question is
is how do you break through the noise is
a really really key thing whether it’s
financing talent aggregation
go-to-market etc so how that then
becomes a central problem so one of them
is is to say well do something very
contrarian do something that is kind of
like not like where people say well you
know it’s it’s it’s Airbnb but for dogs
right you know or that kind of thing is
not the kind of thing to do
generally right it’s very rare that
that’s ever become the big companies yes
extremely rare the second thing would be
is to look we’re really look we’re and
this is one of the reasons why both you
and I are fans of Peters question of you
know what do you believe that other
people don’t but look where other people
really aren’t right like whether it’s
you know hard science or if it was two
and a half years ago Bitcoin you know
etc you know those sorts of things were
like well actually something could be
really big here because by the way if
you end up being right you end up having
access the talent that’s really but it’s
really focused on that you have a ramp
to actually get a whole bunch of stuff
and get a big head start from other
possible competitive efforts and these
sorts of things again a super important
message for entrepreneurs just getting
started who are different you are
resourceful you are unique you are
you’ve got to figure out what that
secret sauce is for you and bring that
to your business you know you’re one
word whether you staying for and yes we
want a model success yes if you want to
learn from jobs and all the people that
you might look up to but you have to
take that advice and then manipulate it
and twist this that fits for you if all
you are doing is being a carbon copy of
somebody else the best you’ll be is just
a junior somebody else where you want to
take all these bits of advice and make
it unique to you to help you be the best
you and be be bold with that love your
differences that’s the thing that’s
gonna help make you stand out compared
to everybody else
stop trying to fit in and start trying
to stand out and last up at number 10 is
make sure that people align properly
with Peter Thiel one part that I’m
always um
very focused on it’s sort of the
structure of these companies and how
well are people aligned and so you can
and making sure that people are you know
aligned properly not just that they say
that I think this is sort of a very very
legal kind of a framework to think about
what are people’s incentives you know
are they gonna be aligned or not and I
think you want to both have formal
alignment where you set the structure
right and you want to have informal
alignment where the people would
naturally try to work together well in
one one way or another and I think
that’s somehow tends to get obscured in
all these other ways you know there’s
always a there’s always a there’s always
a free history question I like to ask
founders of companies which is how did
you how did you meet
what’s the prehistory of the company
before you got started and I find that
to be really instructive set of
questions to ask a bad answer is
something like you know we met a week
ago at a social networking function at a
business networking function we decided
to start a company because we both
wanted to be entrepreneurs you know
that’s like saying I married the first
person I met at the slot machines in Las
Vegas and you might hit the jackpot but
it’s probably a really bad idea
and a much better answer is you know
we’ve been talking about this for a long
time you know maybe one of us is more on
the tech side the other one’s more on
the business side we have these sort of
complimentary skills and and so I think
this question of alignment and structure
is is incredibly important I think if
you look at some of the most successful
companies and the founders and how they
got together you’ll see that they knew
each other for a long time there were
friends growing up but they were friends
in university or college and they were
working and tinkering and the idea of
certain business came but it wasn’t
necessarily go off and build a giant
corporation they just loved what they
did they had a natural connection with
each other I think another way to do it
is figuring out your core value right
your one word like be able to attract
people to your business partner
suppliers employees who feel the same
thing that you feel who are on the same
mission that you are on as well and it’s
not just about trying to make a boatload
of money but trying to make a positive
impact
well getting those people on board
believe the same thing and go so much
faster so that’s my take on how the
world’s most successful internet
entrepreneurs think I’d love to know
what did you guys think which clip was
your favorite and why I think my
favorite was number seven push until it
hurts just that constant reminder that I
need to be more I need to be better I
need to push myself beyond what other
people expect it means that new
standards for the industry I love that
message and make you want to grind a
little bit harder which one that you
guys like is there an eleven twelve
thirteen that you want to add to the
list let me know in the comments down
below thank you guys again for watching
I believe in you I hope you continue to
believe in yourself and whatever you’re
one root is much love see you soon what
was once volume the most important work
ever if you had to think of one word
that’s most important to you or that
sums you up or so it would be like a
little beacon pay believe nation if you
want to know what the most important one
word is for Tony Robbins
Gary Vaynerchuk Oprah Winfrey will.i.am
and Howard Schultz I have a very special
secret video for you check the
description for details
bold bets keep on going and break
through the noise with your business
then this video is for you it’s
incredibly hard to get people to take
bold bets often your dream is its it
seems like it’s so so far off but but if
you just kind of focus on building stuff
that you think is good and and you keep
on going and so your question is is how
do you break through the noise is a
really really key thing
what’s that believe nation it’s Evan
Mike one word is believe and I believe
in you I believe you have insane
potential and I want to see that thing
inside you burst out into the world I
also believe that success leaves Clues
and that if you study the people who’ve
had success before you you can emulate
their success and so today we’re gonna
learn how the world’s most successful
internet entrepreneurs think so coming
in at number one is take bold bets with
Jeff Bezos one of my jobs as the leader
of Amazon is to encourage people to be
bold and people love to focus on things
that aren’t yet working and that’s good
it’s human nature that kind of divine
discontent can be very helpful but you
really you know it’s incredibly hard to
get people to take bold bets and you
need to encourage that and if you’re
gonna take bold bets they’re gonna be
experiments and if they’re experiments
you don’t know ahead of time though
they’re gonna work
experiments are by their very nature
prone to failure but big success is a
few big successes compensate for dozens
and dozens of things that didn’t work so
you know bold bets AWS Kindle Amazon
Prime our 3rd party seller business all
of those things are examples of bold
bets that that that did work and they
pay for a lot of experiments I’ve made
billions of dollars of failures at
amazon.com literally billions of dollars
of failures and you know you might
remember pets calm or Cosmo or you know
give myself a root canal with no
anesthesia very easily none of those
things are fun
but but they also they don’t matter what
really matters is companies that don’t
continue to experiment companies that
don’t embrace failure they eventually
get in the desperate position where they
only thing they can do is we could kind
of Hail Mary bet at the very end of
their corporate existence
whereas companies that are you know
making bets all along even you know big
bets but not bet the company bets I
don’t believe in bet the company bets
that’s when you’re desperate that’s
that’s the last thing you can do
constant experimentation guys as you
grow and evolve as a human being you
have to bring that to your business I
love the message okay number two is
solve big problems with Jack Ma we are
not a company that normally China Khan
we call ourself a company running a
platform a company that is running an
ecosystem we are almost everywhere
people say Jack you know you are in the
b2b and b2c and you’re calling C to be
on a finance and online payment logistic
cloud computing you are everywhere not
because we’re greedy not because we want
to do it because we have to do it if we
cannot if we do not to do it China
ecommerce in the years were class I
remember nine years ago when I started
that Ali pay people say get don’t touch
the financing sector because it’s
illegal you may be in prison and I we
taught ourselves if we don’t do it the
China ecommerce were always like a like
a chat room everybody said it’s a good
thing and yeah I don’t pay you don’t get
the things so I say well put me in the
prison let’s make a shirt that Ali pay
the payment solution works and people
say the payment solution is such a
stupid idea it’s an escrow service I pay
you hold the money and you get the
things you pay the money if you don’t
get the things you want return the money
they say it’s a stupid product and I say
as long as you solve the problem
I like stupid things you know let’s make
stupid things smart keep on improving
every
I love the message let’s make stupid
things smart it reminds me of something
I tell myself every morning as I’m
walking up my stairs if you want to be a
billionaire you have to solve a ten
billion dollar problem upgrade the level
of your thinking upgrade the problems
that you’re solving and you know the
bigger impact it’ll be most successful –
okay number three is Mark Zuckerberg
keep on going it wasn’t so long ago that
you know I was a student and you know
sitting in in a seat in auditorium like
you guys are here today listening to I
remember very specifically this time
when Bill Gates came to talk it at
Harvard and I’m like wow how do you how
do you do that
and but you know the trick is is that
the media likes to sensationalize this
as if you have some Eureka moment or you
are some singular person who can’t build
something on your own and that’s just
not how the world works you know when I
was in school I built a lot of stuff
that I just liked building there was not
a single moment when I when I had some
revelation that Facebook was going to be
awesome
that’s not maybe how the media or movies
or whatever would like to portray things
it’s not it’s much less exciting but the
reality is I think most services in the
world that reach the scale that Facebook
has you start off building something
that you care about and you know you
don’t necessarily think it’s gonna be
that big I I didn’t you know I built
Facebook the first version of Facebook
for my college community because I
wanted to be able to connect with the
people at my school and I remember very
clearly talking to my friends at the
time and saying you know it’s how cool
is it that we have built this community
for our school you know one day it’s
gonna be awesome when somebody else
builds this for the world because
something like this needs to exist for
the world but it didn’t even occur to me
that you know my friends and I might be
able to play a role in doing that
because we were college students right
we didn’t have any you know engineers to
work with or servers or resources or
anything like that and you know there
were these huge companies that deliver
products for hundreds of millions of
people right there’s I always assumed
that it was gonna be like Microsoft or
Google or someone would build this for
the world and what basically just
happened is that each step along the way
we just kind of kept doing the next
thing and growing from there and you
know there were teams inside these other
companies that that thought social media
was important and we’re working on it
but there were all these different memes
and narratives in the world you know
people would say oh well you know this
is just a fad people are gonna use it
but then they’re gonna stop so you know
so a lot of the teams who were working
on didn’t take it that seriously or you
know the higher-ups and those companies
didn’t care so then get resources and we
just kept going and going and then
people would say alright well alright
fine so maybe people are using it but
it’s never gonna make any money alright
I mean social media doesn’t make any
money yeah we just kind of kept going
and going and then pretty soon we had a
service that was bigger than any of
these other ones and that kind of is how
we are here where we are a lot of times
I think people just get afraid because
you know often your dream is its it
seems like it’s so so far off but but if
you just kind of focus on building stuff
that you think is good and and you keep
on going at each step along the way and
don’t let people deter you from that and
you just really care about what you’re
doing and kind of don’t give up but each
step along the way then you know I think
that’s how you that’s how you build
something good you know I’m a big
believer in dream big but act small you
have this big goal that you’re shooting
towards you’re aiming towards it may
seem impossible impractical but every
day you’re actually doing something to
make it happen on a tiny small scale
you’re slowly building those steps bit
by bit by bit by bit
usually the successes don’t come from a
giant thing happening but on all these
tiny little things that eventually
accumulate over time but if you look
back looks like this big giant step it’s
not think big act small ok number four
is believe in people with Pierre Omidyar
it’s sort of this just with the idea of
let’s bring the power of interactive
technology you know the web to ordinary
people and you know and I had this firm
belief which I still believe that people
are basically good and as I said if you
if you treat them well and if you treat
them with with you know benefit of the
doubt you’re not gonna be disappointed
and in the modern world despite you know
we’re bombarded with negative images all
the time about how bad the world is how
dangerous the world it is and it is true
there are some dangerous things going on
and there are some bad actors out there
but the vast majority of people out
there are just good decent honest people
I really love how Pierre is always
pushing that message because nobody’s
doing it enough for eBay to work this
guy found that eBay you have to trust in
people trust that that package is going
to be sent when I paid money you’re not
dealing with some big corporation so an
individual person and if people are not
basically good and trustworthy others on
some bad apples but if people on a whole
aren’t good and trustworthy than eBay
doesn’t exist it doesn’t work and so
it’s awesome to see it it’s great to see
that company take off and do well on
this foundational premise that people
are good I love it and I love the Pierre
is kind of beating that Niko’s okay
number five is don’t chase money that
Larry Ellison we started with four
employees and our goal was to get to 50
employees and the goal really was not so
much to make a lot of money I’m I’m on
it I wanted to me a lot of money in
those days was I want to own a house I
wanna have a nice car and I wanted to
work with interesting people and do
interesting things and I thought if I
could control my own environment have a
small consulting company and Oracle
started out as a software consulting
company we work for tandem computer if
anyone remembers those guys we work for
IBM that we work for a lot of different
tech companies in Silicon Valley doing
contract programming fixed-price
contract programming and we did pretty
well actually and and again the idea was
just to have a small software contract
software company budget you know we
thought were a hotshot programmers and
we thought I could make a decent living
just that and quite by accident we built
a product so this is pretty close to the
sucks message to around you just keep
going just keep building you’re doing
the thing that you love you’re not just
doing it to try to make a lot of money
and I continually put in the effort and
putting in the work day after day after
day amazing things happen and it’s so
interesting to see how many times our
business changes along the path of
success so Larry Ellison started off
just doing consulting and turned into a
product suck started off just do it in
his dorm room and it became a much
bigger project a lot of times a plan you
have at the beginning is not the plan
you end up with it very rarely is that
start plan is very rarely the thing that
takes you to the ultimate success but
don’t worry about it like just get
started and keep going every day all the
thing that you love doing and you keep
doing that day-in day-out you’ll have
success alright number six is set big
goals with Larry Page a lot of times
mine shows people are not setting goals
that will be something that somebody who
becomes rich or as could do anything you
got to be excited about working on that
for ten years
so you got to have a big enough coal
then you know you attract the best
people and you retain them and you keep
them focused and then my experience you
don’t go wrong you know maybe you don’t
hit it next year or maybe you fail
entirely and you discover something more
exciting to work on with the same set of
people yeah setting huge goals is so
motivating as an entrepreneur I remember
reading the biography of Ted Turner and
his father killed himself when Ted was
young eighteen nineteen something like
that in Ted Turner’s dad basically set a
goal for himself he reached it and he
was depressed and he killed himself and
so Ted Turner decided that he would set
goals that he would never be able to
reach so he would never be the press
because there’s always something to
search for and it’s what I’m doing now
of trying to solve the world’s biggest
problems untapped human potential it’s
an impossible goal it will never happen
there’s always more potential and that
fires me up you should get excited every
day by the goal that you are out there
trying to solve right your big mission
your big vision what are you trying to
do
and that idea of trying to empty out the
ocean with a ladle something impossible
to do and you just get up and do it
every day what it beats you your team
the people around you who want to come
on board and help you so poor Larry name
nice alright number seven is push until
it hurts with Travis talented if you get
to a place where it’s easy as an
entrepreneur it’s about to get really
really hard and so what you find is with
really good entrepreneurs they’re
constantly making things difficult for
themselves
and it’s pushing I like to say you push
until it hurts or you sort of you want
to be always pushing beyond what you’re
comfortable with and you’re sweating
just a little bit all the time and and
when that happens when you’re when
you’re constantly pushing beyond what
you think what you know is possible
you’re always sweating a little bit and
you’re always a little bit nervous but
that is the drug of being an
entrepreneur and so when you’re pushing
like that and you’re never really
relaxed then it always feels small and
so in many ways it feels to me the same
now as it did at the beginning it’s
still a little nervous I really love
this message and I think it’s important
that you have an environment in habits
or people around you that push you to
want to do that and and stop racing
against three-year-olds typically it’s
easy to build a company to a certain
size and then get bored and get
complacent
it’s easy and then you stop pushing it’s
really hard to make ourselves be hard on
ourselves to push and do more it’s why
you’re more likely to have success in
the gym with a personal trainer who’s
saying go go go push harder you can do
it that extra set as opposed to you
going out working out on your own and so
if you don’t have that accountability
partner I get it from the videos I get
it from my environment I get it from the
book right I get it from surrounding
myself with these successful people that
I feel like I’m doing just insanely
small things and it’s not a push down
it’s a push forward to say I can do more
I want to make it harder on myself I’ve
gotta stretch the comfort zone make it
painful so that I do my best work
okay number eight is always be a startup
with Brian Chesky you know Paul Graham I
used to he was our first investor and I
used to worry about all these random
things like competitors you know kind of
cities all the stuff and he said
something to me I’ll never forget he
said Brian startups died of suicide not
homicide all great companies that had a
downfall they died of self-inflicted
wounds so what are those self-inflicted
horrible things I know but anyway but
it’s really the key thing is about like
there’s this thing that like you’re a
small company and you exist because no
one else especially big companies
couldn’t do what you can do as a small
nimble company you know public art is
saying the older you get the stronger
the wind gets it’s always in your face
it’s like small copies become big
company so sometimes become really
bureaucratic and the culture gets lost
people leave the company that is
something it’s not unique to Airbnb but
that’s the thing that we have to worry
about and I’m deeply paranoid about that
I want to make sure that we’re always a
start-up maybe the world’s biggest
startup but a state you’re scared of
yourself you have to be afraid of what
you might become if you’re not like you
know if you relax that’s for sure so I
think that’s a great message for big
companies who need to be more nimble and
aggressive I think you guys watching
entrepreneurs remembering that that
nimbleness is your advantage that’s how
you beat Microsoft that’s how you beat
the giant corporations thinking about
the sucks the third clip he’s saying
that he expected Microsoft to make the
Facebook right you didn’t expect to be
able to do it himself
but all these giant corporations were
too slow they didn’t take it seriously
they have to commit to it and so that
startup mentality you may think I don’t
have the resources I don’t have the
connections
I’m brand new nobody wants to listen to
me like that nimbleness is your
advantage and yes some big company could
do what you’re doing but they’re too
slow they don’t know the industry like
you do they don’t have the passion you
do and so instead of just seeing that as
a negative turn it into a positive for
you because the big companies they want
to be like you okay number nine is break
through the noise with Reid Hoffman the
number of companies that really matter
every year is probably between zero and
five right in terms of like the industry
changing so you look at an audience like
this which is what 1,400 people 1,700
people you say it’s an average of two
founders per company’s presume
everyone’s doing it you got an 800
in the room right and so then that’s
only the people who here let alone
everything else and so your question is
is how do you break through the noise is
a really really key thing whether it’s
financing talent aggregation
go-to-market etc so how that then
becomes a central problem so one of them
is is to say well do something very
contrarian do something that is kind of
like not like where people say well you
know it’s it’s it’s Airbnb but for dogs
right you know or that kind of thing is
not the kind of thing to do
generally right it’s very rare that
that’s ever become the big companies yes
extremely rare the second thing would be
is to look we’re really look we’re and
this is one of the reasons why both you
and I are fans of Peters question of you
know what do you believe that other
people don’t but look where other people
really aren’t right like whether it’s
you know hard science or if it was two
and a half years ago Bitcoin you know
etc you know those sorts of things were
like well actually something could be
really big here because by the way if
you end up being right you end up having
access the talent that’s really but it’s
really focused on that you have a ramp
to actually get a whole bunch of stuff
and get a big head start from other
possible competitive efforts and these
sorts of things again a super important
message for entrepreneurs just getting
started who are different you are
resourceful you are unique you are
you’ve got to figure out what that
secret sauce is for you and bring that
to your business you know you’re one
word whether you staying for and yes we
want a model success yes if you want to
learn from jobs and all the people that
you might look up to but you have to
take that advice and then manipulate it
and twist this that fits for you if all
you are doing is being a carbon copy of
somebody else the best you’ll be is just
a junior somebody else where you want to
take all these bits of advice and make
it unique to you to help you be the best
you and be be bold with that love your
differences that’s the thing that’s
gonna help make you stand out compared
to everybody else
stop trying to fit in and start trying
to stand out and last up at number 10 is
make sure that people align properly
with Peter Thiel one part that I’m
always um
very focused on it’s sort of the
structure of these companies and how
well are people aligned and so you can
and making sure that people are you know
aligned properly not just that they say
that I think this is sort of a very very
legal kind of a framework to think about
what are people’s incentives you know
are they gonna be aligned or not and I
think you want to both have formal
alignment where you set the structure
right and you want to have informal
alignment where the people would
naturally try to work together well in
one one way or another and I think
that’s somehow tends to get obscured in
all these other ways you know there’s
always a there’s always a there’s always
a free history question I like to ask
founders of companies which is how did
you how did you meet
what’s the prehistory of the company
before you got started and I find that
to be really instructive set of
questions to ask a bad answer is
something like you know we met a week
ago at a social networking function at a
business networking function we decided
to start a company because we both
wanted to be entrepreneurs you know
that’s like saying I married the first
person I met at the slot machines in Las
Vegas and you might hit the jackpot but
it’s probably a really bad idea
and a much better answer is you know
we’ve been talking about this for a long
time you know maybe one of us is more on
the tech side the other one’s more on
the business side we have these sort of
complimentary skills and and so I think
this question of alignment and structure
is is incredibly important I think if
you look at some of the most successful
companies and the founders and how they
got together you’ll see that they knew
each other for a long time there were
friends growing up but they were friends
in university or college and they were
working and tinkering and the idea of
certain business came but it wasn’t
necessarily go off and build a giant
corporation they just loved what they
did they had a natural connection with
each other I think another way to do it
is figuring out your core value right
your one word like be able to attract
people to your business partner
suppliers employees who feel the same
thing that you feel who are on the same
mission that you are on as well and it’s
not just about trying to make a boatload
of money but trying to make a positive
impact
well getting those people on board
believe the same thing and go so much
faster so that’s my take on how the
world’s most successful internet
entrepreneurs think I’d love to know
what did you guys think which clip was
your favorite and why I think my
favorite was number seven push until it
hurts just that constant reminder that I
need to be more I need to be better I
need to push myself beyond what other
people expect it means that new
standards for the industry I love that
message and make you want to grind a
little bit harder which one that you
guys like is there an eleven twelve
thirteen that you want to add to the
list let me know in the comments down
below thank you guys again for watching
I believe in you I hope you continue to
believe in yourself and whatever you’re
one root is much love see you soon what
was once volume the most important work
ever if you had to think of one word
that’s most important to you or that
sums you up or so it would be like a
little beacon pay believe nation if you
want to know what the most important one
word is for Tony Robbins
Gary Vaynerchuk Oprah Winfrey will.i.am
and Howard Schultz I have a very special
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