enough reasons to start a start-up: no one tells you what to do, also success-failure feedback, create a not-yet-existent product, and build a culture (3m)
Part 1: why not to do a startup
emotional turmoil
ben horowitz (founders #41) was marc’s business partner
you’ve got to row by yourself
relate with buffett and munger’s no master plan notes
you get to told no
hiring is huge pain in the ass
marc was Jim Clark’s Silicon Glaphics’ one of first dozen employees
you have to hire executives at some point
work life balance
culture is easy to go sideways
stock market crush etc
then deciding what to build
Part 4: the only thing that matters (p. 25~) (11m)
divergence in results
divergence in the core three things
team
product
market
this correlates the most with success
market needs to be filled, even MVPs will do (15m)
just answer the phone
team is easy to upgrade on the fly with big enough market
“the only thing that matters is getting to product/market fit”
to be in good market with products that satisfy that market
you will be able to feel it when you have it (or not)
BPMF and APMF
during BPMF, just get PMF
everything else doesn’t really matter until then
Part 5: the moby dick theory of big companies (p. 33~) (20m)
you are captain ahab and the big company is moby dick
the latter doesn’t know what they are going to do themselves (how could outsiders predict them then)
relate with stupidity notes
relate with overcomplication-simplicity memos and notes
decision making process at early 90’s IBM called “concurrence”
don’t do startups that require deals with big companies to make them successful (24m)
the risk of not closing the deal is too high
the risk you don’t get that payment is too high
the risk you have to wait is too high
the risk they don’t address obvious things is too high
the big companies don’t care about what startups are doing, they care more about what other big companies are doing (and less about customers)
don’t get obsessed—don’t become captain ahab
Part 7: why a startup’s initial business plan doesn’t matter that much (p. 49~) (26m)
aggressively seek out big market, then PMF within that market, only then plan
relate with world is complex and uncertain notes
e.g., Microsoft, Oracle (Larry Ellison), Intel (Andy Grove switching focus from memory chips to CPU—listen to founders #8 intel trinity)
Thomas Edison (in The Wizard of Menlo Park, by Randall Stross—or listen to founders #3)
phonograph (the forerunner to Walkman, iPod, Podcast) in 1877
echoes from dead voices
even thomas edison couldn’t see the potential of his own invention at the time
THE PMARCA GUIDE TO CAREER (p. 96~)
Part 1: opportunity
do not plan your career—you will change, the industries will change, the world will change
career planning = career limiting
focus on pursuing opportunities
that which present to you
usually unexpected
and come and go quickly
be opportunistic
that which you go out and create
life is way too short to not pursue what you’d really like to do
the world is a very malleable place
think of your career as a portfolio of jobs and roles and opportunities (41m)
relate with risk per se doesn’t matter memos and notes (most of the notes were written in the context of counterfactuals—marc’s point here is rather that risk of one specific opportunity per se doesn’t matter)revisit
“What you should automatically do instead is put it in context with all of the other risks you are likely to take throughout your entire career and decide whether this new opportunity Fts strategically into your portfolio”
this makes sense because other times are special cases of other universesrevisit
aaron brown on hiring (p. 103)
kinds of risks you should take and when
just out of school: skills > salary
when you have family: salary > skills
caveat: it’s not black and white
when dissatisfied with the field: skill transition skill > staying put unhappy (47m)
just look around
likewise with geography risk
pay attention to opportunity cost at all times
taleb: seize any opportunities—they are rare, much rarer than you thinkrevisit
relate with probability notes
Part 2: skills and education (p. 107~) (50m)
“graduating with a technical degree is like heading out into the real world armed with an assault rifle instead of a dull knife”
“don’t worry about being a small fish in a big pond—you want to always be in the best pond possible, because that is how you will get exposed to the best people and the best opportunities in your field”
relate with go for the best with the best people memos and notes
be a double/triple/quadruple threat, inspired by scott adams (dilbert)
relate with be good at multiple things notes
relate with be the only instead of the best notes
be good at:
communication
relate with algo notes
relate with relativity notes
management
sales
offer something they should want
convince people that something is in their best interest to do even when they don’t realize it upfront
relate with bob noyce notes
finance
international
the risk of raising the organization kid
“you have yet to make tough decisions, by yourself, in the absence of good information, and to live with the consequences of screwing up”
this is what building a company is
“If you’re going to be a high achiever, you’re going to be in lots of situations where you’re going to be quickly making decisions in the presence of incomplete or incorrect information, under intense time pressure, and often under intense political pressure. You’re going to screw up — frequently — and the screwups will have serious consequences, and you’ll feel incredibly stupid every time. It can’t faze you — you have to be able to just get right back up and keep on going. That may be the most valuable skill you can ever learn.”
“Pick an industry where the founders of the industry — the founders of the important companies in the industry — are still alive and actively involved”
“Once you have picked an industry, get right to the center of it as fast as you possibly can.”