people say you have to have a lot of
passion for what you’re doing and it’s
totally true and the reason is is
because it’s so hard that if you don’t
any rational person would give up it’s
really hard and you have to do it over a
sustained period of time so if you don’t
love it if you’re not having fun doing
it you don’t really love it you’re going
to give up I would say that the lesson
learned for me to anybody else out there
interested in starting a business is
please find something you’re passionate
about because it’s so much work it’s so
much time it’s so much effort but if the
subject matter is something that you you
genuinely love to be involved with it’s
not going to be that big of a drag and
it’s not going to be that bit much work
going to be incredibly exciting and
rewarding because to your point you’ll
feel like you’re living you’re at the
life that you’re meant to live the
punish failure is yet another way to
encourage mediocrity because mediocrity
is what’s beautiful people will always
settle for
ever tried ever failed no matter
try again fail again fail better
generally speaking you should resist the
temptation of having too many features
it’s all about either solving a problem
or providing a value to a user I think
where is the opportunity the opportunity
lie always lies in the place where
people complain some people sit there
complained you think if I can solve that
complaint that’s the opportunity if you
don’t love it you won’t make it through
the long period of pain that is
inevitable so make sure that you take
care of yourself during the process make
sure that you take care of your mental
health or physical health while you’re
doing it be some long road try to do
something that you would want to do
anyway whether it’s that doesn’t
necessarily have to be very successful
business because when you do decide to
become an entrepreneur and start a
business chances are not going to do
it’s not going to become like a
multi-million dollar business so at
least do something that you love and the
beginnings of that even if it fails you
can still enjoy it you need to focus on
solutions not ideas all of us here are
really creative and become of this loads
of ideas throughout the day because we
become really excited about that
let’s do we should start a company
around that so that when you actually go
to the other side where you talked over
you you know find out what someone
actually a problem a problem that they
have install that is is when you know
real value comes out
[Music]
so there are a number of decisions that
we make every day and on a product side
there are billion different features
that we could make so the hard part is
really choosing which ones to focus on
which ones to build and you only have a
finite number that you can actually
execute on so for us a lot of it is just
listening to the community and more
importantly understanding you know what
features they’re asking for but why are
they asking for these specific things
what’s the root problem they’re trying
to solve or golda to turn achieve and a
lot of that is based on actual behavior
so not just what they say but what they
do everybody thought we were crazy we
probably were crazy but having a dream
like that that resonates with people
changing the world achieving something
big it turns out that’s what pulls you
through the hard times every company has
a heart as hard times every company has
setbacks and it’s having that that that
mountain in the distance that you’re
trying to scale that is what gets
everybody through we get to create any
company we want right we get to create
the reason for the existence we get to
create the rules the game and who we
hire and how we hire them and who can
stay and who can stay it’s beautiful and
so I just would encourage everyone that
as we all contemplate life to try to
question the assumptions that we live by
and the default options that are given
to us and expand our thinking to wonder
what we really can do with our lives
so today you should thank ok my
co-founders do we do we cover a lot of
surface area do we have different skill
sets and is it somebody that that I
trust fundamentally and that’s those are
really really really important questions
to ask yourself because it’s so they
give a really strong foundation to go
forward if you’re going to start your
own thing you know maybe you have a
grand grand vision of like all the
different features it’s going to have
and all the different you know revenue
lines you’re going to do it you know
keep keep that vision but do one piece
of that first and do it really really
really well it’s so much better to do a
few things well than anything for me
people really love simplicity so if you
look at the problems with large software
like Microsoft Office every feature in
Microsoft Office somebody wanted at some
time but what happens is over 10 or 20
years the thing gets so huge it’s
overwhelming so the discipline of great
product design is to figure out what are
the important cases for the long term
and to have the discipline to say no to
some things that are good it’s easy to
say no to things that are bad but great
product design is saying no to some
things that are good make sure you
choose you know when you’re trying to
decide whether or not an idea is good
enough to pursue or a particular
business is something you want to want
to go forward with make sure that it’s
the type of business that when you’re
standing in the shower it’s the thing
you want to think about for the next 10
or 20 years
you can’t ever sort of balance two
completely contradictory things as a
means of hedging you have to decide what
are you going to believe in and put all
of your energy behind that and that
that’s the those are the kinds of
strategic decisions in the trade-offs
that we make every day as an
entrepreneur and it’s important that you
create the level of clarity and
conviction to go after an opportunity
that isn’t hedging
you know lots of different ideas or lots
of different approaches because that’s
the surest way that you’ll never be good
at anything and if you’re really trying
to achieve something than so to say hey
here’s my vision and I’d like to say be
obstinate about your vision but be
really flexible about your tactics what
does that mean it’s sort of like think
big act smart
what that means is it’s important to
have a vision of where you’re trying to
go how you get there is the series of
experiments now you can call them if
aliens when they don’t work but they’re
learning experiments where you try
things see what works try the next thing
you’re really trying to solve a new
problem in a different way you have to
come to problems with beginner’s mind
right not knowing something can be a
very powerful tool in to accomplishing
it because you don’t know that it’s not
possible that’s what doing a start-up is
not realizing that something is
impossible in doing it anyway
because if you build something for
yourself you feel something that you
love efficiently happening if you make
something if you love there’s probably
not a billion people in the world that
love as well
and what a leaders look like first and
foremost leaders always have a herd
people always like following leaders
maybe it’s their charisma maybe it’s
their personality maybe it’s because
they’re so in belief of what they say
that you have the ability to convince
people to buy into your vision not just
for a paycheck it’s something more than
because great leaders they’d only have a
heard they fights it over in the herd
nerve back that’s your job as
entrepreneurs these are not employees
that do your bidding
these are partners that you should bring
into your space and you should be
treated like that and they should be
treated like that with respect and with
dignity larger more established entities
can’t move as quickly as you can and
success and scale and size all fight
against it and I would encourage you for
the longest possible time as you sort of
start your own companies to look for
ways to stay agile values are who you
are right you don’t have personal values
professional values it’s really what you
stand for and again there’s no black and
white answer here there’s no right or
wrong value but if you’re building a
team or building an organization you
want to understand your identity and
then it mostly impacts hiring it impacts
the way that you decide to add people to
your team otherwise you can become very
very split in terms of what your mission
is
so it’s about this movement forward now
what you own not your education or your
pedigree not pile of resources you might
have at hand not your network just going
after this thing and knowing that as you
do that you’ll find what you need you’ll
make your way over around and through
and I think the best entrepreneurs that
I’ve met are able to do that
because they have the strong vision and
they know that it’s worth it to keep
moving forward
if you’re going to have a breakup start
up really going to think about how you
can innovate on distribution not just
fall right and the biggest mistake I see
these days that I see brilliant sort of
founders who are brilliant product
people and they’ve really thought about
their product definitely thought about
how they’re gonna make it grow and then
they launch their product and it’s like
crickets chirping when no one’s using it
and they’re kind of forming stuff for
what to do they’ve never really spent
time thinking about it and they just
kind of assume that it pay if you build
a good product everyone’s going to find
it and the reality is a big let out
there and that’s absolutely true you
know I think what I see right now is
people wrap up their sense of success in
identity with their profits and
fundraising and comparing themselves
against how their peers are doing I
think that’s really the wrong way to
look at things if we do a non-optimal
help
for instance I don’t know if the
valuations of companies are getting
today is necessarily healthy for the
company themselves and for us again
you know our inability to raise capital
actually forced us to be very
disciplined in how we think about the
operational methods in the company and
that’s allowed us to
they know the most important things
yourself ignore your mistakes
what is your problem you’re good at
something just go do that balance am i
doing the things that I’m good at
there’s somebody aspiring to you know
take things to the next level or to even
surpass their wildest dreams
there’s always gonna have to be an
element of luck but I think more
important is putting yourself in a
business that can be ubiquitous that can
that really doesn’t have limits because
otherwise there’s always going to be a
grind to it but if the business if it
can’t be something that you can
visualize every business using or every
consumer using it’s going to be tough to
scale to be big enough or to have the
perceived value the two things we really
zero in on a people are you know two
things they sound simple they’re nothing
very difficult courage a genius courage
is the one we talk about a lot because
it’s the one that people can learn you
know courage courage which is to say not
giving up in the face of adversity you
know just being absolutely determined to
succeed you know is something that you
can you can like force yourself to do it
can be very painful you can force
yourself to do it the genius part a
little bit hard to force yourself to do
you know courage without genius might
not get you where you need to go but
genius without courage almost certainly
won’t if that’s if you always have to
ask them so do you believe in the
concept of what you’re doing
you believe that there’s a period there
that maybe she just forgot to write you
know plot a package or white way to
reach users if you believe that then you
don’t keep scrapping because usually
there’s a way
don’t solicit feedback on your product
your idea or your business just for
validation purposes be really careful
about that you want to tell the people
that can help move your idea forward but
if you’re just looking to your friend
co-worker husband wife for validation
be careful because out of love and
concern a lot of people will express
some concerns and it can stop a lot of
multi-million dollar ideas and right in
their tracks in the beginning and I got
can’t stress enough choosing your
partner’s has got to be maybe the most
important decision you’ll ever make
whether you know personally and loved or
otherwise in business you can change
your idea you can pivot your company you
can’t change your partner without
starting over and so I see so many
people rushing into these relationships
I mean you should really give that a lot
of thought this is something that
hopefully Oh last year’s
so many things go wrong when you’re
starting a company and often I think
people ask you know what mistakes should
you avoid making and you know my answer
the question is don’t even bother trying
to avoid mistakes because you’re going
to make tons of mistakes right and the
the important thing is actually learning
quickly from whatever mistakes you make
and not giving up right and I mean there
are things every single year of
Facebook’s existence that could have
killed us or made it so that it just
seemed like moving forward and making a
lot of progress just seems impossible
but you just kind of bounce back and you
learn and nothing is impossible you just
have to kind of keep running through the
wall you have to have an emotional
investment in what you do if you don’t
love what you’re doing
failure is pretty much guaranteed
success is not guaranteed by any means
but failure is much more likely if you
don’t love what you’re doing and you can
do that in a good way in a bad way but
hopefully if you try to get people to
motivate why they’re doing something and
their way of thinking you know the worst
thing you can end up with it’s a
situation where you get told well this
is the way it’s always been
that’s the worst ever that’s a
non-answer instead ask yourself you know
given everything you have today is there
a way we can make this better be people
that look for great ideas to make money
you know are nearly as successful as
those you say okay what I really love to
do what am i excited about but I know
something about you know what’s kind of
interesting and compelling
[Music]
it’s very rewarding work on something
because it makes a big difference and
yeah it’s a little bit harder but I
think I think the passion that one might
bring with it brings so much more energy
to that that you’re more likely to
scream
but ultimately the biggest thing and I
suppose still spends some 1/3 to a
majority of my time on tiring messing
has the impact of getting the right
people around the table and you can’t
manage your way out of a bad teeth if
you know exactly what you want to be you
need to spend as much time with people
that are actually that already do
something you’re very passionate about
and don’t try to chase what is kind of
the hot passion of the day
when it comes to changing the world what
I learned from Steve Jobs is if you
believe in a Macintosh if you believe in
iPhone iPod iPad if you believe enough
then you will see it because other
people will believe in it other people
will trade software other people great
products so you need to foster the
belief in what you are dreaming to
living becomes a reality which is very
different than saying don’t expect
anybody to believe it until I see it you
need people to believe it before they
can see you if you’re not coming up with
10 ideas a day that’s why I have this
thing I’m not coming up and I’m filling
up this page every single day then my
idea muscles will atrophy and I started
this in 2001 and I still do it every
single day like you have to come up with
ideas every single day or the idea of
muscle atrophy the good news is after
about six months of doing that you’re
like a machine like people get surprised
at how many ideas you could just have
anywhere and so some of the best advice
I got was from a Paul Graham one of the
investors in stripe who talks a lot
about unscalable strategies for user
acquisition say for example you helping
each user personally sure that won’t
scale as you grew to a very large size
we’re going to start with just starting
out it really helps you have an
advantage is smaller than your company
so just go and do it
try learn from it you know you’ll fail
at some things that’s a learning
experience that you need so that you can
take that on to the next experience and
don’t let people who you may respect and
we believe know what they’re talking
about don’t let them tell you can’t be
done because often they will tell you it
can’t be done and it’s just because they
don’t have the courage to try
[Music]
don’t necessarily think that you have to
have the home run in the huge Apple
Computer on your first start I spent a
long time in my life with skills just
building little devices for fun for fun
is one of the key things does that drive
you to think them think and think and
make it better and better and better
than you ever would if you’re doing it
for a company build things at first for
yourself you would want if you have to
decide if you’re going to be a slow
growth company or get big fast company
because anytime you try to straddle
those two lines painful things happen to
you it’s a crazy business you’ve got
through initially work day and night we
can it’s really hard work
I’ve always thought that each person
invented himself for whatever reasons
through whatever circumstance through
whatever he has gone through there we
are each a figment of our own
imagination you know I often say this
would be death twelve people to the
table but we’re having a discussion
about something and something may turn
up it could be an opportunity half the
people don’t recognize this an
opportunity a lot of people are
comfortable in what they’re doing they
don’t want change people actually get
into a zone where they’re very
comfortable so they don’t like the idea
of risk so how do you start a business
with no money under the worst conditions
that your backer doesn’t want to give
you a dime what do you do get ready for
a lot of rejection and at the same exact
time do the things others don’t want to
do do what’s necessary do what it takes
no matter what it is and try not to hurt
anybody along the way develop the habits
you’ve got the brainpower got the energy
but develop the habits of success
from day one I just I never tried to
hide that I was the girl in my apartment
with the red backpack like this is who I
am and I find that people end up rooting
for you and opening more doors if you’re
really honest early on some people start
businesses and try to come across that
they’re much bigger than they are
because they feel like that’s the only
way they’re going to be taken seriously
but if you know your products great and
you know why you made it you don’t have
to apologize for being out of your home
or your apartment or being small I work
24 hours a day seven days a week
I kid that’s what I cared about I cared
about solving problems being successful
anytime an obstacle presented itself I
used it to my advantage
made it work and I never heard the word
know if I heard the word no it meant
baby and it made baby yes you have the
power to just him you can sit down you
can code something you can try it it
doesn’t matter to you whether someone
thinks it’s a good idea or not because
you have the power to go put that on
line and you know and see whether it
resonates and connect with people stay
focused on on the stuff that that you’re
that you’re providing to your users
you’re going to make a ton of mistakes
it doesn’t matter you don’t get judged
by the mistakes people don’t remember
them
now they remembered the things that you
did they were good
in the end luck plays a very important
part in how successful you are but the
harder you work and the longer you work
the luckier you’re going to be basically
theory is we’re all born thinking like
entrepreneurs you know like only crawl
and we thought only fall you know we’re
trying to walk you figure it out
entrepreneurs always figure out you’re
born thinking like not Sonora vets you
know what I’m going to figure this out
regardless and I’m going to keep going
now
auctions the challenges families and
plans convince you not to be honestly
because when a family to change the
world moving the most famous person I’m
going to save the seals they say don’t
do that you it didn’t happen before it’s
never have you’re going to you’re going
to you’re going to fail you can
embarrass us put the limiters on it they
puts the limited they put the blinders
on you but true entrepreneurs would just
keep figuring it out and you know what
everybody wants to hear what they
already believe to be true and so the
last thing they want to hear is an
original idea that contradicts their
belief system so it’s very hard to even
bring that kind of stuff up but those
are the things those are the only things
things that you believe that everybody
around you doesn’t believe
when you’re right that create real value
in the world everything else people
already know there’s no value created
it’s just business as usual so it’s so
important to think for yourself
I think my biggest tip is just get
started I need a lot of young
entrepreneurs who have good ideas or bad
ideas or some ideas and you don’t want
to be a person who just talks and talks
to clocks you have to actually go and do
something and don’t worry about if it’s
the perfect thing or not there is this
myth of entrepreneurship that you’ll
have the one genius idea and suddenly
everything falls into place it doesn’t
work like that it’s a hard slog there’s
a lot of things do wrong a lot of things
will be right the sooner you get started
the sooner you’ll get somewhere
I grew up under Apprentice go in an
industry that has a large profit margin
don’t go in one that’s slim the one one
that’s large take what you’ve got your
assets or your energy your assets or
your willingness to just not be told no
the harder it is the tougher it is the
bigger the challenge to get in the
bigger the opportunity behind the
opportunities behind are endless
people need to understand that we cannot
take a breath that we have competitors
want to take the food off of our table
we have an economy in which is 8%
unemployment here 9% unemployment in the
US and Starbucks coffee company is not
something you have to have it is a
discretionary purchase and so the
mentality that you need in a business
today Starbucks or otherwise to build
sustainable success and enduring success
is you have to eradicate the human
behavior of relaxing the human behavior
of feeling like we have one and what I
have said in the last two years of
Starbucks is there’s no celebration
there’s no victory life we haven’t done
squat there’s always going to be an
element of loss but I think more
important is putting yourself in a
business that can be ubiquitous that can
that really doesn’t have limits because
otherwise there’s always going to be a
grind to it but if the business if it
can’t be something that you can
visualize every business using or every
consumer using it’s going to be tough to
scale to be big enough or to have the
perceived value to get you to that
billionaire Club
what fear is stopping you in your tracks
and burning the soles of your feet
what is conquering that fear whatever it
is that keeps you moving but the Creator
intended me what if you could unleash
everything great in your life would you
do it would you say yes to that new
companies generally shouldn’t exist
existing companies are usually pretty
good at what they do and so for a new
company to exist it not only has to like
you know come into going to business and
bring a product to market but it has to
bring a product to market looks so much
better than what I already do but it
punches through the sort of status quo I
don’t need to say my fig yeah you do you
do you it would bit the opportunity to
that and so you can go out there in this
and I said well what was your goal go
make money don’t allow any friend family
acquaintances teachers whoever it is
don’t allow anyone to tell you that what
you are dreaming for yourself and your
family is not possible it is possible
don’t be one of those people 20 years
from now are going to be walking around
a nine-to-five job
miserable and angry and bitter a company
is simply a group of people and as a
leader of people you have to be a great
listener you have to be a great
motivator you have to be very good at
raising and listen to the best in people
and people are no different and complies
if you sort of plug they perish if
you’ve paid people a place and
a critical attribute of an illusion I
like to see people I think it’s really
important even if it’s ten minutes I
hate all this new world of people are
talking so I like Lee I do seeing people
I think you get a very different view
when you look in somebody’s are you you
know in a second whether it’s right I
mean I see these people they’re about
eight yards away in a desk and they’re
busy people go talk to them
buying emailing each other good can have
a conversation what happened before
email people spoke hello good morning
how are you
companies like Google are not getting
rich and user-generated content they’re
getting rich on the content of companies
like Viacom and we’re not going to put
put up with that we’re not going to put
up with people taking our product
they’re not painted they want a product
they can have it at the right price you
know I think it’s kind of in life a lot
of times when people are down they look
at how to survive while they’re down but
stay at that survival mode long term
opposed to I’m gonna learn how to
survive right now and make it but I’m
immediately going to work towards the
next step the next step and the next
step well so I mean so how did you learn
how did you learn how to be a successful
entrepreneur well I don’t think it’s
learning how to be a successful
entrepreneur I think it’s just being
able to do something and know you have
that ability to do it you see the human
race has the ability all of you to do 10
50 times what you’re doing right now
well if you realize you have that
ability as you go along you find
obstacles but you’ll recover or you go
right around them like water might go
around them a little bit and and that’s
really it you look at what assets you
have it’s a little bit like selling
whether it’s a tangible product or a
service it’s got to be the very best and
you put forward its features and then
how it benefits the customer well with
yourself personally you put forth the
features you have how these features
might benefit in
you have a product and I’d love to share
this with everybody don’t ever go into
the selling business whether you have
the greatest service in the world or the
greatest product never go in there to
sell your product go in there to be in
the reorder business that’s kind of your
mentality that’s true yeah because
you’re going to sell it that’s where
your focus is if you want to be in the
reorder business even if it’s a one-time
product whatever you do is so good that
don’t want to tell somebody else or
reorder themselves so that kind of helps
along the way if you have that mentality
do unto others as you would have others
do unto you that’s the basis for most
religions but they get sometimes carried
away in rites and rituals but that’s the
core value do unto others as you devil
is doing to you and then it’s the
feeling of knowing from how genuine you
are and because people don’t like to
just listen to people talk about
themselves how great they are they want
to now incorporate it to make them
successful also we’re do something a
little different and I think that’s very
very important you know one of the
things that I tell people when they ask
me for advice about what they should do
when they’re wanting to start their own
business or take a next step in their
career is to actually start small I
think a lot of people try to they kind
of psych themselves out or they get too
overwhelmed with how big something is
get so the truth is you really just got
to start small and you’ve got to prove
it before you scale it now Apple
fortunately is one of the half-a-dozen
best brands in the whole world right up
there with Nike Disney Coke Sony it is
one of the greats of the grapes not just
in this country but all around the globe
and but but even a great brand needs
investments and caring
I’m going to put vast majority of my
energy attention and dollars into
building a great product or service and
put a smaller amount into shouting about
it marketing it because I know if I
build a great product or service my
customers will tell each other you have
to mix in some patience with that
the education it’s so much more widely
available there now so many more people
both here in the valley and around the
world we now know how to start a company
and at that yeahmaybe sounds obvious but
like it when I arrived in the valley in
1994 like I went to the bookstore and I
tried to find a book on how they started
tech company and like that was a long
and lonely trip through bookshelves like
it there was very little I mean luckily
Andy’s Andy’s book was there but Andy’s
book was about how to run Intel which it
was monopoly
I didn’t couldn’t really get a lot of
benefit out of that I started messing at
the time and so like the resources just
simply didn’t exist right and today
you’ve got everything you’ve got a bit a
lot of it comes out of Stanford so like
this cs1 80 this is the cs 183 courts of
Stanford the various people applauded
Peter Todd and that moment is taught
like and then the fact that those
classes are not just accessible to
people Stanford they’re accessible to
people all around the world and there
are people all around the world watching
right those of those videos all the time
learning how to start companies if
you’re thinking about starting a company
it therefore really stresses an idea and
again I’ll use my I use my computer keel
on the shoulder thing channel this
through something Peter says I think is
really relevant which is a lot of
founders think about what it takes to
get the second person in the company
right so ii founder of the second
engineer right at the third person the
fourth person he says that’s no longer
as a challenge like everybody wants to
start a company and so everybody can get
together two or three or four people to
start a company so the challenge is how
do you get engineer number 20
because engineer number 20 right if
they’re in this ecosystems they could go
start their own company and so how do
you convince somebody to join your
company as engineer number 20 with a
tiny percentage of equity right and not
being in charge as compared to starting
their own company getting all the equity
and being in charge now one of the
things you do is you tell them they’re
going to have the same problem that that
may respond to you that you also have a
problem that their stare at each other
awkwardly so so that that’s the thing so
so what you have right now is you just
have you have you have just a very very
large number of see funded companies
that are experiments and their
experiments on their ideas but more
importantly their experiments on who has
the will and the drive horsepower right
in the salesmanship and everything else
that goes into recruit
right and so and every other guy she’s
Sam Altman gave a talk today so if you
can wave a magic wand you would combine
a lot of these companies together to get
critical mass but mergers between
startups almost never happen for a
variety of reasons so so it really makes
this sort of acuteness this recruiting
problem is a very acute problem by the
way you think about it then is the
temptation is to think about it’s a
recruiting problem since we have to get
really good at recruiting but it’s not
really that as much as it’s like okay
what about my company is going to be so
spectacular and so special and so
unusual and so distinct and
differentiated that it’s going to be
able to easily hire engineer number 20
away from starting his or her own
company and so to me it basically
translates into basically we just we
have to get better like you just have to
get better if you have to be able to
compete you have to be able to win in
this really brutal initial battle the
good news is the company’s coming out of
that sort of churning kind of you know
sort of you know sort of sneak fit of
competition the companies that come out
of that are really strong because they
had to be to come through it but it it
is tougher and it is the other side of
how these deeds become a circus
again this is a it’s again another
versions market you always um you know
it’s again even you have a lot of big
markets we have sort of inch deep mile
wide type type product and and payments
is always sort of a version of this
where where one of the big challenges is
you know how do you get the first people
to use your product how do you get
people to use your your new payment
system for example and so it has to be
really valuable the first people who are
using it and so you want to find things
that are you know with is a very intense
need PayPal was like well the power saw
was how to use chex if you get the money
instantly so you should cut the time
from seven to ten days to two instantly
that was worth that was worth quite a
bit on in many other contexts we already
have payment systems that work as that
works pretty well or very well and if
you have something that’s perfect that’s
only a small Delta – very well and you
know we always you always say that you
shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy
of the very good I think in business is
often the opposite where in practice
there very good will prevent the perfect
from ever arising so if you have things
that are working very well
and you have something that’s going to
be theoretically perfect that’s often a
really bad idea
that really didn’t pan out and yet some
things will come through I use the term
gold rush rather than mania because I am
a firm believer that what’s going on at
the heart of it it is very important
also there is gold it may be very very
deep it may be buried in different
places then people think it is but it it
it’s a great thing this is an area where
our country is way out in front
you take almost every aspect of what
this entails the fiber optics which is
the software the chips the content
coming from media companies and the
opportunity to set global standards and
hamp global markets every country I go
to the biggest concern I hear is how far
ahead is the u.s. of my country well
since we don’t have deregulation and it
in a sense we’re not really at the
starting line in and so I’m certainly a
fan of moving ahead aggressively and I
find even with myself that it’s really
hard to do a Minimum Viable Product as
minimum that you’re constantly thinking
no no it really has to have this other
partner it really has to have this and
then you over build and then you have to
unbilled and rebuild which is very
disappointing so doing a Minimum Viable
Product is really important and it’s
even more minimum than you think it is
and so when we’re coming up with ideas
you know we always ask ourselves what
kind of new market is this creating and
then also what what part of my day and
what problem is it solving and so I’ve
gone as far as taking an entire
catalogue of my day from the moment I
like open my eyes and writing down every
single thing I do and then asking myself
like is there something here
you
passion for what you’re doing and it’s
totally true and the reason is is
because it’s so hard that if you don’t
any rational person would give up it’s
really hard and you have to do it over a
sustained period of time so if you don’t
love it if you’re not having fun doing
it you don’t really love it you’re going
to give up I would say that the lesson
learned for me to anybody else out there
interested in starting a business is
please find something you’re passionate
about because it’s so much work it’s so
much time it’s so much effort but if the
subject matter is something that you you
genuinely love to be involved with it’s
not going to be that big of a drag and
it’s not going to be that bit much work
going to be incredibly exciting and
rewarding because to your point you’ll
feel like you’re living you’re at the
life that you’re meant to live the
punish failure is yet another way to
encourage mediocrity because mediocrity
is what’s beautiful people will always
settle for
ever tried ever failed no matter
try again fail again fail better
generally speaking you should resist the
temptation of having too many features
it’s all about either solving a problem
or providing a value to a user I think
where is the opportunity the opportunity
lie always lies in the place where
people complain some people sit there
complained you think if I can solve that
complaint that’s the opportunity if you
don’t love it you won’t make it through
the long period of pain that is
inevitable so make sure that you take
care of yourself during the process make
sure that you take care of your mental
health or physical health while you’re
doing it be some long road try to do
something that you would want to do
anyway whether it’s that doesn’t
necessarily have to be very successful
business because when you do decide to
become an entrepreneur and start a
business chances are not going to do
it’s not going to become like a
multi-million dollar business so at
least do something that you love and the
beginnings of that even if it fails you
can still enjoy it you need to focus on
solutions not ideas all of us here are
really creative and become of this loads
of ideas throughout the day because we
become really excited about that
let’s do we should start a company
around that so that when you actually go
to the other side where you talked over
you you know find out what someone
actually a problem a problem that they
have install that is is when you know
real value comes out
[Music]
so there are a number of decisions that
we make every day and on a product side
there are billion different features
that we could make so the hard part is
really choosing which ones to focus on
which ones to build and you only have a
finite number that you can actually
execute on so for us a lot of it is just
listening to the community and more
importantly understanding you know what
features they’re asking for but why are
they asking for these specific things
what’s the root problem they’re trying
to solve or golda to turn achieve and a
lot of that is based on actual behavior
so not just what they say but what they
do everybody thought we were crazy we
probably were crazy but having a dream
like that that resonates with people
changing the world achieving something
big it turns out that’s what pulls you
through the hard times every company has
a heart as hard times every company has
setbacks and it’s having that that that
mountain in the distance that you’re
trying to scale that is what gets
everybody through we get to create any
company we want right we get to create
the reason for the existence we get to
create the rules the game and who we
hire and how we hire them and who can
stay and who can stay it’s beautiful and
so I just would encourage everyone that
as we all contemplate life to try to
question the assumptions that we live by
and the default options that are given
to us and expand our thinking to wonder
what we really can do with our lives
so today you should thank ok my
co-founders do we do we cover a lot of
surface area do we have different skill
sets and is it somebody that that I
trust fundamentally and that’s those are
really really really important questions
to ask yourself because it’s so they
give a really strong foundation to go
forward if you’re going to start your
own thing you know maybe you have a
grand grand vision of like all the
different features it’s going to have
and all the different you know revenue
lines you’re going to do it you know
keep keep that vision but do one piece
of that first and do it really really
really well it’s so much better to do a
few things well than anything for me
people really love simplicity so if you
look at the problems with large software
like Microsoft Office every feature in
Microsoft Office somebody wanted at some
time but what happens is over 10 or 20
years the thing gets so huge it’s
overwhelming so the discipline of great
product design is to figure out what are
the important cases for the long term
and to have the discipline to say no to
some things that are good it’s easy to
say no to things that are bad but great
product design is saying no to some
things that are good make sure you
choose you know when you’re trying to
decide whether or not an idea is good
enough to pursue or a particular
business is something you want to want
to go forward with make sure that it’s
the type of business that when you’re
standing in the shower it’s the thing
you want to think about for the next 10
or 20 years
you can’t ever sort of balance two
completely contradictory things as a
means of hedging you have to decide what
are you going to believe in and put all
of your energy behind that and that
that’s the those are the kinds of
strategic decisions in the trade-offs
that we make every day as an
entrepreneur and it’s important that you
create the level of clarity and
conviction to go after an opportunity
that isn’t hedging
you know lots of different ideas or lots
of different approaches because that’s
the surest way that you’ll never be good
at anything and if you’re really trying
to achieve something than so to say hey
here’s my vision and I’d like to say be
obstinate about your vision but be
really flexible about your tactics what
does that mean it’s sort of like think
big act smart
what that means is it’s important to
have a vision of where you’re trying to
go how you get there is the series of
experiments now you can call them if
aliens when they don’t work but they’re
learning experiments where you try
things see what works try the next thing
you’re really trying to solve a new
problem in a different way you have to
come to problems with beginner’s mind
right not knowing something can be a
very powerful tool in to accomplishing
it because you don’t know that it’s not
possible that’s what doing a start-up is
not realizing that something is
impossible in doing it anyway
because if you build something for
yourself you feel something that you
love efficiently happening if you make
something if you love there’s probably
not a billion people in the world that
love as well
and what a leaders look like first and
foremost leaders always have a herd
people always like following leaders
maybe it’s their charisma maybe it’s
their personality maybe it’s because
they’re so in belief of what they say
that you have the ability to convince
people to buy into your vision not just
for a paycheck it’s something more than
because great leaders they’d only have a
heard they fights it over in the herd
nerve back that’s your job as
entrepreneurs these are not employees
that do your bidding
these are partners that you should bring
into your space and you should be
treated like that and they should be
treated like that with respect and with
dignity larger more established entities
can’t move as quickly as you can and
success and scale and size all fight
against it and I would encourage you for
the longest possible time as you sort of
start your own companies to look for
ways to stay agile values are who you
are right you don’t have personal values
professional values it’s really what you
stand for and again there’s no black and
white answer here there’s no right or
wrong value but if you’re building a
team or building an organization you
want to understand your identity and
then it mostly impacts hiring it impacts
the way that you decide to add people to
your team otherwise you can become very
very split in terms of what your mission
is
so it’s about this movement forward now
what you own not your education or your
pedigree not pile of resources you might
have at hand not your network just going
after this thing and knowing that as you
do that you’ll find what you need you’ll
make your way over around and through
and I think the best entrepreneurs that
I’ve met are able to do that
because they have the strong vision and
they know that it’s worth it to keep
moving forward
if you’re going to have a breakup start
up really going to think about how you
can innovate on distribution not just
fall right and the biggest mistake I see
these days that I see brilliant sort of
founders who are brilliant product
people and they’ve really thought about
their product definitely thought about
how they’re gonna make it grow and then
they launch their product and it’s like
crickets chirping when no one’s using it
and they’re kind of forming stuff for
what to do they’ve never really spent
time thinking about it and they just
kind of assume that it pay if you build
a good product everyone’s going to find
it and the reality is a big let out
there and that’s absolutely true you
know I think what I see right now is
people wrap up their sense of success in
identity with their profits and
fundraising and comparing themselves
against how their peers are doing I
think that’s really the wrong way to
look at things if we do a non-optimal
help
for instance I don’t know if the
valuations of companies are getting
today is necessarily healthy for the
company themselves and for us again
you know our inability to raise capital
actually forced us to be very
disciplined in how we think about the
operational methods in the company and
that’s allowed us to
they know the most important things
yourself ignore your mistakes
what is your problem you’re good at
something just go do that balance am i
doing the things that I’m good at
there’s somebody aspiring to you know
take things to the next level or to even
surpass their wildest dreams
there’s always gonna have to be an
element of luck but I think more
important is putting yourself in a
business that can be ubiquitous that can
that really doesn’t have limits because
otherwise there’s always going to be a
grind to it but if the business if it
can’t be something that you can
visualize every business using or every
consumer using it’s going to be tough to
scale to be big enough or to have the
perceived value the two things we really
zero in on a people are you know two
things they sound simple they’re nothing
very difficult courage a genius courage
is the one we talk about a lot because
it’s the one that people can learn you
know courage courage which is to say not
giving up in the face of adversity you
know just being absolutely determined to
succeed you know is something that you
can you can like force yourself to do it
can be very painful you can force
yourself to do it the genius part a
little bit hard to force yourself to do
you know courage without genius might
not get you where you need to go but
genius without courage almost certainly
won’t if that’s if you always have to
ask them so do you believe in the
concept of what you’re doing
you believe that there’s a period there
that maybe she just forgot to write you
know plot a package or white way to
reach users if you believe that then you
don’t keep scrapping because usually
there’s a way
don’t solicit feedback on your product
your idea or your business just for
validation purposes be really careful
about that you want to tell the people
that can help move your idea forward but
if you’re just looking to your friend
co-worker husband wife for validation
be careful because out of love and
concern a lot of people will express
some concerns and it can stop a lot of
multi-million dollar ideas and right in
their tracks in the beginning and I got
can’t stress enough choosing your
partner’s has got to be maybe the most
important decision you’ll ever make
whether you know personally and loved or
otherwise in business you can change
your idea you can pivot your company you
can’t change your partner without
starting over and so I see so many
people rushing into these relationships
I mean you should really give that a lot
of thought this is something that
hopefully Oh last year’s
so many things go wrong when you’re
starting a company and often I think
people ask you know what mistakes should
you avoid making and you know my answer
the question is don’t even bother trying
to avoid mistakes because you’re going
to make tons of mistakes right and the
the important thing is actually learning
quickly from whatever mistakes you make
and not giving up right and I mean there
are things every single year of
Facebook’s existence that could have
killed us or made it so that it just
seemed like moving forward and making a
lot of progress just seems impossible
but you just kind of bounce back and you
learn and nothing is impossible you just
have to kind of keep running through the
wall you have to have an emotional
investment in what you do if you don’t
love what you’re doing
failure is pretty much guaranteed
success is not guaranteed by any means
but failure is much more likely if you
don’t love what you’re doing and you can
do that in a good way in a bad way but
hopefully if you try to get people to
motivate why they’re doing something and
their way of thinking you know the worst
thing you can end up with it’s a
situation where you get told well this
is the way it’s always been
that’s the worst ever that’s a
non-answer instead ask yourself you know
given everything you have today is there
a way we can make this better be people
that look for great ideas to make money
you know are nearly as successful as
those you say okay what I really love to
do what am i excited about but I know
something about you know what’s kind of
interesting and compelling
[Music]
it’s very rewarding work on something
because it makes a big difference and
yeah it’s a little bit harder but I
think I think the passion that one might
bring with it brings so much more energy
to that that you’re more likely to
scream
but ultimately the biggest thing and I
suppose still spends some 1/3 to a
majority of my time on tiring messing
has the impact of getting the right
people around the table and you can’t
manage your way out of a bad teeth if
you know exactly what you want to be you
need to spend as much time with people
that are actually that already do
something you’re very passionate about
and don’t try to chase what is kind of
the hot passion of the day
when it comes to changing the world what
I learned from Steve Jobs is if you
believe in a Macintosh if you believe in
iPhone iPod iPad if you believe enough
then you will see it because other
people will believe in it other people
will trade software other people great
products so you need to foster the
belief in what you are dreaming to
living becomes a reality which is very
different than saying don’t expect
anybody to believe it until I see it you
need people to believe it before they
can see you if you’re not coming up with
10 ideas a day that’s why I have this
thing I’m not coming up and I’m filling
up this page every single day then my
idea muscles will atrophy and I started
this in 2001 and I still do it every
single day like you have to come up with
ideas every single day or the idea of
muscle atrophy the good news is after
about six months of doing that you’re
like a machine like people get surprised
at how many ideas you could just have
anywhere and so some of the best advice
I got was from a Paul Graham one of the
investors in stripe who talks a lot
about unscalable strategies for user
acquisition say for example you helping
each user personally sure that won’t
scale as you grew to a very large size
we’re going to start with just starting
out it really helps you have an
advantage is smaller than your company
so just go and do it
try learn from it you know you’ll fail
at some things that’s a learning
experience that you need so that you can
take that on to the next experience and
don’t let people who you may respect and
we believe know what they’re talking
about don’t let them tell you can’t be
done because often they will tell you it
can’t be done and it’s just because they
don’t have the courage to try
[Music]
don’t necessarily think that you have to
have the home run in the huge Apple
Computer on your first start I spent a
long time in my life with skills just
building little devices for fun for fun
is one of the key things does that drive
you to think them think and think and
make it better and better and better
than you ever would if you’re doing it
for a company build things at first for
yourself you would want if you have to
decide if you’re going to be a slow
growth company or get big fast company
because anytime you try to straddle
those two lines painful things happen to
you it’s a crazy business you’ve got
through initially work day and night we
can it’s really hard work
I’ve always thought that each person
invented himself for whatever reasons
through whatever circumstance through
whatever he has gone through there we
are each a figment of our own
imagination you know I often say this
would be death twelve people to the
table but we’re having a discussion
about something and something may turn
up it could be an opportunity half the
people don’t recognize this an
opportunity a lot of people are
comfortable in what they’re doing they
don’t want change people actually get
into a zone where they’re very
comfortable so they don’t like the idea
of risk so how do you start a business
with no money under the worst conditions
that your backer doesn’t want to give
you a dime what do you do get ready for
a lot of rejection and at the same exact
time do the things others don’t want to
do do what’s necessary do what it takes
no matter what it is and try not to hurt
anybody along the way develop the habits
you’ve got the brainpower got the energy
but develop the habits of success
from day one I just I never tried to
hide that I was the girl in my apartment
with the red backpack like this is who I
am and I find that people end up rooting
for you and opening more doors if you’re
really honest early on some people start
businesses and try to come across that
they’re much bigger than they are
because they feel like that’s the only
way they’re going to be taken seriously
but if you know your products great and
you know why you made it you don’t have
to apologize for being out of your home
or your apartment or being small I work
24 hours a day seven days a week
I kid that’s what I cared about I cared
about solving problems being successful
anytime an obstacle presented itself I
used it to my advantage
made it work and I never heard the word
know if I heard the word no it meant
baby and it made baby yes you have the
power to just him you can sit down you
can code something you can try it it
doesn’t matter to you whether someone
thinks it’s a good idea or not because
you have the power to go put that on
line and you know and see whether it
resonates and connect with people stay
focused on on the stuff that that you’re
that you’re providing to your users
you’re going to make a ton of mistakes
it doesn’t matter you don’t get judged
by the mistakes people don’t remember
them
now they remembered the things that you
did they were good
in the end luck plays a very important
part in how successful you are but the
harder you work and the longer you work
the luckier you’re going to be basically
theory is we’re all born thinking like
entrepreneurs you know like only crawl
and we thought only fall you know we’re
trying to walk you figure it out
entrepreneurs always figure out you’re
born thinking like not Sonora vets you
know what I’m going to figure this out
regardless and I’m going to keep going
now
auctions the challenges families and
plans convince you not to be honestly
because when a family to change the
world moving the most famous person I’m
going to save the seals they say don’t
do that you it didn’t happen before it’s
never have you’re going to you’re going
to you’re going to fail you can
embarrass us put the limiters on it they
puts the limited they put the blinders
on you but true entrepreneurs would just
keep figuring it out and you know what
everybody wants to hear what they
already believe to be true and so the
last thing they want to hear is an
original idea that contradicts their
belief system so it’s very hard to even
bring that kind of stuff up but those
are the things those are the only things
things that you believe that everybody
around you doesn’t believe
when you’re right that create real value
in the world everything else people
already know there’s no value created
it’s just business as usual so it’s so
important to think for yourself
I think my biggest tip is just get
started I need a lot of young
entrepreneurs who have good ideas or bad
ideas or some ideas and you don’t want
to be a person who just talks and talks
to clocks you have to actually go and do
something and don’t worry about if it’s
the perfect thing or not there is this
myth of entrepreneurship that you’ll
have the one genius idea and suddenly
everything falls into place it doesn’t
work like that it’s a hard slog there’s
a lot of things do wrong a lot of things
will be right the sooner you get started
the sooner you’ll get somewhere
I grew up under Apprentice go in an
industry that has a large profit margin
don’t go in one that’s slim the one one
that’s large take what you’ve got your
assets or your energy your assets or
your willingness to just not be told no
the harder it is the tougher it is the
bigger the challenge to get in the
bigger the opportunity behind the
opportunities behind are endless
people need to understand that we cannot
take a breath that we have competitors
want to take the food off of our table
we have an economy in which is 8%
unemployment here 9% unemployment in the
US and Starbucks coffee company is not
something you have to have it is a
discretionary purchase and so the
mentality that you need in a business
today Starbucks or otherwise to build
sustainable success and enduring success
is you have to eradicate the human
behavior of relaxing the human behavior
of feeling like we have one and what I
have said in the last two years of
Starbucks is there’s no celebration
there’s no victory life we haven’t done
squat there’s always going to be an
element of loss but I think more
important is putting yourself in a
business that can be ubiquitous that can
that really doesn’t have limits because
otherwise there’s always going to be a
grind to it but if the business if it
can’t be something that you can
visualize every business using or every
consumer using it’s going to be tough to
scale to be big enough or to have the
perceived value to get you to that
billionaire Club
what fear is stopping you in your tracks
and burning the soles of your feet
what is conquering that fear whatever it
is that keeps you moving but the Creator
intended me what if you could unleash
everything great in your life would you
do it would you say yes to that new
companies generally shouldn’t exist
existing companies are usually pretty
good at what they do and so for a new
company to exist it not only has to like
you know come into going to business and
bring a product to market but it has to
bring a product to market looks so much
better than what I already do but it
punches through the sort of status quo I
don’t need to say my fig yeah you do you
do you it would bit the opportunity to
that and so you can go out there in this
and I said well what was your goal go
make money don’t allow any friend family
acquaintances teachers whoever it is
don’t allow anyone to tell you that what
you are dreaming for yourself and your
family is not possible it is possible
don’t be one of those people 20 years
from now are going to be walking around
a nine-to-five job
miserable and angry and bitter a company
is simply a group of people and as a
leader of people you have to be a great
listener you have to be a great
motivator you have to be very good at
raising and listen to the best in people
and people are no different and complies
if you sort of plug they perish if
you’ve paid people a place and
a critical attribute of an illusion I
like to see people I think it’s really
important even if it’s ten minutes I
hate all this new world of people are
talking so I like Lee I do seeing people
I think you get a very different view
when you look in somebody’s are you you
know in a second whether it’s right I
mean I see these people they’re about
eight yards away in a desk and they’re
busy people go talk to them
buying emailing each other good can have
a conversation what happened before
email people spoke hello good morning
how are you
companies like Google are not getting
rich and user-generated content they’re
getting rich on the content of companies
like Viacom and we’re not going to put
put up with that we’re not going to put
up with people taking our product
they’re not painted they want a product
they can have it at the right price you
know I think it’s kind of in life a lot
of times when people are down they look
at how to survive while they’re down but
stay at that survival mode long term
opposed to I’m gonna learn how to
survive right now and make it but I’m
immediately going to work towards the
next step the next step and the next
step well so I mean so how did you learn
how did you learn how to be a successful
entrepreneur well I don’t think it’s
learning how to be a successful
entrepreneur I think it’s just being
able to do something and know you have
that ability to do it you see the human
race has the ability all of you to do 10
50 times what you’re doing right now
well if you realize you have that
ability as you go along you find
obstacles but you’ll recover or you go
right around them like water might go
around them a little bit and and that’s
really it you look at what assets you
have it’s a little bit like selling
whether it’s a tangible product or a
service it’s got to be the very best and
you put forward its features and then
how it benefits the customer well with
yourself personally you put forth the
features you have how these features
might benefit in
you have a product and I’d love to share
this with everybody don’t ever go into
the selling business whether you have
the greatest service in the world or the
greatest product never go in there to
sell your product go in there to be in
the reorder business that’s kind of your
mentality that’s true yeah because
you’re going to sell it that’s where
your focus is if you want to be in the
reorder business even if it’s a one-time
product whatever you do is so good that
don’t want to tell somebody else or
reorder themselves so that kind of helps
along the way if you have that mentality
do unto others as you would have others
do unto you that’s the basis for most
religions but they get sometimes carried
away in rites and rituals but that’s the
core value do unto others as you devil
is doing to you and then it’s the
feeling of knowing from how genuine you
are and because people don’t like to
just listen to people talk about
themselves how great they are they want
to now incorporate it to make them
successful also we’re do something a
little different and I think that’s very
very important you know one of the
things that I tell people when they ask
me for advice about what they should do
when they’re wanting to start their own
business or take a next step in their
career is to actually start small I
think a lot of people try to they kind
of psych themselves out or they get too
overwhelmed with how big something is
get so the truth is you really just got
to start small and you’ve got to prove
it before you scale it now Apple
fortunately is one of the half-a-dozen
best brands in the whole world right up
there with Nike Disney Coke Sony it is
one of the greats of the grapes not just
in this country but all around the globe
and but but even a great brand needs
investments and caring
I’m going to put vast majority of my
energy attention and dollars into
building a great product or service and
put a smaller amount into shouting about
it marketing it because I know if I
build a great product or service my
customers will tell each other you have
to mix in some patience with that
the education it’s so much more widely
available there now so many more people
both here in the valley and around the
world we now know how to start a company
and at that yeahmaybe sounds obvious but
like it when I arrived in the valley in
1994 like I went to the bookstore and I
tried to find a book on how they started
tech company and like that was a long
and lonely trip through bookshelves like
it there was very little I mean luckily
Andy’s Andy’s book was there but Andy’s
book was about how to run Intel which it
was monopoly
I didn’t couldn’t really get a lot of
benefit out of that I started messing at
the time and so like the resources just
simply didn’t exist right and today
you’ve got everything you’ve got a bit a
lot of it comes out of Stanford so like
this cs1 80 this is the cs 183 courts of
Stanford the various people applauded
Peter Todd and that moment is taught
like and then the fact that those
classes are not just accessible to
people Stanford they’re accessible to
people all around the world and there
are people all around the world watching
right those of those videos all the time
learning how to start companies if
you’re thinking about starting a company
it therefore really stresses an idea and
again I’ll use my I use my computer keel
on the shoulder thing channel this
through something Peter says I think is
really relevant which is a lot of
founders think about what it takes to
get the second person in the company
right so ii founder of the second
engineer right at the third person the
fourth person he says that’s no longer
as a challenge like everybody wants to
start a company and so everybody can get
together two or three or four people to
start a company so the challenge is how
do you get engineer number 20
because engineer number 20 right if
they’re in this ecosystems they could go
start their own company and so how do
you convince somebody to join your
company as engineer number 20 with a
tiny percentage of equity right and not
being in charge as compared to starting
their own company getting all the equity
and being in charge now one of the
things you do is you tell them they’re
going to have the same problem that that
may respond to you that you also have a
problem that their stare at each other
awkwardly so so that that’s the thing so
so what you have right now is you just
have you have you have just a very very
large number of see funded companies
that are experiments and their
experiments on their ideas but more
importantly their experiments on who has
the will and the drive horsepower right
in the salesmanship and everything else
that goes into recruit
right and so and every other guy she’s
Sam Altman gave a talk today so if you
can wave a magic wand you would combine
a lot of these companies together to get
critical mass but mergers between
startups almost never happen for a
variety of reasons so so it really makes
this sort of acuteness this recruiting
problem is a very acute problem by the
way you think about it then is the
temptation is to think about it’s a
recruiting problem since we have to get
really good at recruiting but it’s not
really that as much as it’s like okay
what about my company is going to be so
spectacular and so special and so
unusual and so distinct and
differentiated that it’s going to be
able to easily hire engineer number 20
away from starting his or her own
company and so to me it basically
translates into basically we just we
have to get better like you just have to
get better if you have to be able to
compete you have to be able to win in
this really brutal initial battle the
good news is the company’s coming out of
that sort of churning kind of you know
sort of you know sort of sneak fit of
competition the companies that come out
of that are really strong because they
had to be to come through it but it it
is tougher and it is the other side of
how these deeds become a circus
again this is a it’s again another
versions market you always um you know
it’s again even you have a lot of big
markets we have sort of inch deep mile
wide type type product and and payments
is always sort of a version of this
where where one of the big challenges is
you know how do you get the first people
to use your product how do you get
people to use your your new payment
system for example and so it has to be
really valuable the first people who are
using it and so you want to find things
that are you know with is a very intense
need PayPal was like well the power saw
was how to use chex if you get the money
instantly so you should cut the time
from seven to ten days to two instantly
that was worth that was worth quite a
bit on in many other contexts we already
have payment systems that work as that
works pretty well or very well and if
you have something that’s perfect that’s
only a small Delta – very well and you
know we always you always say that you
shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy
of the very good I think in business is
often the opposite where in practice
there very good will prevent the perfect
from ever arising so if you have things
that are working very well
and you have something that’s going to
be theoretically perfect that’s often a
really bad idea
that really didn’t pan out and yet some
things will come through I use the term
gold rush rather than mania because I am
a firm believer that what’s going on at
the heart of it it is very important
also there is gold it may be very very
deep it may be buried in different
places then people think it is but it it
it’s a great thing this is an area where
our country is way out in front
you take almost every aspect of what
this entails the fiber optics which is
the software the chips the content
coming from media companies and the
opportunity to set global standards and
hamp global markets every country I go
to the biggest concern I hear is how far
ahead is the u.s. of my country well
since we don’t have deregulation and it
in a sense we’re not really at the
starting line in and so I’m certainly a
fan of moving ahead aggressively and I
find even with myself that it’s really
hard to do a Minimum Viable Product as
minimum that you’re constantly thinking
no no it really has to have this other
partner it really has to have this and
then you over build and then you have to
unbilled and rebuild which is very
disappointing so doing a Minimum Viable
Product is really important and it’s
even more minimum than you think it is
and so when we’re coming up with ideas
you know we always ask ourselves what
kind of new market is this creating and
then also what what part of my day and
what problem is it solving and so I’ve
gone as far as taking an entire
catalogue of my day from the moment I
like open my eyes and writing down every
single thing I do and then asking myself
like is there something here
you
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